Paul Paquette, [1947-2013]; UT professor was expert on terrorism

9/16/2013

Paul Paquette, a former executive director of the regional jail who was a professor of criminal justice at the University of Toledo and taught at Lourdes University, died Thursday at Ebeid Hospice Residence on the campus of Flower Hospital in Sylvania. He was 65.

Mr. Paquette, of Springfield Township, died from complications of a respiratory illness, said his daughter, Stefanie King.

He was a professor from 1993 to 2003 at the University of Toledo, where he was on the faculty of the Criminal Justice Department. As a professor he became an expert on domestic and international terrorism.

Ms. King said he developed a class on domestic terrorism before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

“He loved to teach,” she said.

Mr. Paquette also had been a criminal justice consultant for the U.S. Department of Justice and National Institute of Corrections.

Toledo Councilman D. Michael Collins, a long-time professor at the University of Toledo, said Mr. Paquette was his administrative assistant when he headed the Ohio Police Corps police academy at the college.

“Paul was a very dedicated individual who after the Sept. 11 attacks became passionate in terms of looking at the circumstances of domestic and international terrorism,” Mr. Collins said.

Mr. Collins said Mr. Paquette used the contacts he formed in Oklahoma to get attorney Stephen Jones to come to Toledo to speak in October, 2001. Mr. Paquette had been sent to Oklahoma by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to assist in the investigation of a county jail.

Mr. Jones was the lead defense attorney representing Timothy McVeigh at his trial for killing 168 people and injuring 500 others in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. In his speech at UT, he spoke about defending McVeigh, who was executed in 2001.

Mr. Paquette later taught criminal justice classes at Lourdes.

From 1989 to 1993, he was executive director of the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio in Stryker, which houses inmates from Lucas County and other counties. He left in 1993 to become head of the two-year corrections program at the former UT Community and Technical College and work on his doctorate degree.

Mr. Paquette was director of the regional planning unit for the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council when he was hired to direct the regional jail. He held various positions with the council from 1976 to 1989.

He grew up in West Toledo and was a graduate of DeVilbiss High School.

He graduated from UT in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in education. He began his career in criminal justice as a social studies teacher at the former Maumee Youth Camp, which was operated by the Ohio Department of Youth Services.

He also had teaching positions at Defiance College and Owens College.

Surviving are his daughter Stefanie King; brother, Mike Paquette, and two grandsons.

Services will be at 1 p.m. today in Grace Lutheran Church, where visitation will begin at noon.

The family suggests tributes to the Christian Education Fund at the church.

— Mark Reiter