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Ellsworth Correctional Facility
Apr
28, 2019 kansas.com
Kansas: Corizon short staffing and shorting meds
Locked in solitary confinement in a prison in rural Kansas without his
schizophrenia medication, Anthony Downing says he grew paranoid, fearing the
guards were poisoning his food. When he could take it no longer, he started
launching himself off the metal frame of his bed, kicking at the windows in
his cell again and again until men in protective gear came in and dragged him
out. “I broke the windows,” Downing said, “and they told me I was getting
transferred and I was like, ‘Thank God.” Downing, now out of prison, was
serving time at Ellsworth Correctional Facility, a small institution in
central Kansas. It’s one of several mostly rural facilities where the state’s
health care contractor, Corizon Health, has fallen
well short of the contract’s requirements for staffing key mental health
positions, according to documents The Star obtained through an open records
request. The documents, which covered Corizon’s
performance from July 2015 through December 2018, showed that almost 20
percent of the 10,000 inmates across the state prison system were on
psychotropic medications during that time. But prisons in Ellsworth, Norton,
Winfield and Hutchinson went months at a time without Corizon
reporting any hours worked there by psychiatrists, the medical providers most
qualified to prescribe and calibrate those medications. Some of the other
prisons during that time reported some psychiatrist hours but not the amount
the contract called for. “That’s pretty shocking,” said Eric Balaban, an
attorney with the ACLU’s national prison project. “How were they renewing
meds for prisoners who were there?” Corizon
spokeswoman Eve Hutcherson said the documents provided to The Star didn’t
accurately reflect actual distribution of staff within the prisons. The company moved its psychiatrists around
from one facility to another, she said, and their hours may have been
reported for their home base rather than the places they actually
worked. “To suggest that any of
these facilities had no coverage whatsoever is just plain inaccurate,”
Hutcherson said via email. She said the company’s behavioral health
professionals also used tele-psychiatry, which is conference calls or
video-conferencing for therapy sessions between doctors and patients who aren’t
in the same place. Confidential patient care records show psychiatry hours
being provided at prisons where the Department of Corrections staffing
documents show none, she said. But there’s other evidence that the company
was well short of staff, particularly in mental health, throughout the prison
system as a whole. From July 2015 through December
2018 the state levied nearly $6.5 million in under-staffing penalties against
Corizon, and a significant chunk of it was for
psychiatry shortages. During a legislative hearing last year, Viola Riggin, who leads a team at the University of Kansas
Medical Center that evaluates Corizon’s
performance, told legislators the team flagged psychiatrist staffing in
western Kansas as a problem area. “We worked with Corizon,
called them in and said you need to work in this specific area to get staff
and they sent a recruiter to work on that and it’s been mitigated,” Riggin said. But the records obtained by The Star show
psychiatrist shortages persisting at Winfield and Ellsworth — and extending
to the Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex in Topeka — throughout 2018. And
a Department of Corrections audit presented to legislators in February showed
Corizon job vacancy rates of up to 18% in the
Kansas prisons, with nurses and mental health professionals making up about
half the openings. Jeanny Sharp, a spokeswoman for
the corrections department’s new leadership under Gov. Laura Kelly, said in a
March email that staffing continues to be an area of emphasis. “Our medical
team is attempting to reach out to colleges to recruit more medical
providers,” Sharp said. “However, medical care in a corrections environment
isn’t something being taught in medical school, (and there are) clearly a few
more barriers to recruitment efforts.” Joel Dvoskin,
a clinical and forensic psychologist who co-wrote a 256-page handbook on
mental health care in prisons, said the psychiatrist shortages didn’t
surprise him. “Everybody in the U.S., correctional and otherwise, is having
trouble recruiting psychiatrists,” Dvoskin said.
“There simply aren’t enough psychiatrists in the U.S. … It’s not OK. I’m not
saying it as an excuse or that it’s acceptable, but I sure understand why
they’re having so much trouble.” Dvoskin also said
private companies like Corizon should have an edge
in recruiting psychiatrists because they aren’t constrained by state employee
pay scales. Dvoskin said the national psychiatrist
shortage is particularly acute in rural areas, in part because states are
competing with VA medical centers, which have raised their psychiatrist
salaries and gone on a hiring binge in recent years. He said at one point California was offering $300,000 salaries to get
more psychiatrists into its prisons (in Kansas the average psychiatrist
salary is more like $200,000). The staffing documents obtained by The Star
show that at Ellsworth, Norton and Hutchinson, Corizon
filled in some of the vacant psychiatrist hours with psychiatric advanced
registered nurse practitioners. Dvoskin said that’s
a common solution, but not as desirable as having full-fledged psychiatrists.
“You can’t have all your hours filled by nurse practitioners, but you can
have some of them,” Dvoskin said. Winfield didn’t
report any hours worked by psychiatric advanced registered nurse practitioners.
It’s possible that primary care doctors were prescribing psychotropic
medications there, but Balaban said that wouldn’t be ideal. “For a short
period of time, in a pinch, you could have a physician do that, but that’s
pretty poor mental health treatment,” Balaban said. “On the streets you
wouldn’t go to your family physician for psychotropic meds.” Downing’s
experience shows what can happen when those meds aren’t delivered. Downing
said his mental illness was known when he entered Ellsworth and had actually factored into getting his sentence reduced. But
he said he never got his medications when he was there. “They didn’t do
anything at all,” Downing said. “I told them I need my meds and they said I
didn’t need them, or have a problem or whatever. … I
tried to tell them if I had my medication I would do
a lot better but they wouldn’t listen to me.” Instead he acted out and ended
up in “the hole,” which only made things worse. “In solitary it’s like being
in hell,” Downing said. “I had all kinds of visions of people trying to kill
me. I wouldn’t eat. I didn’t eat for several days cause every time I took a bite I would get physically sick.” His condition spiraled
quickly until the day he tried to kick out the window. Then he was
transferred to a dedicated mental health unit at the Lansing Correctional
Facility, one of the biggest prisons in the state. It was like night and day,
he said. “Corizon in Lansing is totally different,”
Downing said. “It’s totally different than in Ellsworth.” “They really should
do something about the psych part of Ellsworth,” Downing said. “The people
that are still there, I feel sorry for them.”
Forbes Juvenile Attention Facility
Topeka, Kansas
Clarence Kelley Juvenile Justice Resources
October 18, 2009 Topeka Capital-Journal
Insufficient staff numbers and inadequate room checks by a Topeka juvenile
residential center opened the door for a 12-year-old boy to be repeatedly
raped by his roommate over three days in January 2008, a civil lawsuit
claims. "The rape, sodomy, sexual assault and sexual battery could not
have happened if the boys or men were properly supervised," reads the
suit. The suit, filed last year in Shawnee County District Court against the
owners of Forbes Juvenile Attention Facility, isn't the only place to find
concerns about the welfare of residents of the facility. Other issues related
to the treatment of residents have been raised in inspection reports,
internal memos and the words of former FJAC workers. Allegations of racial
discrimination and questions about how FJAC administrators notify authorities
of alleged abuse also have been raised. The problems, former staffers say,
allowed sexual misconduct to go unnoticed. "The last couple months
before I left, it was chaos," said Clarence Tyson, a shift supervisor
who resigned in late 2008 after seven years at FJAC. The allegations are just
that -- allegations, the FJAC administration said. Terry Campbell, executive
vice president for Clarence M. Kelley Juvenile Justice Resources, which owns
FJAC, said a handful of unhappy workers have already made similar claims to
other governmental agencies. "I'm sure SRS has received them, KDHE has
received them, JJA has received them, the governor has probably received
them," Campbell said. "It's because we've got disgruntled staff,
former employees. They're not the majority of the professional staff that we
have." Campbell said there have been only six reports of sexual
misconduct at FJAC since 2007, and only two were sexual assaults. FJAC,
located at Forbes Field at 6700 S.W. Topeka Blvd., is a privately run youth
residential center, a nonsecure group home for male juvenile offenders that
houses up to 56 youths ages 12 to 17. The offenders sent to FJAC aren't the
most dangerous in the juvenile system, thus one reason why it isn't a locked
facility. Since a new administration took over at FJAC in late 2007, the
Kansas Department of Health and Environment has investigated 20 complaints
there. That is more than any of the 29 similar facilities contracting with
the state except for one -- Camelot Lakeside in Goddard, which has had 26
such complaints. Many of the complaints against FJAC allege insufficient
staffing led to the incidents. And at least six workers -- five former and
one current -- have filed state or federal discrimination suits in 2009. In
addition to alleging black workers were treated differently, some of the
suits say employees feared retaliation for reporting alleged abuse to
authorities as required by regulations and law. Campbell points out most
allegations by the former employees and allegations investigated by KDHE
couldn't be substantiated. Ward Loyd, chairman of
the Kansas Advisory Group on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,
said he hadn't heard of the allegations but said "where's there's smoke,
there's usually fire." "It's certainly unfortunate to hear that
we've got these types of allegations with any Kansas facility," he said.
"The whole issue with having them placed in these kinds of facilities is
to provide for their needs, not to complicate them." Civil suit -The
12-year-old plaintiff in the current civil suit against FJAC was referred to
the facility in late 2007 or early 2008 by case manager Kenyetta
Byrd. Soon after, an FJAC worker contacted Byrd concerned about the boy's
small size. According to a February 2008 report by the Juvenile Justice
Authority's inspector general on the incident, the caller told Byrd the boy
would be "eaten alive." "They didn't even have clothes small
enough to fit him," said Toni Wash, a drug and alcohol counselor who
worked at FJAC from late 2007 to late 2008. "Everyone was asking why he
was there." Campbell said he wouldn't comment on any incident under
litigation. In addition to the civil case against Kelley Juvenile Detention
Services, the roommate suspected of raping the 12-year-old is facing criminal
sodomy charges in juvenile court. Immediately after Byrd got the alarming
call from the FJAC worker, another case coordinator called and told her to
disregard the previous caller. The boy was then placed at FJAC. The alleged
rape and sodomy occurred from Jan. 22 to Jan. 24, 2008, and as soon as FJAC
learned about it, officials there contacted authorities. The lawsuit claims
FJAC workers didn't conduct room checks every 15 minutes as their policy
mandated. The inspector general's report says room-check logs contained
blanket statements about the whole floor without specific mention of
individual room checks. In an e-mail to Campbell on Feb. 14, 2008, Kelley
administrator Scott Henricks conceded some fault. "The cause of the alleged
incident can partially be attributed to staff error," he wrote. In its
court response, however, FJAC flatly denied the allegations of improper staff
work. JJA commissioner Russ Jennings said:, "Is
there a concern that staff aren't checking rooms regularly? Yes, there
certainly is." Mona Brown, a floor staffer for more than a year until
she was fired in January, said she wasn't surprised something happened.
"The staff ratio just wasn't there," she said. "That is the
thing that sets it up for things to happen."
Hutchinson Correctional Facility
Hutchinson, Kansas
Corizon
Oct
21, 2017 thestar.com
Private Kansas prison did nothing as fungus destroyed inmate’s brain,
lawsuit alleges
KANSAS CITY, MO.—A Kansas prison inmate died in April after a brain
fungus gave him a form of meningitis that left him weak and so disoriented
that he drank his own urine while prison health care staff ignored his pleas
for help, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of his mother and daughter.
Marques Davis complained for months about symptoms at the Hutchinson
Correctional Facility, his attorney, Leland Dempsey, said in the lawsuit
filed this week in federal court, The Kansas City Star reported. “It feels
like something is eating my brain,” Davis told Corizon
Health employees who staffed the prison infirmary in December 2016, according
to the lawsuit. It names as defendants Corizon, a
private prison health care company contracted to provide health care at the
state’s prisons, as well as 14 Corizon employees,
three doctors and 11 nurses. “No amount of money in the world could ever
replace my child, but somebody needs to be held accountable and this (needs
to not) happen to anybody else,” said Davis’ mother, Shermaine
Walker, of Wichita. Corizon spokesperson Martha
Harbin said privacy laws prohibit the company from discussing details of
Davis’ care but “we expect any legal proceedings to reveal Mr. Davis’ care
was appropriate.” At the time of his death, Davis had spent eight years in
prison for several crimes, including attempted murder, his mother said. The
lawsuit alleges that Corizon didn’t help Davis
until April 12, when he was taken to Hutchinson Regional Medical Center after
he suffered a heart attack. He was declared brain dead and taken off life
support the next day. An autopsy found the cause of death was advanced
granulomatous meningoencephalitis, a form of meningitis that Dempsey said was
caused by the Candida Albicans fungus. Walker said she visited her son
regularly at prison and tried unsuccessfully several times to get Corizon to help him. “This was an everyday thing for me,
calling over there telling them about things he’s complaining to me about but
also the things I’m seeing,” Walker said. “He’s losing weight tremendously,
he’s sweating, his skin colour is changing.” The
lawsuit alleges that Corizon staff reported several
times they thought Davis was faking his illness. A Kansas Department of
Corrections website lists more than 40 disciplinary infractions for Davis
while he was in prison, most of them before he got sick. An infirmary report
from the week before Davis’ death faults him for refusing food and failing to
get out of bed to use the toilet. Instead, he urinated in his water pitcher,
which he then drank out of “time and again.”
December 9, 2006 Hutchinson News
A former Aramark Services employee who worked inside the Hutchinson
Correctional Facility was sentenced to one year, three months in prison
Friday for trying to bring methamphetamine inside the prison. Joseph L. Delancy of South Hutchinson pleaded guilty to trafficking
in contraband in a correctional facility, possession of methamphetamine with
intent to sell and unlawfully arranging a drug sale by a commercial device.
He faced up to four years, 11 months in prison. Delancy's
attorney, Kerry Granger, asked for a lesser sentence and cited his client's
drug use starting as "a misguided attempt to deal with the death of his
son."
June 24, 2006 Hutchinson News
Drug detectives arrested a South Hutchinson man employed in the
Hutchinson Correctional Facility dining hall for allegedly purchasing drugs
he planned to sell to prison inmates. Joseph Lamont Delancy,
33, worked for Aramark Services, which provides food service for part of the
prison. According to police reports, Delancy made
phone contact with a drug enforcement detective about buying an ounce of
"Ice" methamphetamine. The detective set up the drop, and Delancy allegedly arrived and accepted the drugs from the
detective. The report indicates Delancy said he
planned to sell the drugs in the correctional institute and attempted to set
up another buy with the detective. Delancy is being
held on $25,000 bond on suspicion for possession of meth with the intent to
sell, a drug tax stamp violation and unlawfully arranging a sale by a
commercial service.
Johnson County Jail
Johnson County, Kansas
CCA
June 6, 2007 KC Community News
Legal hurdles and Johnson County Sheriff Frank Denning's opposition surfaced
in a Johnson County Commission discussion May 31 of private jails. Denning
said he opposed private jails on principle. “I am opposed to any private
organization imprisoning people,” Denning said. “I believe the best
institutions are ones with government oversight and government transparency.”
Denning also said a state statute prohibits him from using private jails for
state inmates. The statute would have to be amended to allow him to house
inmates in a private jail, he said. Commissioner John Segale
disputed the sheriff's opinion. County Chief Counsel Don Jarrett said the
county could contract with a private jail. “The county has the authority to
contract or use jail space in public and private facilities,” Jarrett said.
“The sheriff does not have to agree to the contract. The sheriff is in charge
of designating where prisoners go. So you can buy space, but if the sheriff
doesn't choose to put people in that space, you're going to have empty
spaces.” The discussion followed a pitch by Corrections Corp. of America,
Nashville, Tenn., one of the country's biggest private jailers, for county
business. The county paid about $6 million in 2006 to farm out more than 300
inmates daily to county jails as far away as Ottawa. The Gardner jail's
416-bed expansion is expected to be full upon opening in late 2009.
Commissioner Ed Peterson said he invited CCA so commissioners could learn
what a private jail offered. Ray Hodge, CCA senior director of business
development, told commissioners of plans to expand the company's maximum
security 802-bed Leavenworth Detention Center by another 320 beds. CCA
anticipates more beds would be required in the next few years and plans to
build another jail in Leavenworth County, Hodge said. If CCA secured
sufficient contracts from customers, including Johnson County, the company
would expedite construction of the jail. Federal, state and county
governments have contracts with CCA's 64 accredited jails, Hodge said. The
company has a 52 percent share of the national private jail market, he said.
Contract renewal rates are 95 percent. Hodge listed benefits for the county
from using CCA: capital meant for jail construction could be freed up for
other needs; first rights to beds; inmate consolidation in one nearby jail,
making access easier for families; transportation cost savings; and
insulation from lawsuits. Hodge said costs would depend on services. The U.S.
Marshals Service, which uses the Leavenworth jail, pays CCA $81 per day per
inmate. That fee includes services the county would not require, Hodge said,
bringing costs closer to $50 per inmate per day. Denning said he expects
research on his business plan, which he intends to submit to commissioners in
six months, will show that he can run a jail cheaper than private jail
companies. Frank Smith, of nonprofit research company Private Corrections
Institute, said private jails keep costs down by paying employees low wages
and benefits and providing little training. Smith, who drove more than 200
miles to speak to commissioners, said problems plague the private jail
industry, including low professionalism, high employee turnover and the practice
of mixing inmates from different states, leading to tension and riots in
several jails. Smith said his information came from publicly available
reports, visits to private jails and “a vast network” of whistleblowers. Most
commissioners favored studying private jails as an alternative to building
more jails. “An individual may have different feelings about the question of
public or private (jail) facilities … but all of us need to keep in mind the
bottom line, which is the taxpayer's pocket,” Commissioner Ed Eilert said. “Our objective should be to provide the most
efficient, appropriate incarceration services at the most effective price. If
that involves … changing an attitude, we need to do that,” Eilert said. “If this is in fact an economical way of
providing equal services and coverage for our inmates, we owe it to our
taxpayers to take a hard look,” Peterson said. “I think they make a
persuasive case as to how a private entity can operate a prison for less than
government can and be just as accountable,” Segale
said. Chairwoman Annabeth Surbaugh said the county should wait for the
sheriff's plan before considering private jails.
May 30, 2007 Kansas City Star
Searching for a way to ease jail crowding and save money, Johnson County
commissioners are considering striking a deal with a private, for-profit
corrections facility in Leavenworth. Officials with Corrections Corp. of
America, one of the nation’s largest private penal firms, will meet with
commissioners today to consider how the two could work together to meet the
county’s growing need for jail space. Sheriff Frank Denning says the problem
has been ignored for nearly a decade, but opposes the idea of private jails.
In 2005, a consultant’s report showed that a proposed 416-bed jail expansion
would be full immediately if it opened in 2009 and an additional 752 beds
were recommended to be opened a year later, said Joe Waters, the county’s
director of facilities. “Somewhere this is going to overtake us where we’re
doing nothing more than running jails,” Commissioner Doug Wood of Olathe
said. “We’ve got to get a handle on this.” Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections
Corp. wants to expand its operation on the western bluff of the Missouri
River to build more beds for federal prisoners. That would open space at the
802-bed Leavenworth Detention Center, a maximum-security facility that the
firm wants to expand to 1,122 beds for offenders from across the region and
beyond. For Johnson County, that could forestall the costly construction and
operating expenses of new county jails. Supporters say it also could free up
county money for such other needs as a juvenile detention center, courthouse
or even the research triangle proposed by area universities. Supporters of
for-profit jails say the private sector can do the job more efficiently and
save taxpayers up to half the cost of inmate boarding. Critics contend
bottom-line law enforcement is a risk to public safety that is not worth
taking. It is an idea that has been kicked around for decades in Johnson
County with four sheriffs and has gone nowhere. “We’re not here to grow the
sheriff’s office, but I’m trying to blow this myth that somebody else can do
this a whole lot cheaper than we can,” Denning recently told commissioners.
Denning said the county’s two detention centers were safe, secure and
cost-effective. The last escape was 24 years ago, and the last inmate killed
in custody was 29 years ago. Most county commissioners, however, were
unconvinced that the sheriff had explored all his options to building more
jails or backed up his plan with hard numbers. “I don’t think the public is
willing to pay the price,” Commissioner Ed Peterson said. “We’ve got to find
some other options.” Private jails are not the answer, Denning said. “There
aren’t very many success stories out there,” he told commissioners. “And
there should not be any profit in people.” Denning said that some private
jails have staffing ratios of one jailer for every 35 inmates. In Johnson
County, the ratio is closer to one deputy for every six inmates. “We know
what we’re doing,” Denning said. Ken Kopczynski of Private Corrections
Institute Inc., a nonprofit group that opposes private prisons, said
for-profit firms are notoriously understaffed and have turnover rates as high
as 50 percent. Deputies in Johnson County have a 6 percent turnover rate.
“You get what you pay for,” Kopczynski said. Sheriff’s spokesman Tom Erickson
was more blunt. For-profit jailers are salesmen, he
said. “They’re going to tell you whatever … you want to hear to get you to
purchase their product, which is bed space. “They can promise you everything
in the world … but we have enough documentation to prove that they are a
really bad idea.” Not so fast, said Ray Hodge, Corrections Corp.’s senior
director of business development. “What we’re offering is a chance for the
county to consolidate its farmed-out prisoners in an accredited facility … at
a fairly reasonable price, certainly far cheaper than the county can do it,”
Hodge said.
Kansas Department of
Corrections
May 7, 2019 dnews.com
Report: Private
prison health care provider falling short
TOPEKA, Kan. —
The company that provides health care for Kansas and Idaho prison inmates
frequently did not meet standards of care required by its contract with the
state, according to an analysis of hundreds of pages of data. The Kansas City
Star reported Corizon Health’s performance
documents from July 2015 to December 2018 showed inmates regularly didn’t see
a medical professional even after complaining several times about the same
ailments. It also showed almost 20 percent of the 10,000 inmates in Kansas
prisons are on psychotropic medications but many
prisons didn’t report hours worked by psychiatrists for several months. In
the same three years, the state fined Corizon $1
million in performance-based penalties, and another $6.4 million for not
meeting staffing requirements, particularly for psychiatrists. Corizon, the nation’s largest for-profit medical provider
for prisons and jails, has faced issues in other states. In December, Idaho’s
state Board of Correction voted to extend its $46 million-plus-a-year
contract with Corizon for two years, but the board
also voted to immediately launch a process to take the contract out to bid at
the end of the two-year extension, The Idaho Press-Tribune reported. Idaho
has faced multiple lawsuits and court orders over inmate health care. The
mother of one inmate, Marques Davis, alleges in a lawsuit filed against Corizon that her son’s complaints about headaches and
muscle weakness were ignored for months while he was held at the Hutchinson
Correctional Facility. Davis eventually died of a fungal infection in his
brain that was undetected by prison medical staff. “It’s showing a clear and
consistent pattern of delaying, postponing or not providing necessary medical
treatment,” said Leland Dempsey, the lawyer for Davis’ mother, Shermaine Walker. “That’s what this is showing (and)
that’s what our whole lawsuit is about.” A federal judge in Oregon in
December approved a $10 million judgment against Corizon
and other defendants, settling a lawsuit brought by the parents of a
26-year-old woman who died pleading for medical help while detoxing from
heroin in an Oregon jail. Kansas is one of the only states in the country
that requires an independent third party to observe its inmate health care
contractor. As part of the contract with the Tennessee-based Corizon, a team from the University of Kansas Medical
Center provides monthly reviews of a sample of health care records at Kansas’
prisons. Kansas pays Corizon about $70 million to
$80 million a year, depending on the prison population. Jeanny
Sharp, a spokeswoman for the corrections department, said the agency levies
fines whenever Corizon falls below 90 percent
compliance in a month. “I would hope the people of Kansas and their
representatives would have a strong interest in whether that $70 million (a
year) is being well spent and whether they were getting their money’s worth,”
said Eric Balaban, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties
Union’s National Prison Project. Balaban said Corizon
is writing off the fines as the cost of doing business in Kansas without
doing anything meaningful to improve its care. Corizon
spokeswoman Eve Hutcherson said in an email that the company stands by the
care it provides in Kansas. She noted during the last five years no court
rulings or settlements related to patient care have gone against the company
or the Kansas Department of Corrections. She said she couldn’t comment on the
Davis case but “we will defend our care strongly in court.” Kansas Gov. Laura
Kelly’s administration audited Corizon’s 2018
performance after she took office and found several problems. Keith Bradshaw,
the head of the corrections department’s finance division, told lawmakers in
February that the administration was tentatively planning to extend the
contract one more year, and then re-bid it if Corizon’s
performance doesn’t improve.
Mar
2, 2019 kake.com
Kansas
reduces payments to prison health care company
The
company that provides health care in Kansas prison is being paid millions
less than it is due because it didn't meet some of the agreement's terms. The
Kansas News Service reports Tennessee-based Corizon
Health didn't hire enough nurses and other health workers,
and didn't meet other performance standards. The state currently has a
$68.8 million contract with Corizon. The state
penalized the company $534,880 for not meeting performance standards last
year. Keith Bradshaw, finance director of the Kansas Department of
Corrections, told lawmakers last month that his agency will renew its
contract for Corizon for a year, rather than the
two-year option in the contract. He says the second year would be renewed if
things improve. Corizon spokeswoman Eve Hutcherson
said the company is evaluating the state's information.
January
21, 2018 kansascity.com
What is $2 billion buying Kansas and Missouri in prison health care? Few
people know
Shermaine Walker’s son died of a rare fungal
brain infection last year in a Kansas prison, and since then she’s been
trying to find out whether the prison’s private health care contractor could
have stopped it. That same contractor, Corizon
Health, oversees inmate care in Missouri prisons. A state legislator there
contends Corizon staff misdiagnosed his uncle’s
cancer. He’s also asking how that happened. Corizon’s
contracts with the corrections departments of Kansas and Missouri are worth
almost $2 billion combined over 10 years — yet there’s little transparency
about how that money is being spent. “In my time I’ve not experienced a
specific report in terms of Corizon or their
performance in their contracts,” said Kansas Rep. Russ Jennings, a Republican
from Lakin who is chairman of the House Committee
on Corrections and Juvenile Justice. Jennings said that’s not unusual for
state contractors, but Corizon is not a
run-of-the-mill vendor. As the largest for-profit prison health care provider
in the country, Corizon is a lightning-rod for
criticism from prisoners, their family members, the American Civil Liberties
Union and others who say it takes public money and provides little care. All
in an effort, they say, to maximize its profits. Hundreds of inmates in
Missouri and Kansas have filed suits against the company alleging substandard
care. Susan Lawrence, a physician from California and expert witness in
correctional medical malpractice cases, said Corizon,
like most prison health care companies, has a bad reputation. “I have never
heard of one that people say, ‘You know, they do a really, really good job,’
” Lawrence said. “They’re private, their goal is to make money, so they put
policies in place that aren’t necessarily (intended) to benefit the patient,”
she said. The company says they’re providing high-level care in difficult
environments, and for every lawsuit there are more inmates satisfied with
their care. “Reporting about correctional health care often focuses on a
single patient and that patient’s allegation of poor care,” Corizon spokeswoman Martha Harbin said via email. “I
would be happy to provide you with a file containing the many, many cards and
notes we have received from patients.” But only a few people outside of the
prisons know what’s going on inside the infirmaries. The Kansas Department of
Corrections, or KDOC, has a small clinical team from the University of Kansas
Medical Center reviewing Corizon’s work. And the
department collects some data on services provided and medical outcomes. The
Missouri Department of Corrections does not. Neither state produced any data
in response to requests from The Star. Both state contracts have minimum
staffing requirements for Corizon set in the
contracts and the Kansas contract has financial penalties if Corizon does not meet certain performance benchmarks. But
KDOC did not respond when asked what, if any, penalties it had handed down.
An open records request for that information is pending. Missouri’s contract
has no performance penalties or bonuses. Karen Pojmann,
the communications director for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said Corizon gives no annual report to the department and
there’s no way for the department to provide data on inmate health outcomes.
“Part of the challenge is that our database system is antiquated and it’s
very hard to generate those types of reports,” Pojmann
said. Karen Russo, a consultant for families of inmates, has for decades
studied both Corizon and its previous iteration as
Correctional Medical Services. The company changed its name after merging
with another prison health care provider in 2011. Russo, the founder of the
Wrongful Death and Injury Institute in Kansas City, said the company has a
checkered past that state leaders ignore because contracting out provides
them some insulation from lawsuits. “(Legislators) don’t do anything and this
has been going on since 1975,” Russo said. “I could take an article from
1975, I could square it up with 2017, change the date and the numbers and the
names and that’s it. ... There’s no accountability.” But Corizon
is now coming under more scrutiny in both Kansas and Missouri. In response to
Shermaine Walker’s story about her son’s brain
infection death, Kansas Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley from Topeka
said the state should consider not renewing the company’s contract when it
comes up in July 2019. Missourinet, an online news
consortium of radio stations, reported in February that some Democrats in the
Missouri Legislature are also having second thoughts about Corizon. They include Missouri Rep. Bruce Franks Jr., who
said Corizon staff misdiagnosed his uncle’s
prostate cancer as ulcers and his uncle died shortly after leaving prison.
Franks didn’t respond to an interview request. Absent public data, it’s hard
to know how Corizon is doing beyond anecdotes —
positive ones provided by the company and negative ones from people like
Walker, Franks and the inmates themselves. In Kansas and Missouri, 283
medical malpractice lawsuits have been filed against Corizon
since 2011, including one brought by Walker that’s still pending. Walker,
from Wichita, says her son broke down physically and mentally, eventually
drinking his own urine, while the infection ate away at him over months in
the Hutchinson Correctional Facility. “It was something to see this happening
and know nobody was helping him,” Walker said. “It was unbelievable.” Corizon has said it sympathizes with Walker, but can’t
release more details about her son’s case because of patient privacy laws.
Harbin, the Corizon spokeswoman, said the number of
suits filed against the company is not high, given that the company’s
employees had millions of patient visits over that time period. “Lawsuits are
a fact of life among doctors in the United States and even more so when you
consider the highly litigious nature of corrections,” Harbin said via email.
“The presence of a lawsuit is not necessarily indicative of any wrongdoing or
the merits of the case, and the statistics bear this out.” Harbin said less
than 10 percent of the concluded suits resulted in any kind of settlement.
The remaining 90 percent resulted in a verdict in Corizon’s
favor, were dismissed, or were administratively closed. Harbin also provided
copies of a dozen praise-filled notes, including one from a Lansing
Correctional Facility inmate who said the Corizon
staff compassionately removed a lump from his shoulder under local anesthesia
and then sent it to a lab for testing and cleaned the wound for 12 days
after. But Russo said the lawsuits represent a small sample of inmate
complaints, because prisoners can’t file suit until they’ve gone through the
corrections department’s grievance process. She said the suits are easy for Corizon to swat down because it’s hard for prisoners to
keep up with paperwork deadlines and court fees unless they get
court-appointed legal counsel. Russo also said even most attorneys don’t
understand the challenge of taking on a health care provider that has control
of all of a patients’ health records and can prevent
the patient from seeking a second opinion. “These cases are not straight-line
medical malpractice cases,” Russo said. “They are much more complex.” The
federal suits against the company brought by inmates in Kansas and Missouri
contain a range of complaints, from the common to the bizarre. Multiple suits
claim that Corizon employees classified medical
conditions as “cosmetic” in order to avoid providing care, including one by
Philip Vitello who said staff at the Missouri state prison in St. Joseph
denied him surgery to remove a tumor on his shoulder. Vitello was not
appointed counsel, but a magistrate judge ruled last month that Michael
Toney, a prisoner at the Kansas state prison in El Dorado, should be. He’s
now being represented by a Wichita law firm. Toney’s suit alleges that he
suffered from bloody, painful bowel movements for months while Corizon staff members did nothing but prescribe him an
ineffective hemorrhoid cream. When they finally referred him to a doctor
outside the prison system, that doctor diagnosed him with “rectal fissures”
that would require surgery. By that point Toney said his condition had gotten
so painful that he requested a liquid diet because “to plaintiff, losing 40
pounds is better than passing a solid stool.” But Corizon
still didn’t get him the surgery. Lawrence, the physician and expert witness,
said Toney’s claims sound frighteningly plausible to her. Lawrence spent
three years working for another for-profit prison health care provider in
federal immigration detention centers. She said at one facility an inmate
came to her saying he had been complaining to the nursing staff about his
rectal bleeding for more than a year. “So I did a physical exam and he had a
rock-hard liver due to metastasization,” Lawrence
said. “He had cancer. He had rectal cancer. ... When he pulled up his shirt
you could see the outline of his liver. I had never seen anything like it.”
Lawrence said the nursing staff had not only ignored the man’s complaints,
they had also recorded him exercising in the prison yard, to try and build a
case against him needing care. “They had videotaped him working out and said
‘How can he possibly have terminal cancer?’ Well, people can,” Lawrence said.
“(But) it was the attitude of a lot of providers that they were just
malingering.” The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners must be
provided health care, and Kansas and Missouri, along with many other states,
privatized that responsibility decades ago. But some states take a different
approach. A study published in 2013 by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the
MacArthur Foundation found that when New Jersey and Connecticut contracted
directly with their state university medical centers to provide prison health
care it resulted in improvements in several areas, as well as cost savings
that went back to the states. Harbin said those results haven’t been
duplicated elsewhere. “There is enough evidence of challenges in state and
university-run prison health services (Texas, California) to demonstrate that
these are not superior systems of care,” Harbin said via email. The same Pew
study quoted Viola Riggin, KDOC’s director of
health care services, as saying that Kansas’ system of privatized care backed
up by oversight from the University of Kansas Department of Family Medicine
provides the best of both worlds. “The key is oversight, and our data
collection system allows me to track which inmate did not receive a physical
exam, and if not, why not,” Riggin told Pew and
MacArthur. KDOC did not make Riggin available for
an interview for this story. A KU Medical Center spokeswoman said the
center’s role is to review Corizon’s staffing
levels and staff credentials, check inmate health care grievances that reach
the corrections secretary level and look into all inmate deaths. Missouri
used to have an oversight contract with Jo Riggs, a nursing professor at the
University of Central Missouri. Riggs said her work was initially funded
through a state grant but about three years ago the state dropped the grant
and renegotiated its contract so Corizon would pay
her instead. “I have found that they met or exceeded the performance
expectations on most of the indicators I was measuring,” Riggs said. Riggs
said she’s taking time off from the project in 2018. Harbin said Corizon is looking for a replacement and in the meantime
is still vetted by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, an
accreditation group. Jennings, the chairman of the Kansas House’s corrections
committee, said there’s another step his state could consider to add more
oversight of Corizon. The former head of the
state’s juvenile justice administration, Jennings served on a “corrections
ombudsman’s board” in the 1980s that had the authority to investigate inmate
and prison staff complaints. He said the board was disbanded long ago, but
the legislature could consider bringing it back. “It might be something to
revisit and have a conversation about,” Jennings said.
Feb
8, 2018 cjonline.com
Kansas Senate GOP, Democrats embrace bill limiting privatization at state
prisons
A rare exhibition of Senate bipartisanship Wednesday led to a committee’s
prompt approval of a bill to prohibit outsourcing of personnel management
operations at state prison facilities. Motivation for the change reflected
apprehension about approval of a $362 million contract with CoreCivic, a Tennessee company that builds and operates
private prisons, to construct and maintain for 20 years a new Lansing
Correctional Facility. Under the contract, the Kansas Department of
Corrections would retain supervision of corrections officers, wardens and
other personnel. Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning and Senate Minority
Leader Anthony Hensley co-sponsored Senate Bill 328 to prohibit the private
company from subsequently being granted power to take over personnel
operations at Kansas adult and juvenile facilities. The limitation wouldn’t
apply to contracting for food, medical or consulting services. “The legislative
intent is not to prohibit normal operating services to be contracted out to
the private sector,” said Denning, a Republican from Overland Park. “Rather,
it narrowly prohibits Lansing prison security, including the supervision of
inmates by corrections officers and the warden, from being privatized.”
Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, said the legislation endorsed by the Senate
Federal and State Affairs Committee was based on concern about the record of
private prison companies being hit with lawsuits and complaints. Issues
included chronic under-staffing, hiring of unqualified officers, high
turnover and inadequate medical and education programs, he said. “While we
have contracted out the construction of that facility,” Hensley said, “we
need to ensure that the department remains in the business of managing and
operating our own prisons. We should not turn over the day-to-day operations
to a private entity.” No one testified against the Senate bill, which was
approved on a voice vote without the standard 24-hour delay after a hearing.
In January, then-Gov. Sam Brownback and a coalition of top House and Senate
Republicans, including Denning, approved a 20-year, $362 million contract for
construction of the new prison at Lansing. Hensley and another Democrat on
the State Finance Council voted against the lease-to-own contract developed
by KDOC and CoreCivic. Lobbyists with close
personal relationships with Brownback were hired by CoreCivic,
formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America, to secure the State
Finance Council’s approval. The prison at Lansing would have 1,900 maximum-
and minimum-security beds and 500 minimum-security beds. Introduction of a
modern prison is expected to reduce the number of corrections officers at
Lansing from 680 to fewer than 400. Robert Choromanski,
executive director of the Kansas Organization of State Employees, said the
union supported the Senate bill because it would clearly prohibit outsourcing
or privatization of management operations at state corrections facilities. He
said KOSE had many officers, counselors, maintenance specialists and
administrative assistants who “do a fine job of making the state prison
facilities run in a professional manner under trying circumstances working
long hours for little pay.” Cook told MTN News
Thursday that he believes the entire $30 million, or more, could ultimately
be used to offset human-service budget cuts that the administration is
preparing to make, to balance the budget. Bullock, however, said Tuesday he
doesn’t see how a new contract would yield any more than $15 million to $17
million, under the law passed by Republicans – and that it’s just bad
business to be pressured into extending a contract that may not be needed. “I
want to make sure when we go forward, as we look at Shelby, that it is a good
deal for Montanans,” he told MTN News. Bullock said his administration is
taking steps to appraise the value of the prison and assess how it fits into
the state prison system, in the coming years. “Without any sort of an
assessment of our needs going forward, without an appraisal to say what this
(prison) is worth – I think it’s premature to say, `Here’s what we should do
with it.’” CoreCivic didn’t respond to a request
for comment, or questions about whether it’s been negotiating with the
governor. Cook said he sees no scenario where the Shelby prison won’t be
needed for years into the future – and that if the governor doesn’t act, the
money will stay with CoreCivic.
Jan 5, 2018 ljworld.com
State Finance Council delays decision on Lansing prison project; questions
over private contractor persist
TOPEKA — Gov. Sam Brownback and top legislative leaders agreed Thursday to
delay for two weeks a decision on whether to approve a 20-year, $300 million
contract to build a new prison facility at Lansing. In a meeting of the State
Finance Council, which is made up of the governor and top leaders from both
chambers, Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, R-Overland Park, made a motion
to table the decision until Jan. 18, citing concerns that key details of the
proposed contract still have not been finalized. “I don’t want to have to ask
forgiveness for this,” Denning said, noting other major contracts that the
Legislature has had to fix, including the once-proposed demolition of the
Docking State Office Building. “If I make a bad decision, then I want to own
it. But I don’t want to make a decision today until both sides have agreed to
the lease buy-back agreement, and I’ve had a chance to look at it.” Denning
was referring to a provision in the contract detailing the terms under which
the private prison company selected for the project, CoreCivic,
would transfer ownership of the facility back to the state of Kansas at the
end of the lease. The Department of Corrections is proposing to contract with
a private prison company, CoreCivic, to build the
prison and lease it back to the state after 20 years. The state would still
be responsible for staffing and operating the prison, but CoreCivic
would be responsible for all maintenance and repairs during the term of the
lease. The plan calls for demolishing the medium security unit at the prison,
which was built in the 1980s, and building a new facility that would house
both medium and maximum security prisoners, who are now housed in the
original prison building that dates back to the Civil War era. Other members
of the committee expressed concerns about the Department of Corrections’
plans to reduce staffing, including mental health counselors, once the new,
more modern facility is built. Department of Corrections Secretary Joe
Norwood said the project would save the state about $23 million over the term
of the lease, most of which would come from personnel costs. He said it
currently takes 682 full-time equivalent employees to staff the prison. He
said that could be cut to 371 with a new facility. That’s because the
original 1860s-era building, which houses the maximum security unit, was designed
inefficiently by modern standards and thus requires more correctional
officers because they don’t have clear lines of sight to monitor an entire
cell block, Corrections officials have said. Norwood said with a new,
combined facility, his agency could consolidate things like food service and
medical care into a single unit instead of having separate units at each of
the two main buildings. But Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Wichita, who chairs the
Senate budget committee, said she was concerned about cutbacks in other
areas, including mental health staff, which would be reduced from 53 to 35
positions. Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Jim Ward, D-Wichita, said he was
concerned that CoreCivic has been the target of
numerous lawsuits in the past, some having to do with inadequate staffing at
the private prisons the company runs, as well as a Department of Justice
probe into the company’s staffing system. Norwood said that under the
proposed contract, staffing would still be in the hands of the agency, and
the Legislature, which approves the agency’s budget. He added that the
staffing plan is based on National Institute of Corrections standards and
that it had been reviewed by independent corrections experts from Indiana.
“But it’s a similar model, that is that we’re going to be using technology
rather than people, and there were concerns expressed by the Department of
Justice about that model,” Ward said. In the budget bill that lawmakers
passed last year, a provision was inserted giving the Department of
Corrections authority to enter into a lease-purchase contract for a new
facility at Lansing, as long as it was reviewed by the Joint Committee on
State Building Construction and approved by the State Finance Council. But
the plan has been controversial since its inception. A Legislative Post Audit
review last year concluded that the facility could be built at a lower cost
by issuing bonds instead of a lease-purchase agreement. The Department of
Corrections, however, rejected that idea, saying CoreCivic
was able to secure private financing at interest rates competitive with the
going rate for state bonds. In an earlier meeting of the joint building
committee, some members suggested the agency should consider other
communities for the prison, and open up the site selection process to
competitive proposals from different communities, a process the agency has
used in the past when building new prisons. Also at that meeting in November,
the committee voted to recommend that the agency start over by soliciting new
proposals with a wider array of financing options. Norwood, however, said the
agency chose not to follow that recommendation because the joint committee is
only set up as an advisory panel. Brownback said at the end of the meeting
that the Finance Council will meet once more in about a week to receive
answers to questions that lawmakers still have. Then it will meet again Jan.
18 for an up or down vote on the project.
Aug 1, 2017 cjonline.com
State audit contradicts Dept. of Corrections on cost of Lansing
lease-purchase plan
A legislative audit released Monday claims that the Kansas Department of
Corrections missed “key variables” and relied on “inconsistent assumptions”
that tended to favor a more expensive method of replacing the state’s largest
and oldest prison. According to the audit, the Department of Corrections
underestimated the cost of rebuilding Lansing Correctional Facility through a
lease-purchase agreement, a contract that allows a private company to build
the prison and then lease it back to the state until the state purchases it.
That option would likely be scrapped because of the results of the audit,
said J.R. Claeys, a Salina Republican and chair of
the transportation and public safety budget committee. The audit says a
preliminary estimate from KDOC placed the project cost at $140 million over
20 years. The total cost predicted by KDOC was $155 million, but the audit
report contends that it would cost $206 million. Auditors found that the best
option would be for the state to issue bonds to build the prison and contract
with a company for its maintenance. “These results differ from KDOC’s
preliminary estimates, which were missing key variables and used inconsistent
assumptions that tended to favor a lease-purchase option,” the audit says.
KDOC is now in the process of receiving bids to build the prison in response
to a request for proposals that it issued in April, according to the audit.
Bids are due Friday. KDOC Secretary Joe Norwood said in a letter in response
to the audit that the department would accept auditors’ help picking a bidder
to contract with. The audit says the department failed to include in its cost
estimates the final price it would pay to buy back the prison at the end of
the lease, did not adjust prices over time, presented different construction
costs based on the ownership arrangement and left out what auditors found to
be the least expensive option. It said the least expensive option — building
the prison with bond money and contracting its maintenance — would cost $178
million over 20 years. KDOC did not dispute any of the findings of the audit,
according to a summary of the report. Rep. John Barker, an Abilene Republican
and chair of the Legislative Post Audit committee, said he thought the
Department of Corrections was receptive to the findings and that auditors
found costs KDOC overlooked. Rep. Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, said he thought the
department or administration had been leaning toward a lease-purchase option.
In an email, KDOC spokesman Todd Fertig said the
agency was “open to whichever funding option is best for the state.” He said
the real cost of the project would not be known until the state gets bids
from builders.
According to the audit, KDOC has claimed the project would not have a significant
impact on the state’s budget. The audit says the state could find savings by
combining maximum and medium security prisoners into one building and
reducing staff. Savings could also be realized with a more energy-efficient
building than the ones now at Lansing, including one built in the 1860s.
Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, said he was
concerned reduced staffing would lead to more disciplinary problems, like
recent outbreaks at El Dorado Correctional Facility. “That concerns me
because we’ve seen what’s happened in El Dorado, where they’re understaffed,
they’ve had to work double shifts and we’ve had some real security problems
down there among the inmates,” Hensley said. Claeys,
however, said Lansing already requires a higher level of staffing because of
its age. A modern building, he said, would require staffing similar to that
at El Dorado, which is currently understaffed. Rebuilding Lansing, Claeys said, would help prevent uprisings at overcrowded
prisons like El Dorado Correctional Facility, which has seen several
incidents in recent weeks. He said the prison’s population has been rising
without any new space given to inmates, and it faces severe staffing
shortages. “I think having Lansing rebuilt certainly alleviates some of the
pressure on El Dorado,” Claeys said. Claeys said he had a proposal for the coming legislative
session to raise wages for correctional officers to help fill staffing
shortages. “We’re going to do something, and it should be a priority,” Barker
said. Claeys said the Legislature would go with a
plan “that’s the least expensive for taxpayers and gets us the result of a
modern, efficient prison facility at Lansing.” He said a provision included
in the budget lawmakers passed in June would ensure that a plan for the
prison gets approval from the Legislature.
Jan
8, 2015 Aly Van Dyke
Dirty
kitchen conditions and violations repeated for several months are among some
of the more consistent findings in food safety inspections for Kansas
prisons. Although the corrections department adheres to Kansas Department of
Agriculture food safety guidelines, like restaurants, it doesn’t rely on KDA
staff to do the inspections. Instead, both monthly and sporadic audits are
conducted by Kansas Department of Corrections employees, some of whom work in
the facilities they inspect. “I hear what you’re saying in terms of looking
like it’s all under one DOC umbrella,” said Jeremy Barclay, spokesman for the
KDOC. “But we interact with so many different state agencies and branches of
government and different divisions within the agency, that it’s pretty
secure.” The inspections cover the 19 months between January 2013 and July
2014. They include seven of the state’s 10 prisons and total 19 facilities,
such as satellite units. The KDOC filled the request free of charge, because
another entity already had requested the inspections. Inspections weren’t
provided for the Topeka, Lansing and Larned
juvenile correctional facilities because they weren’t in the original
request. The nearly 340 inspections show noncompliance and deficiencies month
after month at several facilities. The Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex
in Topeka, for example, repeated several mistakes for at least 10 months,
including not taking proper temperature logs; not enforcing handwashing and glove
use; not having employees and staff restrain hair properly; not keeping
accurate chemical logs; and not having inmate staff up to date on food safety
training. “Three persons seen licking fingers and continuing to work,” reads
a May 2013 inspection of the KJCC. “Gloves worn to handle bread and meat
patties used to touch face and pick item up off floor and touch door
handles,” according to an April 2014 inspection of the facility. Handwashing
issues were noted in 11 of the facility’s 19 inspections. But the KJCC isn’t
alone in its repetitive errors. In the Ellsworth Correctional Facility,
inspectors reported issues with bugs in the lights for 11 months. At the
Winfield Correctional Facility, a knife was used to keep a dishwasher’s fill
switch in position the full 19 months. At the El Dorado Correctional
Facility, waste containers went without covers for eight months, a soap
dispenser remained out of service for 11 months, fans went without cleaning
for seven months and water leaked from fountain fixtures on the west wall for
four months. The term “filthy” shows up in 11 inspections, “dirty” in 54 and
“bugs” in 46 — though the vast majority of those instances refer to insects
filling light fixtures. The data include 338 inspections. “Hygiene issues are
always something we have to work with,” Barclay said. “We’re housing a host
of individuals that cleaning hasn’t always been a priority in their life.
We’re re-teaching from the ground up.” The departme
nt can take administrative action — like fines and
reconsidering the contract — if the food service provider isn’t meeting the
terms of the contract, he said. However, he added Aramark, the food service
contractor for most of the prisons, has demonstrated it will take whatever
administrative steps required to ensure that isn’t necessary. The KDOC serves
about 10,000 inmates three times each day, yet have relatively few violations
when it comes to proper temperatures or insects — violations that often
plague restaurants that don’t serve nearly that amount of meals in a day.
Barclay said he thinks that has to do with the nature of the prison food
system. It, unlike restaurants, is a 24/7 process. Just when one crew is
wrapping up lunch, the next one comes in to start dinner. “You always have
somebody on site,” he said. “It’s a continual go-go-go process.” Also, he
said, prisons for the most part deal with processed foods, so the chances of
undercooking something rarely comes up. “The food is so processed, there's
not really a food safety risk,” he said. Unlike the KDA, the prison system
doesn’t distinguish between critical and noncritical food safety violations,
and its record keeping is radically different. Each prison appears to have
its own inspection format, making comparisons difficult. Also, it wasn’t
always clear when something was a deficiency or merely a suggested
improvement. As most of the inspections were entered manually into The Topeka
Capital-Journal’s online database, some numbers of violations might be
different than anticipated. The inspection schedule differs, as well. While
restaurants are inspected annually, unless follow-up visits are required,
each correctional facility has a monthly inspection conducted by the safety
officer employed at the facility. Every so often, a food service contract
manager from central administration will perform an audit — usually announced
beforehand — on the prison kitchens. The visits, Barclay said, are to make
sure the contract is “followed to a T.” Although both inspectors are
employees of the KDOC, he said, the food service contract manager falls on an
entirely different line item in its budget — creating some degree of
separation. Also, Barclay said, the employees are inspecting the work done by
a contractor, not other KDOC employees. Finally, he said, the KDOC has to
make annual reports to the Kansas Legislature, and the department of
administration actually awards the food service contracts, creating further
checks and balances on the prison food system. Violations oftentimes differed
from the monthly on-site inspections and the audits from the central office.
The 22 audits included in the request averaged between eight and nine
violations, while the 316 monthly inspections, conducted by each facility’s
safety compliance officer, averaged between three and four. The Larned Correctional Mental Health Facility, for example,
showed everything was satisfactory on its monthly reports, but had up to 13
deficiencies on its three audits. Lack of training for inmate workers was
documented on all three audits, which were conducted in June and December
2013 and in June 2014. Aramark holds the food service contracts in all the
prisons, save the KJCC, which switched last October to Trinity Services Group
after the service went out for bid. It was awarded a nearly $400,000 contract
to work from October 2013 through June 2014. In each prison, Aramark pays for
a manager, an assistant manager and food service supervisors. Under them, are
the inmates, Barclay said. Inmate workers are supposed to be trained and
supervised, but 20 inspections show those areas lacking for several months —
half of which came from the KJCC. Aly Van Dyke can be reached at (785)
295-1270 or aly.vandyke@cjonline.com.
November 27, 2001
Citing a temporary shortage of prison beds, the Kansas Department of
Corrections said Tuesday that it will send 100 inmates to a privately run
institution in Colorado where they will remain until spring. The
agreement with Corrections Corp. of America marks the first time that Kansas
has sought facilities in other states to house some of its prisoners.
Federal money can be used to pay 90 percent of the contract costs with the
private firm. That money cannot be used to pay for space in public
facilities such as county jails. (The Kansas City Star)
Kansas Legislature
September 12, 2006 Kansas City Star
If Phill Kline had legitimate credentials, he
wouldn’t need to pad his résumé. He alleges he “worked to get ‘Jessica’s Law’
passed this year, increasing sentences for four types of sex crimes against
children” (9/7, Local, “Kline cites record on water rights, sex predators”).
Jessica’s Law was a terrible bill, but one that only our bravest state
senators had the guts to oppose. Whether Kline was for, against or
indifferent to it would not have made one whit of difference. Legislators
were stampeded into voting for it, as they would be for mom, apple pie and
the American flag. The bill will raise our state prison population by 1,000
prisoners, which will cost well over the average of $22,000 for each in
today’s correctional dollars. That’s 22 million bucks a year, for typical
prisoners, not high-cost, geriatric sex offenders, plus another $50 million
for bed space to house them. The bill was bundled by Sen. Derek Schmidt,
champion of the for-profit prison GEO Group, in his effort to actually import
rapists, pedophiles and murderers to Kansas. Not much to take credit for, is
it, even if it were deserved? Frank Smith, Bluff City, Kan.
May 8, 2006 AP
Legislation imposing tougher penalties on child molesters and other sex
offenders went Monday night to the governor's desk. Passage of the bill,
dubbed "Jessica's Law," was part of a deal worked out by House and
Senate negotiators last week, after the House rejected a compromise bill
bundling the popular sex offender measure with legislation the Senate wanted
to allow private prisons in Kansas. The Senate voted 36-2 for the sex
offender bill with no debate, and the House followed with a vote of 122-0,
after which members applauded. Sending Jessica's Law to Gov. Kathleen
Sebelius hinged on a deal negotiators worked out Friday. It called for a
House vote on prisons, followed by the Senate passing Jessica's Law. The
House voted 74-48 against the bill allowing the Department of Corrections to
license and regulate such facilities in counties where voters approve the
idea. It also included $20.5 million in bonding authority to expand state
prisons. "I feel like this is a positive victory in that we got Jessica's
Law separate from an unpopular bill," said Rep. Jan Pauls,
D-Hutchinson. Pauls later thanked colleagues who
"hung in there" until Jessica's Law was separated from private
prisons. "A lot of people were terrified that we might not get this bill
passed," she said, referring to Jessica's Law. Some House members didn't
like the idea of obligating the state to paying off bonds. "We could pay
cash for this and save ourselves a substantial amount of interest," said
Rep. Virgil Peck, R-Tyro. "I don't support additional debt for our
state." Kansas law prohibits housing state prisoners in private
facilities in the state, but they can be housed in private facilities in
other states. Senators had argued for bundling the bills, because increased
penalties for sex offenders would generate the need for an additional 1,000
prison beds by 2016. House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, said the message was
clear. "A lot of people feel strongly that the management and ownership
of prisons is a government function," he said.
May 5, 2006 AP
Efforts to force a single vote on tougher penalties for child molesters
and other sex offenders and allowing private prisons failed, and lawmakers
now will vote each issue separately, under an agreement worked out Friday
night by House and Senate negotiators. "It's agreed to," said House
Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka. "I'm happy the Senate decided to do it that
way." Mays said both bills will come up for a vote Monday, when
lawmakers return with an eye toward wrapping up the session. On Wednesday,
the House strongly rejected a compromise bill bundling the popular sex
offender measure dubbed "Jessica's Law" with legislation the Senate
wanted to allow private prisons in Kansas.
May 3, 2006 AP
Opposition to private prisons in the House today doomed a compromise
version of a politically popular bill to strengthen penalties for sex
offenders, especially those who prey on children. The tougher penalties,
known as "Jessica's Law,” were tied by House and Senate negotiators to a
proposal to permit private prisons in Kansas to hold the state's inmates.
Senators previously approved a separate private prisons bill and insisted the
two issues be bundled, while the House hadn't debated the subject. The House
voted 74-49 to reject the bundle, forcing both chambers to resume
negotiations if lawmakers are to send tougher penalties for sex offenders
this year to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. The Senate had approved it Tuesday,
33-7. Rep. Kenny Wilk, who led the effort to send the bill back to
negotiators, said senators were trying to overcome opposition to private
prisons by linking their fate to perhaps the session's most popular proposal.
"They're trying to force-feed us,” said Wilk, R-Lansing. "The House
wants a clean vote on Jessica's Law.” The tougher sanctions are patterned after
a Florida law, also named "Jessica's Law,” for a 9-year-old girl in that
state killed last year by a convicted sex offender. Arkansas, Oregon and
Virginia enacted their own versions this year. The bill calls for a minimum
25-year sentence for adults convicted of any of seven violent sex crimes
against anyone under 14, including rape, aggravated sodomy and sexual
exploitation. Trial judges could impose a lesser penalty in cases with
"substantial and compelling” reasons.
May 2, 2006 AP
Getting tough on child molesters and other sex offenders has been a priority
for legislators since the start of the session, and now they're in position
to send a bill to the governor to do just that. But there could be a problem
- another bill hitched to the sex offender legislation. A House-Senate
conference committee bundled the crime bill with another allowing private
prisons in the state to hold Kansas inmates. The Senate voted 33-7 Tuesday to
send the bill to the House, which last year refused to debate private prisons.
Because it's a House-Senate conference committee proposal, House members must
either accept or reject both ideas. "We'll run it. There's no way to
tell whether it will pass," said Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka. Some see
it as a power play by senators. "It doesn't play well with me. It's not
a game," said Rep. Shari Weber, R-Herington. "Children abused and
exploited shouldn't be held hostage by the personal views of the leadership
of the Senate chamber. The Senate debate focused on opposition to private
prisons. "There are two policies in this bill. The right way is to
separate them," said Sen. Jay Scott Emler, R-Lindsborg.
May 1, 2006 Lawrence Journal-World
For-profit prisons aren’t likely to pop up across the Kansas plains
overnight if, as expected, the Legislature approves a law this week allowing
the prisons to be built here. In fact, the law wouldn’t necessarily mean that
private prisons would ever be used to house existing Kansas prisoners. But it
would allow for the industry to set up shop and begin housing out-of-state
prisoners in any Kansas county where voters approve the idea. In Frank
Smith’s view, it’s a slippery slope. Smith, a critic of private prisons who
lives in Bluff City, believes that Kansas is “buying a lemon” by opening the
door to a business he claims is fundamentally flawed. “I don’t believe you
can have an efficacious private prison because the profit motive rules
everything,” he said. “I don’t think there are any legitimate protections in
this bill. They can build anywhere they can convince the locals — the rubes
and hicks — that it’s not such a bad thing.” Smith, a retired social worker,
argues that private prisons are chronically understaffed and don’t pay enough
to keep good employees. He said there’s no hard evidence that there are more
disturbances inside private prisons, but that the mingling of out-of-state
inmate populations — who often have unequal treatment because of differences
in their states’ respective contracts — is an inherent problem. On July 20,
2004, inmates at the privately run Crowley County Correctional Facility near
Pueblo, Colo., demanded to speak to a warden about grievances. One problem
was that a group of recently imported inmates from Washington state were
earning $60 a month for work assignments, compared with $18.60 for Colorado
inmates. The inmates were denied an audience, and they grew hostile. The
staff was inexperienced and had not had enough training for an emergency,
according to a report by the Colorado Department of Corrections. So the staff
evacuated. Inmates started fires, broke into the management offices, and
broke water pipes, sinks and toilets, causing cells to flood with
contaminated water. A pending lawsuit filed by inmates alleges that when a
special-operations team came in with backup to reclaim the prison, guards
brutalized inmates — forcing them to lie face-down in contaminated water and
dragging people from their cells by their ankles. As the night went on,
inmates were forced to urinate and defecate in their pants because they
weren’t allowed to go to the restroom, the suit alleges.
April 29, 2006 Hutchinson News
Thanks to distortion of our legislative procedures, a bill clearly
against the interests of public safety and protection of Kansas taxpayers may
soon win passage. Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, has
inserted special interest, for-profit prison language into a veto-proof
sexual offender bill. For three years, Schmidt's bills were unable to win
passage on their own merits. Were it not for the valiant efforts of Rep. Jan Pauls, D-Hutchinson, and the misgivings about the process
held by Rep. Mike O'Neal, R-Hutchinson, this bill would likely have made it
to the governor's desk. At a time when the attention of the public has been
focused on deal-making in Washington , D.C., by exposure of scandals such as
the crimes of Jack Abramoff and ex-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, as
well as the budget earmarks that led to the $230 million "Bridge to
Nowhere," this legislative bundling tactic is particularly brazen. The
bill's existing provisions don't truly protect Kansas. Instead it encourages
wholesale importation and private transport of out-of-state robbers, rapists,
and murderers. Annual surveys show for-profits have 30 to 45 times more
escapes than public facilities. Closed facilities, frequently shuttered
following rapes and grotesque maltreatment by staff, litter the national
landscape. Imported convicts regularly riot in a half dozen states. Poorly
paid workers often flee, leaving state employees to suppress disturbances. For-profit
staff turnover averages more than three times that of public prisons.
Although the Kansas measure has a provision allowing a state takeover of
failed private pens, the bill does not adequately address "real
world" problems. It is difficult to imagine how a private operator would
provide adequate insurance for its operations. Examples of potential exposure
include situations like the murder of a Montana prisoner by Hawaiian convicts
at the BRG prison in Texas. Hawaiians twice torched that facility. The Kansas
Department of Corrections already has difficulty filling employee vacancies.
The notion that it could immediately provide hundreds of trained officers and
support staff to operate a remote for-profit where workers had resigned en
masse or went on strike is simply ludicrous. The department lacks the
authority to incarcerate other states' prisoners, but a private pen in Kansas
would house many hundreds of such convicts. For-profit salesmen testifying
before legislative committees claimed staff from other states could fill in,
but they often are already unable to meet contractual staffing level
requirements in those distant locations. After summer 2004 riots by
out-of-state prisoners at the Corrections Corporation of America facilities
at Crowley, Colo., and Beattyville, Ky., scores of employees immediately quit
their jobs. Hutchinson already has experienced some perils of privatization,
witness the jailing of former Reno County Sheriff Larry Leslie for accepting
$284,000 in payments from a private firm that used to operate a jail annex.
Kansas would be wise to heed the call for a moratorium on construction of
these "Rent-a-pens" by denominations ranging from Catholic,
Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian and the United Church of Christ. Frank
Smith, Bluff City
April 23, 2006 Topeka Capital-Journal
A bill clearly against the interests of public safety and protection of
Kansas taxpayers may soon win passage. Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt
has inserted special interest, for-profit prison language into a veto-proof
sexual offender bill, HB2576. For years, Schmidt's similar bills were unable
to win passage on their own merits. The bill is presently in conference
committee to be considered when legislators return from adjournment. This
legislative "bundling" tactic is particularly brazen. Through
dozens of substantial contributions from the for-profit GEO Group and its
lobbyists, Schmidt and his colleagues have been amply rewarded for ignoring
the public interest. The bill encourages wholesale importation and private
transport of out-of-state robbers, rapists, and murderers. Annual surveys
show for-profits have 30-45 times more escapes than public facilities.
Imported convicts regularly riot in a half dozen states. Poorly paid workers
often flee, leaving distant state employees to suppress disturbances. The
Kansas's Department of Corrections already has substantial difficulty
recruiting employees. At year's end, 121 uniformed positions were vacant. It
couldn't immediately provide hundreds of trained officers and support staff
at a remote for-profit where workers struck or resigned en masse. For-profit
salesmen testified that staff from faraway states could fill in, but they
often are already unable to meet their own contractual staffing requirements.
After 2004 riots by out-of-state prisoners at facilities in Colorado and
Kentucky, scores of low-paid employees immediately quit their jobs. Kansas
would be wise to heed the call for a moratorium on construction or outright
abolition of these "Rent-a-pens" by denominations including
Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian and the United Church of Christ.
FRANK SMITH, Private Corrections Institute, Bluff City
April 19, 2006 Chanute Tribune
Op-Ed By: Frank Smith Private Corrections Institute. Thanks to distortion
of our legislative procedures a bill clearly against the interests of public
safety and protection of Kansas taxpayers may soon win passage. Senate
Majority Leader Derek Schmidt from Independence has inserted special
interest, for-profit prison language into a veto-proof sexual offender bill,
HB2576. For three years, Schmidt's similar bills were unable to win passage
on their own merits. The bill is presently in conference committee and will
be considered when the Legislature returns from adjournment. At a time when
the attention of the public has been focused on deal-making in Washington by
the exposure of scandals such as the crimes of Jack Abramoff and
ex-Representative "Duke" Cunningham, as well as the budget
"earmarks" that led to passage of the $230 million Alaska
"Bridge to Nowhere," this legislative "bundling" tactic
is particularly brazen. Through dozens of substantial contributions from the
for-profit GEO Group and its lobbyists, Schmidt's colleagues and leadership
committees have been amply rewarded for ignoring the public interest. Woodson
County and Yates Center were led to believe a private prison would provide an
economic boon. Quite the opposite is the case. Peer reviewed national studies
from six universities, in Washington, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina and Kentucky
and research from a D.C. think tank indicate that even public prisons, where
staff are often paid twice as much as in the privates, don't help the
economy. Communities within a 50-mile radius of Yates Center lack the
available workforce to staff such a facility. Guards would require clean
criminal and domestic violence records, a GED or high school diploma, and
need to be young enough to physically handle the extremely stressful and
dangerous shift-work environment. The for-profits endure a 52 percent annual
staff turnover, more than thrice that of better-paying public facilities.
Guard make $8 hourly, or less commonly, work two jobs depriving them of the
alertness necessary to protect themselves and other staff, inmates and the
public alike. For-profits regularly contest assessments and overcharge
taxpayers for millions of dollars. 79 percent of Corrections Corporation of
American and 69 percent of GEO's facilities have received tax abatement and
infrastructure incentives leaving municipalities with little to show for
their investments. If GEO somehow actually decided to build in Woodson, it
expects free land with utilities already in place. The bill's existing
provisions don't truly protect Kansas. Instead it encourages wholesale importation
and private transport of out-of-state robbers, rapists, and murderers. Annual
surveys show for-profits have 30-45 times more escapes than public
facilities. Closed facilities, frequently shuttered following rapes and
grotesque maltreatment by poorly screened staff, litter the national
landscape. Imported convicts regularly riot in a half dozen states. Poorly
paid workers often flee, leaving distant state employees to suppress
disturbances. Although the measure has a provision allowing a Kansas state
takeover of failed private pens, the bill does not adequately address
"real world" problems. For instance, it's difficult to imagine how
a GEO could provide adequate insurance for its operations. Examples of
potential exposure include situations like the murder of a Montana prisoner
by Hawaiian convicts at BRG's Texas prison. Hawaiians twice torched that
facility. The Kansas Department of Corrections already has substantial
difficulty filling employee vacancies. The notion that it could immediately
provide hundreds of trained officers and support staff to operate a remote
for-profit where workers had resigned en masse or went on strike is simply
ludicrous. The Department lacks the authority to incarcerate other states'
prisoners, but a private pen in Kansas would house many hundreds of such
convicts. For-profit salesmen testifying before legislative committees
claimed staff from other states could fill in, but they often are already
unable to meet contractual staffing level requirements in those distant locations.
After summer 2004 riots by out-of-state prisoners at the Corrections
Corporation of America facilities at Crowley, Colorado and Beattyville,
Kentucky, scores of low-paid employees immediately quit their jobs. Kansas
has already experienced some perils of privatization; witness the
imprisonment of Reno County Sheriff Larry Leslie for accepting and laundering
$284,000 in bribes for privatizing his jail. Kansas would be wise to heed the
call for a moratorium on construction or outright abolition of these
"Rent-a-pens" by denominations ranging from Catholic, Episcopal,
Methodist, Presbyterian and the United Church of Christ. *** Frank Smith has
been a researcher and provider in criminal justice and corrections for 35
years and is considered to be a leading expert on for-profit prisons. He
resides in Bluff City.
April 19, 2006 Trading Markets
In Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ budget amendments, offered Tuesday, she is
seeking authorization for $20.5 million in bonds to build prison space to
incarcerate the anticipated increase in inmates from legislation that
increases punishments of sex offenders. On prisons, the proposal for bonding
authority to expand El Dorado prison could clash with a move to build a
private prison. Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz
opposes private prisons, but declined to say whether the bonding proposal
would knock out private prison legislation. “We’re putting forward the
options that we prefer, to at least handle the initial expansion,” Werholtz said.
April 16, 2006 AP
When legislation runs into a roadblock, lawmakers often get around the
obstacle with the time-tested tactic of bundling bills. A bill on death’s
doorstep gets attached to a popular bill — and if there’s motherhood, apple
pie and a touch of divinity in the mix, so much the better. Last year,
senators passed a bill allowing private prisons in Kansas and waited for the
House to act. But the idea is about as popular with many House members as
coddling sex offenders. This year, lawmakers have the mother of motherhood
bills — getting tough on sex offenders, particularly those victimizing
children. It’s just the kind of thing House members can go home and crow
about while seeking re-election. The two chambers passed differing versions
of what’s been dubbed “Jessica’s Law,” and House and Senate negotiators
worked out the differences. But they also bundled it with the private prison
bill so lawmakers must consider both ideas together when they return April 26
to wrap up their session.
April 10, 2006 Lawrence Journal-World
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said she’s willing to accept private prisons to
get a bill that increases penalties for sex offenders. “There are a lot of
protections in place,” Sebelius said of the measure that would authorize the
state to enter into a contract for a private prison. The prison proposal is
contained in a bill that would increase prison sentences for sex offenders.
While there is nearly unanimous support in the Legislature for the sex
offender portion of the bill, there is less support for changing policy to allow
private prisons. The provision would give the corrections secretary authority
over the construction, licensing and oversight of a private prison. In
addition, under the measure, no private prison could be operated in a county
without approval of the county commissioners and a vote of county residents.
But Frank Smith of Bluff City, an outspoken critic of private prisons, said
the private prison industry has been plagued with problems such as prison
riots, low wages for employees and substandard conditions for inmates. “Other
states have had terrible experiences with legislation such as this, which
when passed seemed to provide certain guarantees,” Smith said.
March 24, 2006 Wichita Eagle
With an appalling display of lobbyist strength, special interest legislation
meant to solely enrich the out-of-state for-profit prison industry was
recently forced through a Kansas House committee. Then Wednesday, a bill
authorizing privately owned and operated prisons cleared the full Senate. The
ostensible rationale for bringing nonliving wages to Kansas corrections is
alleged taxpayer savings. But repeated legitimate research fails to
demonstrate any such thrift. And there's no guarantee the proposed private
prisons would ever hold a single Kansas inmate. For-profit operator GEO Group
enlisted economically depressed Woodson County in eastern Kansas to
strengthen its ploy to enable proliferation of its "Rent-a-Pens."
Studies conducted by professors from five universities and an independent
think tank, however, conclusively demonstrate that even public prisons, where
wages are sometimes twice as high, do not improve faltering rural economies.
Prisons dissuade safer and better-paying industries from locating in host
counties. No economic feasibility assessment has ever been done in Woodson
County, which simply couldn't recruit sufficient low-paid employees. A survey
comparing similar-sized populations of a public prison system with national
for-profits indicated the privates had 30 times as many escapes. Liability
damage language has rarely protected any hosting state. And might for-profits
bring corruption? Prosecutors accused former Reno County Sheriff Larry Leslie
of taking $284,000 to privatize his jail. To test the efficacy of the
services provided, look no further than the GEO Group's Jena, La., prison and
the Cornell Companies' New Morgan Academy in Morgantown, Pa. Both have been
closed for years after horrendous abuse of scores of juveniles. Management
and Training Corp. closed its prison in Eagle Mountain, Calif., after rioting
and murders. I've visited Corrections Corporation of America prisons in
Kentucky, Colorado and Arizona following such riots. It took law enforcement
from four states to quell the previous riot at the Crowley County, Colo.,
prison. After extensive study, numerous denominations -- including Catholic,
Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and the Church of Christ -- condemned this
industry. Kansas would do well to heed their call. Frank Smith lives in Bluff
City.
Labette Correctional Conservation Camp
Labette County, Kansas
GRW
February 27, 2007 Parsons Sun
Some employees of the Labette Correctional Conservation Camp women's
facility lost vacation time when the facility was transferred to county
management on Feb. 1, but county commissioners say it isn't their fault. On
Monday, commissioners met with LCCC administrators to discuss the situation.
County Commissioner Jerry Carson said the situations at the men's and women's
camps are different because the county has never operated the women's camp
directly. Labette County created the boot-camp style facility in the early
'90s and has held responsibility for operating it. The camp has always been
operated by a private management firm until now, however. The women's camp
was created by the Kansas Department of Corrections a few years later. KDOC
hired the same company to operate the facility and the two have operated in
concert. However, Carson said the differences translate into employees at the
women's camp losing leave time. Carson pointed the finger at GRW Corp., the
Tennessee-based management firm that ran the facilities. Carson said he
thought there was a "gentleman's agreement" with GRW to honor the
vacation time. Carson said he would be willing to meet with camp employees
and explain the situation to them. Commissioner Lonie
Addis agreed with that assessment of the situation but said he didn't like
it. "The simple fact is it's still not fair," Addis said.
Commissioners also discussed setting up times to meet with camp employees to
discuss the county's personnel policy. The county has revised the policy in
order to include camp employees.
Lansing Correctional Facility
Lansing, Kansas
Feb 16, 2019 lmtonline.com
Governor says Kansas was 'hoodwinked' on new state prison
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas was "hoodwinked" into hiring a
private company to build a new prison based on a promise that the new lockup
would require significantly less staff and the savings could be used to pay
for the project, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly said Friday. Kelly's comment
during an Associated Press interview comes as her corrections secretary
questions whether the staff savings will materialize because of what he sees
as a less-than-ideal prison design. The new prison is under construction in
Lansing, in the Kansas City area, and due to open early next year. Former
Republican Gov. Sam Brownback pushed the project as a way to replace the
deteriorating prison in Lansing with no additional net cost to the state.
Legislative leaders gave the final go-ahead for the project in January 2018,
after Brownback's administration assured lawmakers that the new prison could
run safety with 46 percent fewer employees. Interim Corrections Secretary
Roger Werholtz, a Kelly appointee, is now telling
legislators that the projections may have been too optimistic. "I
doubted at the time that they could really safely reduce staff at the numbers
that they were talking about, so this comes as no surprise to me," Kelly
said Friday. Kansas is buying the new, 2,432-bed prison over 20
years through a lease with its contractor, Tennessee-based CoreCivic Inc., the nation's largest private prison
company. The total cost is about $360 million, but Brownback's administration
calculated that savings in staffing costs would cover lease payments. "CoreCivic is on-track to deliver to the state of Kansas a
desperately needed replacement for a Civil War-era prison facility that is
currently unsafe for staff and inmates alike," company spokesman Steve
Owen said. Kelly, a veteran state senator before being elected governor last
year, had been publicly skeptical of the project. "We were just, you
know, hoodwinked, I think," Kelly said. "I was not." Parts of
the existing Lansing prison date to the 1860s and feature long rows of tiered
cells with bad sight lines, but even newer parts built in the 1980s were
poorly designed, corrections officials said. Plans for the new prison call
for two large cell houses that modernize that traditional design. But cells
still will be arranged in rows, rather than in a series of square or
triangular pods around a central officers' station to give employees a view
of every cell. House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr., an
Olathe Republican, said the project was "thoroughly vetted." The
Department of Corrections received the final go-ahead for the project 11
months after then-Secretary Joe Norwood announced he was pursuing it, and the
Republican-controlled Legislature required several rounds of review. "We
know we need more prison space and we need to find a better way to do this
for the long-term and this project was one that fit that mold," Ryckman said. "It needs to be reviewed, but the idea
and the concept seem pretty solid." Owen, the company spokesman, said
the design has been developed "in close consultation" with the
department to "provide a state-of-the-art facility with enhanced safety
and security as well as programming space." Werholtz,
who served as corrections secretary from 2002 through 2010, returned the job
last month when Kelly took office. About two weeks later, he called the new
prison's design "certainly not optimal" and told one legislative
committee, "I'm not thrilled." He also said during an Associated
Press interview this week that the new prison will be a significant
improvement over the existing one. Owen said the modern prison allows more
efficient staffing "while greatly improving the quality of life"
for inmates and staff. And Werholtz and the
department's capital improvements director, Mike Gaito,
also said the design probably was the best option for the Lansing site. They
said level space at the site is too small for a pod design because the state
can't tear down the existing prison. They said picking a new site — in
Lansing or another community — likely would add tens of millions of dollars
to the cost. Werholtz acknowledged that the
department won't know for sure how many employees will be needed to run the
prison safety until construction is further along later this year.
Brownback's administration projected that staffing with the new prison could
drop to 371 employees from 682. "It probably is more efficient than the
existing one, but I think our question is, is it as efficient as has been
promised, since it's going to be paid for by staff savings?" Werholtz said. "I think they may have been a little
aggressive in the savings that were projected."
Mar 8, 2018 cjonline.com
Kansas Senate GOP, Democrats embrace bill limiting privatization at state
prisons
A rare exhibition of Senate bipartisanship Wednesday led to a committee’s
prompt approval of a bill to prohibit outsourcing of personnel management
operations at state prison facilities.
Motivation for the
change reflected apprehension about approval of a $362 million contract with CoreCivic, a Tennessee company that builds and operates
private prisons, to construct and maintain for 20 years a new Lansing
Correctional Facility. Under the contract, the Kansas Department of
Corrections would retain supervision of corrections officers, wardens and
other personnel. Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning and Senate Minority
Leader Anthony Hensley co-sponsored Senate Bill 328 to prohibit the private
company from subsequently being granted power to take over personnel
operations at Kansas adult and juvenile facilities. The limitation wouldn’t
apply to contracting for food, medical or consulting services. “The
legislative intent is not to prohibit normal operating services to be
contracted out to the private sector,” said Denning, a Republican from Overland
Park. “Rather, it narrowly prohibits Lansing prison security, including the
supervision of inmates by corrections officers and the warden, from being
privatized.” Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, said the legislation endorsed by the
Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee was based on concern about the
record of private prison companies being hit with lawsuits and complaints.
Issues included chronic under-staffing, hiring of unqualified officers, high
turnover and inadequate medical and education programs, he said. “While we
have contracted out the construction of that facility,” Hensley said, “we
need to ensure that the department remains in the business of managing and
operating our own prisons. We should not turn over the day-to-day operations
to a private entity.” No one testified against the Senate bill, which was
approved on a voice vote without the standard 24-hour delay after a hearing.
In January, then-Gov. Sam Brownback and a coalition of top House and Senate
Republicans, including Denning, approved a 20-year, $362 million contract for
construction of the new prison at Lansing. Hensley and another Democrat on
the State Finance Council voted against the lease-to-own contract developed
by KDOC and CoreCivic. Lobbyists with close
personal relationships with Brownback were hired by CoreCivic,
formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America, to secure the State
Finance Council’s approval. The prison at Lansing would have 1,900 maximum-
and minimum-security beds and 500 minimum-security beds. Introduction of a
modern prison is expected to reduce the number of corrections officers at
Lansing from 680 to fewer than 400. Robert Choromanski,
executive director of the Kansas Organization of State Employees, said the
union supported the Senate bill because it would clearly prohibit outsourcing
or privatization of management operations at state corrections facilities. He
said KOSE had many officers, counselors, maintenance specialists and
administrative assistants who “do a fine job of making the state prison
facilities run in a professional manner under trying circumstances working
long hours for little pay.”
January 21, 2018 kansascity.com
What is $2 billion buying Kansas and Missouri in prison health care? Few
people know
Shermaine Walker’s son died of a rare fungal
brain infection last year in a Kansas prison, and since then she’s been
trying to find out whether the prison’s private health care contractor could
have stopped it. That same contractor, Corizon
Health, oversees inmate care in Missouri prisons. A state legislator there
contends Corizon staff misdiagnosed his uncle’s
cancer. He’s also asking how that happened. Corizon’s
contracts with the corrections departments of Kansas and Missouri are worth
almost $2 billion combined over 10 years — yet there’s little transparency
about how that money is being spent. “In my time I’ve not experienced a
specific report in terms of Corizon or their
performance in their contracts,” said Kansas Rep. Russ Jennings, a Republican
from Lakin who is chairman of the House Committee
on Corrections and Juvenile Justice. Jennings said that’s not unusual for
state contractors, but Corizon is not a
run-of-the-mill vendor. As the largest for-profit prison health care provider
in the country, Corizon is a lightning-rod for criticism
from prisoners, their family members, the American Civil Liberties Union and
others who say it takes public money and provides little care. All in an
effort, they say, to maximize its profits. Hundreds of inmates in Missouri
and Kansas have filed suits against the company alleging substandard care.
Susan Lawrence, a physician from California and expert witness in
correctional medical malpractice cases, said Corizon,
like most prison health care companies, has a bad reputation. “I have never
heard of one that people say, ‘You know, they do a really, really good job,’
” Lawrence said. “They’re private, their goal is to make money, so they put
policies in place that aren’t necessarily (intended) to benefit the patient,”
she said. The company says they’re providing high-level care in difficult
environments, and for every lawsuit there are more inmates satisfied with
their care. “Reporting about correctional health care often focuses on a
single patient and that patient’s allegation of poor care,” Corizon spokeswoman Martha Harbin said via email. “I
would be happy to provide you with a file containing the many, many cards and
notes we have received from patients.” But only a few people outside of the
prisons know what’s going on inside the infirmaries. The Kansas Department of
Corrections, or KDOC, has a small clinical team from the University of Kansas
Medical Center reviewing Corizon’s work. And the
department collects some data on services provided and medical outcomes. The
Missouri Department of Corrections does not. Neither state produced any data
in response to requests from The Star. Both state contracts have minimum
staffing requirements for Corizon set in the
contracts and the Kansas contract has financial penalties if Corizon does not meet certain performance benchmarks. But
KDOC did not respond when asked what, if any, penalties it had handed down.
An open records request for that information is pending. Missouri’s contract
has no performance penalties or bonuses. Karen Pojmann,
the communications director for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said Corizon gives no annual report to the department and
there’s no way for the department to provide data on inmate health outcomes.
“Part of the challenge is that our database system is antiquated and it’s
very hard to generate those types of reports,” Pojmann
said. Karen Russo, a consultant for families of inmates, has for decades
studied both Corizon and its previous iteration as
Correctional Medical Services. The company changed its name after merging with
another prison health care provider in 2011. Russo, the founder of the
Wrongful Death and Injury Institute in Kansas City, said the company has a
checkered past that state leaders ignore because contracting out provides
them some insulation from lawsuits. “(Legislators) don’t do anything and this
has been going on since 1975,” Russo said. “I could take an article from
1975, I could square it up with 2017, change the date and the numbers and the
names and that’s it. ... There’s no accountability.” But Corizon
is now coming under more scrutiny in both Kansas and Missouri. In response to
Shermaine Walker’s story about her son’s brain
infection death, Kansas Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley from Topeka
said the state should consider not renewing the company’s contract when it
comes up in July 2019. Missourinet, an online news
consortium of radio stations, reported in February that some Democrats in the
Missouri Legislature are also having second thoughts about Corizon. They include Missouri Rep. Bruce Franks Jr., who
said Corizon staff misdiagnosed his uncle’s
prostate cancer as ulcers and his uncle died shortly after leaving prison.
Franks didn’t respond to an interview request. Absent public data, it’s hard
to know how Corizon is doing beyond anecdotes —
positive ones provided by the company and negative ones from people like
Walker, Franks and the inmates themselves. In Kansas and Missouri, 283
medical malpractice lawsuits have been filed against Corizon
since 2011, including one brought by Walker that’s still pending. Walker,
from Wichita, says her son broke down physically and mentally, eventually
drinking his own urine, while the infection ate away at him over months in
the Hutchinson Correctional Facility. “It was something to see this happening
and know nobody was helping him,” Walker said. “It was unbelievable.” Corizon has said it sympathizes with Walker, but can’t
release more details about her son’s case because of patient privacy laws.
Harbin, the Corizon spokeswoman, said the number of
suits filed against the company is not high, given that the company’s
employees had millions of patient visits over that time period. “Lawsuits are
a fact of life among doctors in the United States and even more so when you
consider the highly litigious nature of corrections,” Harbin said via email.
“The presence of a lawsuit is not necessarily indicative of any wrongdoing or
the merits of the case, and the statistics bear this out.” Harbin said less
than 10 percent of the concluded suits resulted in any kind of settlement.
The remaining 90 percent resulted in a verdict in Corizon’s
favor, were dismissed, or were administratively closed. Harbin also provided
copies of a dozen praise-filled notes, including one from a Lansing
Correctional Facility inmate who said the Corizon
staff compassionately removed a lump from his shoulder under local anesthesia
and then sent it to a lab for testing and cleaned the wound for 12 days
after. But Russo said the lawsuits represent a small sample of inmate
complaints, because prisoners can’t file suit until they’ve gone through the
corrections department’s grievance process. She said the suits are easy for Corizon to swat down because it’s hard for prisoners to
keep up with paperwork deadlines and court fees unless they get court-appointed
legal counsel. Russo also said even most attorneys don’t understand the
challenge of taking on a health care provider that has control of all of a patients’ health records and can prevent the
patient from seeking a second opinion. “These cases are not straight-line
medical malpractice cases,” Russo said. “They are much more complex.” The
federal suits against the company brought by inmates in Kansas and Missouri
contain a range of complaints, from the common to the bizarre. Multiple suits
claim that Corizon employees classified medical
conditions as “cosmetic” in order to avoid providing care, including one by
Philip Vitello who said staff at the Missouri state prison in St. Joseph
denied him surgery to remove a tumor on his shoulder. Vitello was not
appointed counsel, but a magistrate judge ruled last month that Michael
Toney, a prisoner at the Kansas state prison in El Dorado, should be. He’s
now being represented by a Wichita law firm. Toney’s suit alleges that he
suffered from bloody, painful bowel movements for months while Corizon staff members did nothing but prescribe him an
ineffective hemorrhoid cream. When they finally referred him to a doctor
outside the prison system, that doctor diagnosed him with “rectal fissures”
that would require surgery. By that point Toney said his condition had gotten
so painful that he requested a liquid diet because “to plaintiff, losing 40
pounds is better than passing a solid stool.” But Corizon
still didn’t get him the surgery. Lawrence, the physician and expert witness,
said Toney’s claims sound frighteningly plausible to her. Lawrence spent
three years working for another for-profit prison health care provider in
federal immigration detention centers. She said at one facility an inmate
came to her saying he had been complaining to the nursing staff about his
rectal bleeding for more than a year. “So I did a physical exam and he had a
rock-hard liver due to metastasization,” Lawrence
said. “He had cancer. He had rectal cancer. ... When he pulled up his shirt
you could see the outline of his liver. I had never seen anything like it.”
Lawrence said the nursing staff had not only ignored the man’s complaints,
they had also recorded him exercising in the prison yard, to try and build a
case against him needing care. “They had videotaped him working out and said
‘How can he possibly have terminal cancer?’ Well, people can,” Lawrence said.
“(But) it was the attitude of a lot of providers that they were just
malingering.” The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners must be
provided health care, and Kansas and Missouri, along with many other states,
privatized that responsibility decades ago. But some states take a different
approach. A study published in 2013 by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the
MacArthur Foundation found that when New Jersey and Connecticut contracted
directly with their state university medical centers to provide prison health
care it resulted in improvements in several areas, as well as cost savings
that went back to the states. Harbin said those results haven’t been
duplicated elsewhere. “There is enough evidence of challenges in state and
university-run prison health services (Texas, California) to demonstrate that
these are not superior systems of care,” Harbin said via email. The same Pew
study quoted Viola Riggin, KDOC’s director of
health care services, as saying that Kansas’ system of privatized care backed
up by oversight from the University of Kansas Department of Family Medicine
provides the best of both worlds. “The key is oversight, and our data
collection system allows me to track which inmate did not receive a physical
exam, and if not, why not,” Riggin told Pew and
MacArthur. KDOC did not make Riggin available for
an interview for this story. A KU Medical Center spokeswoman said the center’s
role is to review Corizon’s staffing levels and
staff credentials, check inmate health care grievances that reach the
corrections secretary level and look into all inmate deaths. Missouri used to
have an oversight contract with Jo Riggs, a nursing professor at the
University of Central Missouri. Riggs said her work was initially funded
through a state grant but about three years ago the state dropped the grant
and renegotiated its contract so Corizon would pay
her instead. “I have found that they met or exceeded the performance
expectations on most of the indicators I was measuring,” Riggs said. Riggs
said she’s taking time off from the project in 2018. Harbin said Corizon is looking for a replacement and in the meantime
is still vetted by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, an
accreditation group. Jennings, the chairman of the Kansas House’s corrections
committee, said there’s another step his state could consider to add more
oversight of Corizon. The former head of the
state’s juvenile justice administration, Jennings served on a “corrections
ombudsman’s board” in the 1980s that had the authority to investigate inmate
and prison staff complaints. He said the board was disbanded long ago, but
the legislature could consider bringing it back. “It might be something to
revisit and have a conversation about,” Jennings said.
Feb
8, 2018 cjonline.com
Kansas Senate GOP, Democrats embrace bill limiting privatization at state
prisons
A rare exhibition of Senate bipartisanship Wednesday led to a committee’s
prompt approval of a bill to prohibit outsourcing of personnel management
operations at state prison facilities. Motivation for the change reflected
apprehension about approval of a $362 million contract with CoreCivic, a Tennessee company that builds and operates
private prisons, to construct and maintain for 20 years a new Lansing
Correctional Facility. Under the contract, the Kansas Department of
Corrections would retain supervision of corrections officers, wardens and
other personnel. Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning and Senate Minority
Leader Anthony Hensley co-sponsored Senate Bill 328 to prohibit the private
company from subsequently being granted power to take over personnel
operations at Kansas adult and juvenile facilities. The limitation wouldn’t
apply to contracting for food, medical or consulting services. “The
legislative intent is not to prohibit normal operating services to be
contracted out to the private sector,” said Denning, a Republican from
Overland Park. “Rather, it narrowly prohibits Lansing prison security,
including the supervision of inmates by corrections officers and the warden,
from being privatized.” Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, said the legislation
endorsed by the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee was based on
concern about the record of private prison companies being hit with lawsuits
and complaints. Issues included chronic under-staffing, hiring of unqualified
officers, high turnover and inadequate medical and education programs, he
said. “While we have contracted out the construction of that facility,”
Hensley said, “we need to ensure that the department remains in the business
of managing and operating our own prisons. We should not turn over the
day-to-day operations to a private entity.” No one testified against the
Senate bill, which was approved on a voice vote without the standard 24-hour
delay after a hearing. In January, then-Gov. Sam Brownback and a coalition of
top House and Senate Republicans, including Denning, approved a 20-year, $362
million contract for construction of the new prison at Lansing. Hensley and
another Democrat on the State Finance Council voted against the lease-to-own
contract developed by KDOC and CoreCivic. Lobbyists
with close personal relationships with Brownback were hired by CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of
America, to secure the State Finance Council’s approval. The prison at
Lansing would have 1,900 maximum- and minimum-security beds and 500
minimum-security beds. Introduction of a modern prison is expected to reduce
the number of corrections officers at Lansing from 680 to fewer than 400.
Robert Choromanski, executive director of the
Kansas Organization of State Employees, said the union supported the Senate
bill because it would clearly prohibit outsourcing or privatization of
management operations at state corrections facilities. He said KOSE had many
officers, counselors, maintenance specialists and administrative assistants
who “do a fine job of making the state prison facilities run in a professional
manner under trying circumstances working long hours for little pay.” Cook told MTN News Thursday that he believes the entire $30 million, or
more, could ultimately be used to offset human-service budget cuts that the
administration is preparing to make, to balance the budget. Bullock, however,
said Tuesday he doesn’t see how a new contract would yield any more than $15
million to $17 million, under the law passed by Republicans – and that it’s
just bad business to be pressured into extending a contract that may not be
needed. “I want to make sure when we go forward, as we look at Shelby, that
it is a good deal for Montanans,” he told MTN News. Bullock said his
administration is taking steps to appraise the value of the prison and assess
how it fits into the state prison system, in the coming years. “Without any
sort of an assessment of our needs going forward, without an appraisal to say
what this (prison) is worth – I think it’s premature to say, `Here’s what we
should do with it.’” CoreCivic didn’t respond to a
request for comment, or questions about whether it’s been negotiating with
the governor. Cook said he sees no scenario where the Shelby prison won’t be
needed for years into the future – and that if the governor doesn’t act, the
money will stay with CoreCivic.
Jan 5, 2018 ljworld.com
State Finance Council delays decision on Lansing prison project; questions
over private contractor persist
TOPEKA — Gov. Sam Brownback and top legislative leaders agreed Thursday
to delay for two weeks a decision on whether to approve a 20-year, $300
million contract to build a new prison facility at Lansing. In a meeting of
the State Finance Council, which is made up of the governor and top leaders
from both chambers, Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, R-Overland Park, made
a motion to table the decision until Jan. 18, citing concerns that key
details of the proposed contract still have not been finalized. “I don’t want
to have to ask forgiveness for this,” Denning said, noting other major
contracts that the Legislature has had to fix, including the once-proposed
demolition of the Docking State Office Building. “If I make a bad decision,
then I want to own it. But I don’t want to make a decision today until both
sides have agreed to the lease buy-back agreement, and I’ve had a chance to
look at it.” Denning was referring to a provision in the contract detailing
the terms under which the private prison company selected for the project, CoreCivic, would transfer ownership of the facility back
to the state of Kansas at the end of the lease. The Department of Corrections
is proposing to contract with a private prison company, CoreCivic,
to build the prison and lease it back to the state after 20 years. The state
would still be responsible for staffing and operating the prison, but CoreCivic would be responsible for all maintenance and
repairs during the term of the lease. The plan calls for demolishing the
medium security unit at the prison, which was built in the 1980s, and
building a new facility that would house both medium and maximum security
prisoners, who are now housed in the original prison building that dates back
to the Civil War era. Other members of the committee expressed concerns about
the Department of Corrections’ plans to reduce staffing, including mental
health counselors, once the new, more modern facility is built. Department of
Corrections Secretary Joe Norwood said the project would save the state about
$23 million over the term of the lease, most of which would come from
personnel costs. He said it currently takes 682 full-time equivalent
employees to staff the prison. He said that could be cut to 371 with a new
facility. That’s because the original 1860s-era building, which houses the
maximum security unit, was designed inefficiently by modern standards and
thus requires more correctional officers because they don’t have clear lines
of sight to monitor an entire cell block, Corrections officials have said.
Norwood said with a new, combined facility, his agency could consolidate
things like food service and medical care into a single unit instead of
having separate units at each of the two main buildings. But Sen. Carolyn
McGinn, R-Wichita, who chairs the Senate budget committee, said she was
concerned about cutbacks in other areas, including mental health staff, which
would be reduced from 53 to 35 positions. Meanwhile, House Minority Leader
Jim Ward, D-Wichita, said he was concerned that CoreCivic
has been the target of numerous lawsuits in the past, some having to do with
inadequate staffing at the private prisons the company runs, as well as a
Department of Justice probe into the company’s staffing system. Norwood said
that under the proposed contract, staffing would still be in the hands of the
agency, and the Legislature, which approves the agency’s budget. He added
that the staffing plan is based on National Institute of Corrections
standards and that it had been reviewed by independent corrections experts
from Indiana. “But it’s a similar model, that is that we’re going to be using
technology rather than people, and there were concerns expressed by the
Department of Justice about that model,” Ward said. In the budget bill that
lawmakers passed last year, a provision was inserted giving the Department of
Corrections authority to enter into a lease-purchase contract for a new
facility at Lansing, as long as it was reviewed by the Joint Committee on
State Building Construction and approved by the State Finance Council. But
the plan has been controversial since its inception. A Legislative Post Audit
review last year concluded that the facility could be built at a lower cost
by issuing bonds instead of a lease-purchase agreement. The Department of
Corrections, however, rejected that idea, saying CoreCivic
was able to secure private financing at interest rates competitive with the
going rate for state bonds. In an earlier meeting of the joint building
committee, some members suggested the agency should consider other
communities for the prison, and open up the site selection process to
competitive proposals from different communities, a process the agency has
used in the past when building new prisons. Also at that meeting in November,
the committee voted to recommend that the agency start over by soliciting new
proposals with a wider array of financing options. Norwood, however, said the
agency chose not to follow that recommendation because the joint committee is
only set up as an advisory panel. Brownback said at the end of the meeting
that the Finance Council will meet once more in about a week to receive
answers to questions that lawmakers still have. Then it will meet again Jan.
18 for an up or down vote on the project.
Aug 1, 2017 cjonline.com
State audit contradicts Dept. of Corrections on cost of Lansing
lease-purchase plan
A legislative audit released Monday claims that the Kansas Department of
Corrections missed “key variables” and relied on “inconsistent assumptions”
that tended to favor a more expensive method of replacing the state’s largest
and oldest prison. According to the audit, the Department of Corrections
underestimated the cost of rebuilding Lansing Correctional Facility through a
lease-purchase agreement, a contract that allows a private company to build
the prison and then lease it back to the state until the state purchases it.
That option would likely be scrapped because of the results of the audit,
said J.R. Claeys, a Salina Republican and chair of
the transportation and public safety budget committee. The audit says a
preliminary estimate from KDOC placed the project cost at $140 million over
20 years. The total cost predicted by KDOC was $155 million, but the audit
report contends that it would cost $206 million. Auditors found that the best
option would be for the state to issue bonds to build the prison and contract
with a company for its maintenance. “These results differ from KDOC’s
preliminary estimates, which were missing key variables and used inconsistent
assumptions that tended to favor a lease-purchase option,” the audit says.
KDOC is now in the process of receiving bids to build the prison in response
to a request for proposals that it issued in April, according to the audit.
Bids are due Friday. KDOC Secretary Joe Norwood said in a letter in response
to the audit that the department would accept auditors’ help picking a bidder
to contract with. The audit says the department failed to include in its cost
estimates the final price it would pay to buy back the prison at the end of
the lease, did not adjust prices over time, presented different construction
costs based on the ownership arrangement and left out what auditors found to
be the least expensive option. It said the least expensive option — building
the prison with bond money and contracting its maintenance — would cost $178
million over 20 years. KDOC did not dispute any of the findings of the audit,
according to a summary of the report. Rep. John Barker, an Abilene Republican
and chair of the Legislative Post Audit committee, said he thought the
Department of Corrections was receptive to the findings and that auditors found
costs KDOC overlooked. Rep. Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, said he thought the
department or administration had been leaning toward a lease-purchase option.
In an email, KDOC spokesman Todd Fertig said the
agency was “open to whichever funding option is best for the state.” He said
the real cost of the project would not be known until the state gets bids
from builders.
According to the audit, KDOC has claimed the project would not have a significant
impact on the state’s budget. The audit says the state could find savings by
combining maximum and medium security prisoners into one building and
reducing staff. Savings could also be realized with a more energy-efficient
building than the ones now at Lansing, including one built in the 1860s.
Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, said he was
concerned reduced staffing would lead to more disciplinary problems, like
recent outbreaks at El Dorado Correctional Facility. “That concerns me
because we’ve seen what’s happened in El Dorado, where they’re understaffed,
they’ve had to work double shifts and we’ve had some real security problems
down there among the inmates,” Hensley said. Claeys,
however, said Lansing already requires a higher level of staffing because of
its age. A modern building, he said, would require staffing similar to that
at El Dorado, which is currently understaffed. Rebuilding Lansing, Claeys said, would help prevent uprisings at overcrowded
prisons like El Dorado Correctional Facility, which has seen several
incidents in recent weeks. He said the prison’s population has been rising
without any new space given to inmates, and it faces severe staffing
shortages. “I think having Lansing rebuilt certainly alleviates some of the
pressure on El Dorado,” Claeys said. Claeys said he had a proposal for the coming legislative
session to raise wages for correctional officers to help fill staffing
shortages. “We’re going to do something, and it should be a priority,” Barker
said. Claeys said the Legislature would go with a
plan “that’s the least expensive for taxpayers and gets us the result of a
modern, efficient prison facility at Lansing.” He said a provision included
in the budget lawmakers passed in June would ensure that a plan for the
prison gets approval from the Legislature.
Leavenworth Prison
Leavenworth, Kansas
CCA
Aug
15, 2019 kansaspublicradio.org
Prosecutors
Held in Contempt over Leavenworth Tapings, Judge Will Hear Prisoners' Appeals
Wednesday
A
federal judge is holding the U.S. Attorney's Office in Kansas in contempt in
connection with a burgeoning scandal involving recordings of confidential
conversations between criminal defendants and their attorneys at a federal
detention center in Leavenworth, Kansas. More than 100 people charged with or
convicted of federal crimes could have their cases dropped or prison
sentences reduced based on their claims of prosecutorial misconduct and
violations of the attorney-client privilege. In a 188-page ruling issued
Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson wrote that the U.S. Attorney's
Office disobeyed her previous orders to preserve documents and recordings as
part of an investigation into the recordings. "The elements necessary
for a finding of contempt are clearly met," Robinson concluded.
"The (U.S. Attorney's Office) had knowledge of the... orders yet
disobeyed them." The detention center is run by CoreCivic
(formerly Corrections Corporation of America), one of the country's largest
private prison companies. Defense attorneys and the Federal Public Defender's
Office have alleged CoreCivic made video and audio
recordings — which they say should have been protected by the Sixth Amendment
— available to federal prosecutors. The federal government has tried to pin
the blame on two “rogue” prosecutors, Robinson wrote. But she says there’s
evidence the U.S. Attorney’s Office had a “systematic practice of purposeful
collection, retention and exploitation of calls” made between detainees and
their attorneys. The U.S. Attorney's Office at first denied it had accessed
any of the recordings. Later it said prosecutors had only accessed some. And
throughout the proceedings, the office has denied it ever violated the Sixth
Amendment. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not immediately
wish to comment on the ruling. As punishment for the contempt finding, the
U.S. Department of Justice will be forced to pay costs incurred by the office
of Federal Public Defender Melody Brannon while litigating the case over the past
three years. Those costs have yet to be determined. Brannon declined to
comment for this story. Robinson, herself a former prosecutor in the troubled
U.S. Attorney's Office, also agreed to hear petitions for a writ of habeas
corpus filed by the 110 — and counting — prisoners who claim their Sixth
Amendment rights were violated. Robinson’s ruling was issued in a criminal
case that stems from a 2016 indictment as part of an investigation into
alleged drug and contraband trafficking at the Leavenworth Detention Center.
Six people were initially indicted, but prosecutors have said they suspect
more than 150 people inside and outside the facility were involved. As part
of their investigation, prosecutors issued a grand jury subpoena to obtain
voluminous recordings from more than 100 video cameras inside the facility.
They also obtained more than 48,000 phone calls made by prisoners. While a
more targeted request may have been legitimate, the judge said, prosecutors
knew that they would be given recordings from cameras in five out of the
facility’s nine rooms designated for attorney-client meetings. And while the
U.S. Attorney’s Office has said it only received attorney-client phone calls
because they were “commingled” with other calls, the judge again said prosecutors
should have known some of the calls would involve attorneys, and the
government did not take steps to protect them. Robinson estimated more than
700 attorney-client visits were recorded inside the facility. The videos do
not include audio of the meetings, but Robinson wrote that the recordings can
still be valuable to prosecutors. For example, in one specific case, Robinson
wrote that prosecutors “valued knowing whether there was a document exchange
between” between a client and his attorney. Other information, such as
knowing whether a defendant is angry, talking to their attorney through an
interpreter, or talking to their attorney at all, could be valuable clues for
prosecutors engaged in plea negotiations or pre-trial strategy, the judge
noted. The government has also claimed the inmates should have known their
calls were being recorded, but Robinson rejected that claim. The phones,
operated by a third party for CoreCivic, included a
warning at the start of every phone call that calls may be recorded or
monitored. The company had a “privatization” process whereby attorneys could
file paperwork to have phone calls made to them excluded from recordings. But
CoreCivic “misled” detainees about the process, the
judge said, and the company sometimes recorded attorney-client phone calls
even after attorneys had completed the process to privatize their phone
calls. “Detainees and defense attorneys were provided with incorrect,
misleading, and inconsistent information about how to accomplish a
confidential phone call at (the facility),” Robinson wrote. “Scores of
defense counsel who testified or submitted affidavits in this case stated
that they were unaware that their conversations… were being recorded.” In
total, more than 1,000 phone calls between public defenders and their clients
were recorded. The Federal Public Defender’s Office had asked that more than
100 defendants whose attorney-client communications were breached be
dismissed. Alternatively, the office asked for a 50% reduction in sentences
for all affected clients. Robinson, however, wrote that she “reluctantly
agrees” with the government’s claim that she shouldn’t make a blanket ruling
on Sixth Amendment violations that covers every case. Instead, the judge
plans to “triage” the cases. She will consolidate them for the purposes of
discovery, so the Federal Public Defender’s Office can seek more documents
and records from prosecutors. Then Robinson will issue rulings on a
case-by-case basis. At least one person has already been released from prison
in connection with recordings at the Leavenworth facility. Michelle Reulet, of Montgomery, Texas, was freed last year after
being sentenced in 2017 to five years in prison for mail fraud. Former Kansas
Solicitor General Stephen McAllister, who was appointed to head the office in
January 2018, previously indicated he was willing to work out an agreement to
reduce the sentences of inmates whose communications with their attorneys
were recorded. Two months later, however, McAllister’s boss at the Justice Department,
then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, nixed the proposal, saying that
blanket reductions of inmates’ sentences were out of the question.
Nov 9, 2018 kansascity.com
Inmate in Kansas jail says prisoners weren’t allowed to vote, and now
she’s suing
A privately-run jail in Leavenworth is accused in a lawsuit of
systematically denying prisoners their constitutional right to vote. The suit
was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Kansas by a woman who was being
detained at the federal Leavenworth Detention Center during the November 2016
general election. While convicted felons lose the right to vote, Brenda Wood
did not fall in that category. She was awaiting trial and was otherwise an
eligible voter, according to her suit, which also seeks class action status
to include others in the same situation. Of the hundreds of prisoners held
there at any one time, the majority are not convicted felons, according to
the suit. Wood had been detained at the facility, operated by CoreCivic, formerly known as the Corrections Corporation
of America, since late November 2014, and had just voted in the general
election that month. CoreCivic is contracted by the
U.S. Marshals Service to run the jail, and most of its inmates are defendants
facing trial on federal criminal charges. According to the suit, the inmate
handbook provided to all new detainees did not provide any information about
how to vote. “Indeed, the only reference to ‘voting’ provided to detainees at
CCA-Leavenworth is an instruction in the inmate handbook on how to vote for
television programs to watch on facility TVs,” the lawsuit alleges. When Wood
contacted staff and asked for help in obtaining an advance ballot to vote,
she alleges, she was told, “We don’t do that here.” She said that several
other follow-up requests she made were also denied. And her experience was
not unique, according to the suit. “Detainees at CCA-Leavenworth would
routinely ask for access to vote or for help obtaining an advance ballot, and
such requests were routinely denied,” the suit alleges. “Indeed, defendants’
voter suppression was a common grievance discussed in the population of
detainees.” According to the suit, the Leavenworth County Election Office has
never received a request from the facility for an absentee ballot. The suit
maintains that there are potentially hundreds of other detainees that the
suit could apply to, who at the time were: U.S. citizens; Kansas residents;
18 or older; not serving sentences for felony convictions; registered voters
or people who had been denied the chance to register; and had not voted
previously in the 2016 election. Jail inmates around the country have filed
similar lawsuits, and Wood’s suit cites previous U.S. Supreme Court cases
that upheld the rights of eligible voters in jail at the time of an election.
“In decision after decision, this court has made clear that a citizen has a
constitutionally protected right to participate in elections on an equal
basis with other citizens in the jurisdiction,” according to a 1972 Supreme Court
opinion. Wood’s lawsuit seeks monetary damages as a result of the alleged
constitutional violations. A lawsuit similar to Wood’s, also seeking monetary
compensation, was filed in 2017 by inmates at a county jail in Indiana at the
time of the 2016 election. The federal judge presiding over that case ruled
in May that the suit could go forward as a class action representing several
hundred inmates at the jail at the time of the 2016 election.
Oct 24, 2018 kansascity.com
Woman freed from prison on revelations in Leavenworth prison phone call
investigation
A federal judge in Kansas City, Kan., has ordered a woman’s early release
from prison after learning that a former prosecutor listened to phone calls
between the woman and her lawyer. Because of that possible violation of her
constitutional rights, Michelle Reulet was released
Monday from the federal prison where she was serving a 5-year sentence. She
was not scheduled to be released until September 2020. The revelation of the
former prosecutor’s actions came earlier this month during a court hearing
concerning the recording and dissemination of attorney-client phone calls at
the privately-run Leavenworth Detention Center. Testimony that the former
prosecutor who handled Reulet’s case had listened
to the calls prompted her attorneys and the U.S. attorney’s office to jointly
ask that she be re-sentenced to time served and released. “The facts revealed
during the hearings were not previously known to the leadership of the U.S.
Attorney’s Office,” U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said in a written
statement released Monday. “In light of those facts, and given the relatively
short time remaining on Ms. Reulet’s sentence, we
believed the best choice to serve the ends of justice was not to oppose the
public defender’s motion to amend Ms. Reulet’s
sentence to time served.” Reulet, 37, a Texas
resident, was prosecuted in Kansas on drug, money laundering and mail fraud
charges. She pleaded guilty to mail fraud and was sentenced in May 2017 to
the five-year prison term. The recorded conversations with her attorney
occurred while she was held at the Leavenworth facility run by CoreCivic, formerly called the Corrections Corporation of
America. She is one of potentially dozens of defendants whose cases could be
affected by the court case now pending before a federal judge in Kansas City,
Kan. Defense attorneys allege that prosecutors engaged in a widespread
practice of obtaining recordings of attorney-client phone calls in violation
of their clients’ constitutional rights. Federal prosecutors dispute that
contention, with the exception of what they call a few isolated instances
such as what happened in Reulet’s case. Litigation
over the recordings has been going on for years. In 2017, a federal
prosecutor left the U.S. attorney’s office after admitting that she also had
listened to recordings of attorney-client phone calls. U.S. District Judge
Julie Robinson heard nearly two weeks of testimony this month and has
scheduled an additional hearing in November.
Sep 13, 2018 huffingtonpost.com
Muslim Inmate Claims Kansas Prison Officers Harassed Her Over Headscarf
A Muslim inmate said she has been tormented for months by guards at a
Kansas prison over her decision to wear a religious headscarf, a Muslim civil
rights group stated Wednesday. Valeriece Ealom, a 49-year-old Muslim woman, said correctional
officers at the Leavenworth Detention Center (LDC) called her headscarf a
“rag” and ordered her to remove it if she wanted to leave her cell. When she
filed complaints with prison management about her treatment, officials failed
to take any significant corrective action, according to the national legal
advocacy group Muslim Advocates. “The actions that have taken place in the
Leavenworth Detention Center are in clear violation of federal law,” Nimra Azmi, a staff attorney for Muslim Advocates, said
in a statement. The LDC is a U.S. Marshals Service facility that is run by CoreCivic, one of America’s largest private prison
operators. Muslim Advocates has sent a letter about Ealom’s
alleged mistreatment to the Department of Justice, the U.S. Marshals Service
and CoreCivic officials. The LDC, a maximum
security facility, has come under increased scrutiny after a Justice
Department audit last year found evidence of understaffing, security problems
and deceptive practices there. The LDC has also been accused of recording
phone calls between prisoners and their lawyers. Ealom
has been at the LDC since November 2017, when prosecutors revoked her parole
in a drug case, The Kansas City Star reported. She informed the facility of
her desire to wear a headscarf, and an LDC chaplain provided her with two
headscarves to wear. After she started covering her hair, she claimed, three
corrections officers started to harass her ― insisting that she remove
the “rag” or face discipline. According to Muslim Advocates, the harassment
escalated after Ealom notified prison management
about the officers’ actions. One day in January, two officers reportedly
refused to let her leave her cell to receive her daily medications while
wearing her headscarf. One officer threatened to put her in solitary
confinement and said that “any grievance she filed would be shredded,” the
Muslim Advocates letter stated. In subsequent incidents, the group claimed, a
third officer confiscated Ealom’s headscarf on the
pretext that it was “contraband” and “belligerently” interrupted her during
prayers. She also claimed that at one point she was locked in her cell and
told that “because [she is] Muslim, [she] had to stay in her cell and pray.”
Muslim Advocates said Ealom repeatedly informed LDC
management about the officers’ actions. In February she tried to file a
federal civil lawsuit about the matter, without a lawyer. The judge, finding
that she didn’t provide enough information, dismissed her suit in June, The
Kansas City Star reported. The LDC’s management has refused to properly
address the situation, Muslim Advocates claimed. The group alleged that CoreCivic’s employees have violated federal law by
infringing on Ealom’s right to practice her faith.
The group also faulted the U.S. Marshals Service for failing to ensure that CoreCivic is meeting federal detention standards.
“Despite being aware of the officers’ bigoted and discriminatory conduct,
LDC’s management has not taken any meaningful steps to address the
situation,” Muslim Advocates wrote in its letter. “In fact, by refusing to
take any corrective action, LDC’s management has only blessed further
wrongdoing.” CoreCivic responded to the letter by
stating, “We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, and cultural and
ethnic sensitivity education is part of every employee’s training.” “CoreCivic cares deeply about every person in our care,
and we work hard to ensure those in our facility are treated respectfully and
humanely,” Amanda Gilchrist, the company’s public affairs director, told
HuffPost in an email. She declined to comment about any of the specific
assertions Ealom made about the officers’ conduct
or to say whether the employees involved were disciplined in any way. Gilchrist
said the facility has a “robust grievance process” for inmates to raise
concerns. “Ms. Ealom has availed herself of those
mechanisms on several occasions, and the facility has responded and continues
to respond appropriately,” Gilchrist wrote. “Both the facility Chaplain and
Warden have provided assistance to Ms. Ealom with
regard to her religious head gear, and will continue to address any concerns
she raises promptly.” A representative for the U.S. Marshals Service did not
respond to HuffPost’s request for comment. A spokesman for the agency told
The Associated Press that it is looking into the allegations. Muslim
Advocates is insisting that the LDC take steps to train, supervise and
discipline the corrections officers involved in Ealom’s
alleged mistreatment. “We ask that CoreCivic and
USMS take immediate measures to address the pattern of religious
discrimination at LDC and ensure that Ms. Ealom and
other Muslim women housed in CoreCivic and U.S.
Marshal facilities around the country can practice their faith without fear
of harassment or retaliation,” the group stated.
Jul 27, 2018 kansascity.com
Lawsuit: Former Leavenworth
prison guard filed complaints, threatened with dead rat
A former corrections officer
at a privately run prison in Leavenworth has filed suit saying that he was
the victim of threats and intimidation after being labeled a snitch and a rat
by his co-workers. The suit, filed Wednesday in federal court, alleges that
Michael G. Baldwin was also retaliated against by officials at the CoreCivic facility after reporting wage and compensation
concerns to the Department of Labor. Baldwin went on leave and was ultimately
discharged from his job. CoreCivic, formerly known
as Corrections Corporation of America, contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service
to house pretrial federal detainees. Baldwin started working as a corrections
officer in 2009. In 2013, he filed an internal grievance about wage and
benefits issues. As a result, the suit contends he was moved to a less
desirable position. In 2014, he took those wage concerns to the Department of
Labor. He was subsequently denied promotion. In 2015, the Department of Labor
fined CoreCivic “several hundred thousand dollars”
after investigating Baldwin’s complaint. The same day the ruling came down, the
warden “berated” Baldwin in front of other employees and told them the
facility might close if there were more complaints, the suit alleges. His
co-workers began calling Baldwin a rat, and new employees were told not to
trust him, according to the suit. In 2016, he reported that another employee
was stealing equipment. And when other employees learned what he had done,
the threats increased. Baldwin was allegedly warned not to go to a company
holiday party because “snitches end up in ditches.” At one point, a dead rat
was left on the roof of his vehicle, and he learned that his co-workers had
offered $100 to any prisoner who “shanked” Baldwin, the suit maintains.
Baldwin feared for his life and went on leave for anxiety, according to the
lawsuit. A few months later, in March 2017, he was “constructively
discharged” from his job. The suit seeks an unspecified amount in damages. CoreCivic is also facing several other cases. The company
is the focus of ongoing legal action over the taping of phone calls between
prisoners and their lawyers and allegations that they were shared with
prosecutors. That case arose out of another case involving contraband being
smuggled into the facility that resulted in criminal charges being filed
against several people. Baldwin’s suit is the second filed this week against CoreCivic by a former employee. Leslie West, a unit
manager, alleges in her federal lawsuit that her complaints about
understaffing that risked the safety of employees and inmates led to her
being fired. She was also forced to take a polygraph test during the
contraband smuggling investigation, which, the suit contends, was a violation
of federal labor law. Officials with CoreCivic said
Thursday they do not comment on pending litigation.
Jun
11, 2018 kansascity.com
Why were private attorney-client calls recorded? Now, Kansas inmates could
go free
One of the nation’s largest private prison operators has some serious
explaining to do. What was it doing recording private conversation between
attorneys and their incarcerated clients at the Leavenworth Detention Center?
After all, attorney-client privilege is supposed to be one of the bedrock
principles of America’s legal system. Clients should be able to talk to their
lawyers — confidentially — about their cases. That way, the attorney can
provide the best possible legal representation. And here’s a question for the
U.S. attorney’s office of Kansas: Why did some of its attorneys listen to
those supposedly private conversations? Certainly the lawyers knew that such
conversations were off-limits and that they had no business eavesdropping on
them. But how often did it happen? Those questions are among many that need
answering following what amounts to a shocking breach of constitutional
norms. Between 2011 and 2013, the detention center’s operator, CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of
America, recorded at least 1,338 phone calls — and possibly thousands more —
that detainees placed to their public defender attorneys, according to KCUR.
And we know now that prosecutors listened to some of those recordings. What’s
at stake? A whole lot. Lawsuits have been filed. The possibility now exists
that dozens of criminal cases impacted by the breach of confidentiality could
be tossed out. Inmates at some of CoreCivic’s 129
other facilities around the country may wonder if prison officials have taped
their conversations. After all, Barry Pollack, president of the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, has told The Star that the recording
of attorney-client conversations is a widespread problem at private prisons,
which are not bound by Federal Bureau of Prisons prohibitions against it.
Then there’s the lingering damage that this case leaves behind. How can
defense attorneys gain the trust of their often destitute clients at a
facility like the one in Leavenworth when those clients suspect that their
conversations are being recorded? If all this raises questions about the
efficacy of private prisons, it should. But that’s an issue for another day.
This entire episode stems from a contraband investigation at the Leavenworth
facility. What’s especially disconcerting is that even after numerous news
stories about this issue and the appointment of a special master in October
2016 to look into this matter, a resolution has proven elusive. At one point,
the U.S. attorney’s office sent a letter to special master David Cohen
refusing any further cooperation with his investigation. Then last month, an
assistant U.S. attorney declined when asked 85 times to say whether federal
prosecutors improperly listened in on attorney-client phone calls. In May,
the new U.S. attorney for Kansas, Stephen McAllister, indicated his office is
prepared to work out an agreement with the public defender’s office. That’s
good news. Ironically, his announcement came midway through a hearing in
which the the public defender’s office asked the
judge to find McAllister’s office in contempt after it ceased cooperating
with the special master. CoreCivic declined
comment. So did McAllister’s office. But this situation desperately needs
resolution, and tensions between the federal public defender’s office and the
U.S. attorney must be tempered. CoreCivic, which
court records show has cooperated with this investigation, needs to ensure
everyone that its operations safeguard those critical conversations between
attorneys and their clients. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
demands no less.
Jun 28, 2017 kansascity.com
Federal prosecutor leaves after revealing she listened to Leavenworth prison
phone calls
A federal prosecutor at the center of an investigation at Leavenworth
Detention Center has left the U.S. attorney’s office, days after she revealed
that she had listened to attorney-client phone calls at the prison, contrary
to her previous statements in court. Erin Tomasic
had been a special assistant prosecutor in Kansas City, Kan., and came under
increasing scrutiny in recent months as a federal judge ordered an
investigation into whether law enforcement officials used prison recordings
of inmates talking with their attorneys — conversations that are protected by
law. Federal prosecutors notified a judge on May 16 that Tomasic
no longer works for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas.
That came six days after Tomasic told her
supervisor she had listened to the recorded phone conversations of two
Leavenworth Detention Center inmates and their attorneys, according to court
documents filed June 19 by the U.S. attorney’s office. Those court filings,
signed by U.S. Attorney Tom Beall and two assistant U.S. attorneys, say they
are meant to correct statements by Tomasic that
“may be deemed misleading.” The prosecutors describe in the documents how Tomasic told a federal judge in September — and for
months allowed fellow prosecutors to believe — that law enforcement had not
listened to recorded inmate-attorney phone calls obtained by prosecutors
investigating contraband at the prison. In fact, as Tomasic
later revealed, she had listened to some of the recordings two months
earlier. “Tomasic expressed remorse for having
listened to the defendant’s calls,” the federal prosecutors wrote. “And for
not revealing this action sooner.” Days after Tomasic
left her job, U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson ordered a wider
investigation into the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas City, Kan., citing an
ongoing problem with prosecutors’ “inconsistent, inaccurate or misleading
statements.” Robinson found that government officials had destroyed “critical
evidence” at an earlier stage of the investigation. Last year, Robinson had
complained that Tomasic entered the judge’s
chambers after hours, without authority, after having delivered evidence in
the investigation to Robinson’s office earlier in the day. A spokesman for
the U.S. attorney’s office confirmed that Tomasic
no longer worked for the office but declined to answer questions. Tomasic could not be reached for comment. The prison
recordings probe stemmed from an earlier criminal investigation of contraband
in the privately-run prison, which is operated under contract for the U.S.
Marshals Service by CoreCivic Inc. — formerly known
as Corrections Corp. of America. Many of the people held at the prison are
defendants awaiting trial and have not yet been convicted. Prosecutors
pursuing the contraband case collected hundreds of recordings of inmates
speaking with their attorneys, both on video and on the phone. Defense
attorneys protested that those conversations are protected by the Sixth
Amendment and attorney-client privilege, and that the prison had offered
repeated assurances that they would be private. Two Kansas City-area
attorneys, Adam Crane and David Johnson, have sued CoreCivic
and the prison’s telephone provider, Securus Technologies, accusing the firms
of violating state wiretap laws by recording their conversations with
clients. Barry Pollack, president of the National Association of Criminal
Defense Lawyers, said the recording of attorney-client conversations is a
widespread problem at private prisons, which are not bound by Federal Bureau
of Prisons prohibitions against it. Examples of a federal prosecutor actually
listening to or using the recordings, he said, are more
rare. “That is, to me, far more troubling,” Pollack said. “It goes to
the very reason those conversations are protected.” A court-appointed special
master investigating the recordings reported that 188 attorney-client phone
calls had been obtained from the prison by law enforcement, including 54
marked “private” that should not have been available. For months, Tomasic and other prosecutors maintained that they took
measures to avoid listening to those calls. But in the court documents filed
last week, federal prosecutors say Tomasic in July
listened to multiple recordings of phone calls between Juan Herrera-Zamora, a
man held at Leavenworth while facing drug charges, and his attorney. Two
months later, she listened to a recording of another inmate, Ashley Huff,
speaking with her attorney. When Herrera-Zamora’s attorney asked prosecutors
if they had listened to his calls, the prosecutors said they had not. Beall
and the other prosecutors wrote that they believed it was true, and Tomasic did not correct them. Herrera-Zamora’s attorneys
filed motions challenging his conviction, alleging that prosecutors had used
the recordings against him. For Tomasic to listen
to the calls would run contrary to the U.S. attorney’s office’s stated
practice of having officials unrelated to the case screen the calls to “avoid
any appearance of impropriety.” When a judge in September asked Tomasic if inmates had been notified of the recordings,
she did not mention listening to the calls of Herrera-Zamora or Huff. Tomasic said attorney-client calls had only been accessed
in a few accidental instances, and that agents had stopped listening within
10 or 15 seconds. Then, on May 10, Tomasic informed
a supervisor that she had listened to the two inmates’ calls. In a May 16
court hearing, the supervisor replaced Tomasic in
court and told the judge that Tomasic no longer
worked for the U.S. attorney’s office. Federal Public Defender Melody Brannon
has pushed for the court to investigate further Tomasic’s
after-hours entry into the judge’s chambers. In a motion seeking more
investigation, Brannon wrote that a May 23 letter Tomasic
sent to the court “raises serious factual disputes” with earlier accounts of
the incident and carries implications for “the veracity of key players in
this litigation.” That request is still pending with the court, and the
investigation by the special master continues.
Apr 26, 2017 washingtonexaminer.com
DOJ inspector general: Privately run federal prison poses safety risks for
inmates, prisoners
A new report by the Department of Justice's Inspector General says a
privately-run federal prison in Kansas put the safety of its inmates in
jeopardy because of understaffing, overcrowding and poor training. The facility in question — The Leavenworth
Detention Center — is a 1,200 bed maximum-security facility is run by CoreCivic, under a contract reached with the U.S.
Marshals Service. "[I]n our judgment, the [U.S. Marshal Service's] lack
of effective continuous monitoring at the [Leavenworth prison] presents risks
that may extend throughout all its other contract detention facilities,"
the audit said. The audit made 24 recommendations for the facility after the
review, which took place between 2010 and 2015. One of the biggest issues was
the lack of correctional officer vacancies. At times, 23 percent of guard
positions remained vacant. "These correctional officer vacancies led to
several problems in 2015, including the LDC's long-term use of mandatory
overtime, which LDC personnel said led to lower morale, security concerns,
and fewer correctional officers available to escort medical staff and
detainees to and from the health services unit," the audit said. Another
discovery was the U.S. Marshal's decision to not punish CoreCivic
for failing to uphold terms of the deal on run the facility. In 2007, the
U.S. Marshals agreed to a 5-year contract with CoreCivic
that included three 5-year option periods at a cost of $697 million.
According to the audit, the federal government failed to explain why it
entered into a sole-source contract with CoreCivic,
and how it reached those numbers. CoreCivic
responded to the recommendations by saying it agreed with all of them. But it
also said it has made safety a priority. "CoreCivic
provides a diverse range of government solutions and has worked in close
partnership with the [Marhsals at Leavenworth] for
over 26 years, supporting the [Marshals'] needs to securely and safely house
individuals criminally charged with violating federal laws," reads a
portion of the CoreCivic response. "In doing
so, the safety and security of our facility, staff and those entrusted to our
care has consistently been our top priority." In February, CoreCivic announced its 2016 revenue was $1.85 billion, a
growth of $6 million from 2015. CoreCivic, which is
the fifth largest corrections company in the nation and one of the major
private prison companies, has been boosted by the election of President
Trump. Former President Barack Obama announced his Justice Department would
phase out its contracts with private prisons, a move that was reversed in
February by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Feb 15, 2017 cjonline.com
Federal prison in Kansas recorded hundreds of attorney-inmate meetings,
court investigator finds
A privately run federal prison in Kansas recorded video of hundreds of
meetings between inmates and their attorneys, a court-led investigation has
found after defense lawyers first raised concerns months ago about possible
violations of client privilege. The detention center in Leavenworth, operated
by Corrections Corporation of America, possessed video recordings of all
attorney-inmate meetings reviewed by the court investigator, who examined 30
randomly chosen visits that took place in spring 2016 and concluded hundreds
were recorded. The extent of the recordings hasn’t been previously disclosed.
Leavenworth CCA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas have been at the
heart of a monthslong drama in the region’s legal
community over recordings of attorney-inmate meetings at the prison, as well
as recordings of attorney-inmate phone calls. The ability of lawyers to meet
with clients privately is a bedrock principle of the American legal system,
and this fall, a federal judge named a special master to investigate. Defense
attorneys first raised concerns last summer over video recording of meetings
with their clients. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is prosecuting a handful of
inmates, accusing them of engaging in an elaborate smuggling ring within the
prison. The inmates’ attorneys put forward evidence that meetings had been
recorded and have since provided evidence that inmate phone calls with
attorneys also were recorded, even when attorneys had requested their numbers
be blocked from recordings. The special master, David Cohen, told Judge Julie
Robinson last month that while reviewing all of the video from all rooms
where attorney meetings took place would prove prohibitive, he reviewed a
smaller sample of meetings to determine that every meeting that took place in
a room with a camera was recorded. The attorney visitor logs for the 12-week
period last year where recordings occurred showed more than 700 attorney
visits to rooms equipped with cameras, Cohen wrote in a filing. “It appears
all of these attorney-inmate meetings were recorded,” Cohen said. “Of course,
this analysis does not address whether any person ever viewed these
recordings.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office obtained the video and, while
acknowledging missteps, has denied suggestions of impropriety. The U.S.
Attorney’s Office has said “no employee of the United States Attorney’s
Office or law enforcement officer” has viewed any recording provided by CCA.
“I made a very serious mistake … but I want the court to know I did not
intend to gain that footage,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Tomasic said in September. Parallel to the video
recordings, Cohen also has been investigating the extent of attorney-inmate
phone recordings at the Leavenworth facility. In December, Cohen reported he
had analyzed 48,333 telephone audio files from the facility and that a little
more than 200 of those calls were made to a known attorney number. In a
follow-up report, Cohen said the more than 48,000 recorded phone calls came
from about 1,400 numbers involving 58 inmates. CCA uses the prison technology
company Securus to operate its phone system. Securus has said Leavenworth CCA
was responsible for designating attorney numbers as private, nonrecorded
numbers. The company acknowledged allegations have been made in other places
in the past regarding recording but said it rechecks its system each time and
has always found it works properly. Melody Brannon, the federal public
defender for Kansas, said Cohen’s findings exposed unanswered questions. She
urges Robinson to expand the special master’s authority. “Specifically, the
defense asks the special master to determine the policy and practice of the
Kansas (U.S. Attorney’s Office) in obtaining, reviewing and disseminating
attorney-client communications, regardless of whether the USAO classified the
communication as privileged or not,” Brannon said in a January court filing.
She added the special master should also identify cases where the material
was used and “mark the possible constitutional, statutory and ethical
implications.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office is fighting the public defender’s
request for additional power for the special master. Assistant U.S. Attorney
Debra Barnett argues Brannon hasn’t offered any evidence warranting an
expanded investigation. Barnett has said prosecutors didn’t anticipate
receiving recorded attorney-client calls from the facility during their
investigations. Prosecutors had “no intent or desire” to obtain
attorney-client calls, she has said, adding they weren’t used by prosecutors.
“When discoveries of these calls occurred, appropriate steps were taken by
the United States,” Barnett said in a January filing. “Despite everything
that has occurred in this case, the United States has not sought to hide the
discovery of these calls, and would not do so.” Prosecutors also argue the
phone recordings aren’t privileged because the facility warned inmates their
calls may be recorded. By continuing their calls and not taking steps to have
calls with attorneys exempt from surveillance, the inmates waived their right
to keep the conversations from being monitored, they argue. Depending on how
far Robinson allows Cohen to go, the outcome of his investigation holds
potentially significant consequences in ongoing cases. Only a handful of
people have been charged in the Leavenworth smuggling investigation, but
prosecutors indicate they believe upwards of 90 inmates may be involved, as
well as a number of workers. The current controversy is also drawing attention
to Securus, which has faced scrutiny in other places over attorney-client
recordings. A Kansas and Missouri attorney filed a federal lawsuit against
CCA and Securus in January. They argue Securus and CCA record confidential
attorney-client communications, despite no legitimate reason to record.
Attorneys have sued Securus before. The company settled a 2014 lawsuit in
Texas, agreeing to provide additional safeguards. The settlement required
implementation of a system to allow attorneys to register their phone numbers
on a “do not record” list for calls with clients.
Jan 6, 2017 kmuw.org
Controversy Over Attorney-Client Recordings At Leavenworth Continues
The Kansas Federal Public Defender says federal prosecutors have failed to
turn over all attorney-client phone calls that were recorded at the pretrial
detention center in Leavenworth to a special master looking into their
legality. In a court filing Wednesday, the public defender identified
recorded calls to at least two attorneys that were not disclosed by
prosecutors. “The Special Master should be given authority to determine why
these telephone calls were not included in the material provided by the
government, and whether there are still recorded calls in the USAO (U.S.
Attorney’s office) possession or knowledge that should have been disclosed,”
the filing states. In October, U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson appointed
David Cohen, a Cleveland attorney, as special master to investigate whether,
and to what extent, the pretrial detention facility had turned over
privileged video and audio recordings of attorney-client meetings to the U.S.
Attorney’s office in Kansas. The issue arose as part of a wide-ranging
criminal case in which inmates and corrections officers at the facility have
been charged with distributing drugs and other contraband within its walls.
Initially, six defendants, including two inmates, were charged. In its filing
Wednesday, the public defender says the government has since identified 95
additional detainees who may be subject to indictment. The underlying
criminal case, however, has largely been overshadowed by the revelations last
summer that the private operator of the facility, Corrections Corporation of
America (CCA), had been recording attorney-client phone calls and meetings and,
in some cases, turning the recordings over to prosecutors in the U.S.
Attorney’s office in Kansas City, Kansas. In a report last month, Cohen
identified 229 recorded calls made to known attorney phone numbers. The
public defender now says that some recorded calls were not identified by
Cohen because prosecutors had failed to turn them over to him. A spokesman
for the U.S. Attorney’s office did not return a call seeking comment. Lawyers
with the Federal Public Defender could not be reached for comment. Cohen,
reached at his Cleveland office, said he did not know why the government
might not have produced some recordings. “I don’t think one of those reasons
is that it’s in the court’s vault and I didn’t come across it. I don’t think
it’s because I didn’t see something that’s there,” he said. “What that reason
is could be any number of things. I just don’t know.” The public defender and
U.S. Attorney’s office have been at odds since the initial revelations of the
tapings. That mutual antagonism has spilled over into a dispute over the
scope of Cohen’s investigation. The public defender wants him to examine
whether CCA routinely recorded attorney-client meetings and turned them over
to the government. The U.S. Attorney wants Cohen’s investigation limited to editing
out and retaining privileged attorney-client matters. The public defender’s
suspicions have been heightened by what it says are other discrepancies in
the government’s production of information to Cohen. For example, it says,
the government told the court in August that it was unaware CCA had recorded,
and not simply monitored, attorney-client meetings. Yet two weeks later, it
says, the government told the court that it had obtained 18 terabytes of
surveillance footage from CCA, including recordings of attorney-client
meeting rooms.
Sep 8, 2016 kansascity.com
Recorded prison videos are ‘horrendous situation,’ judge says
federal judge in Kansas City, Kan., said Wednesday she will give wide
latitude to an investigation into recordings of phone calls and video of
meetings between attorneys and inmates at Leavenworth Detention Center.
Defense attorneys representing inmates at the privately-run federal prison
objected when they learned last month that their meetings with clients had
been recorded. Such conversations are privileged by law, and the prison had
offered repeated assurances that they would be private. On Wednesday, U.S.
District Judge Julie Robinson questioned federal prosecutors about recordings
they had obtained from the prison during a contraband investigation. Robinson
said a special investigation into the case would seek any violations of
prisoners’ Sixth Amendment rights and could end in sanctions against the
Kansas U.S. attorney’s office or dismissal of the contraband case. The judge
scolded prosecutors for rushing forward with the case, which she called a
“horrendous situation.” “You all need to get your act together,” Robinson
said. Prosecutors said they obtained the recordings inadvertently while
gathering evidence of a contraband ring at the prison that could involve as
many as 95 inmates and 60 others. Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Tomasic said she was overwhelmed with the amount of
material and made mistakes. A grand jury subpoena for all surveillance video
at the prison produced some footage of meetings between attorneys and
clients. Dozens of phone calls between attorneys and their clients were
mistakenly provided to other lawyers in the case. “It was messy,” Tomasic said. “I know I’ve learned a lot from this and I
think everyone in our office has.” A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office
said prosecutors did not believe any criminal defendants would be harmed by
the recordings. But the judge said it appeared some inmates’ rights had been
violated. The federal Bureau of Prisons forbids recording in attorney-client
meeting rooms. But the company that runs the Leavenworth prison, Corrections
Corporation of America, insists that silent video recordings of
inmate-attorney meetings “are a standard practice” throughout the country and
are used for prison security. Last month, Robinson ordered the recordings
stopped. Inmate phone calls are recorded in the prison, which offers
attorneys a system to request that recording be disabled for them. But one
defense attorney wrote to the court Tuesday that calls between himself and a
client in Leavenworth had been recorded despite multiple requests that the
recording be stopped and assurances from prison officials that it had been.
The case is symptomatic of a failure to respect attorney-client privilege in
prisons and jails across the country, said Barry Pollack, president of the
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Several Kansas and Missouri
jails have acknowledged recording attorney-client meetings. Like
privately-run facilities, they are not bound by Bureau of Prisons rules.
“What I think is particularly troubling about it,” Pollack said of the
Leavenworth case, “is you have a failure on the part of the institution that
is recording something that it shouldn’t be. Here, they turned it over to the
prosecutors.” “Anyone facing prison time needs legal counsel,” he continued.
“And essentially, they aren’t getting it.”
After setting the course of the investigation, Robinson said she had
recently been “troubled” to learn that her staff had discovered the
prosecutor Tomasic in her chambers after hours,
soon after a large package of evidence had been stored in the judge’s office.
Prosecutors said Tomasic was only dropping off
another piece of evidence, and had been let in by a U.S. marshal. The U.S.
attorney and the marshal apologized. But Robinson said she was not fully
convinced by the explanation. “It just doesn’t make sense to me. It boggles
my mind,” she said. The judge said all evidence will be locked in a vault.
Robinson said she planned to order the U.S. Department of Justice to pay for
the investigation, which is expected to cost hundreds of thousands of
dollars.
Aug 17, 2016 salinapost.com
Judge to appoint special
master to probe Kan. jailhouse recordings
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A federal
judge in Kansas has agreed to appoint a special master to determine whether a
private prison violated attorney-client privilege by video recording meetings
between inmates and their attorneys. U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson on
Tuesday asked attorneys to provide her with their thoughts on the special
master’s scope. The master would investigate defense attorneys’ claims that
Corrections Corporation of America made video and audio recordings of
confidential conversations and passed some on to prosecutors.
Robinson said she didn’t expect to appoint the master until
next month. The practice at CCA — a private, for-profit company that manages
dozens of U.S. facilities — surfaced in a case over distribution of
contraband at the Leavenworth Detention Center in which audio-less video
recordings were subpoenaed by a grand jury.
Jun 9, 2016 ljworld.com
Former prison guard files
lawsuit alleging civil rights and ADA violations
A former correctional officer
for the Leavenworth Detention Center has filed a lawsuit against the center's
owner for alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with
Disabilities Act that occurred while she was pregnant. In the lawsuit filed
in Kansas City, Kan., federal court this week, Demonae
Serial-Starks said she was working as a guard for the Corrections Corporation
of America, which operates the detention center for the federal government,
when she learned that she was pregnant. Because of her condition, the lawsuit
claims, CCA employees intentionally discriminated against her. Her
supervisors and co-workers “made Serial's working conditions intolerable,”
her attorney, Ryan L. McClelland, claimed in the lawsuit. Officials from CCA
did not respond to questions submitted via email this week from the
Lawrence-Journal World. Serial is now 29 and is living in Arkansas, the
lawsuit said. In 2013, after informing her supervisors that her doctor said
she should only perform light-duty assignments because of a high-risk
pregnancy and should stay away from Mace (a brand of pepper spray), Serial
claims she was forced to work more difficult jobs. In addition, she was not
provided reasonable accommodations, including frequent bathroom breaks, the
lawsuit said. One time, according to the lawsuit, she was forced to stay in the
control unit for three hours after she told her supervisor she needed to use
the restroom. She was allegedly told that no other officers were available to
relieve her. After she was released from the “bubble,” as the control unit is
called, she urinated on herself as she was trying to get to the restroom,
according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims that Serial was finally told to
take family leave early because she was pregnant and could not work in the
main prison area among the inmates; however, less than one week after the
baby was born, the human resources manager allegedly called her and said her
family leave had expired and that she had to return immediately to work. CCA,
the lawsuit, said, refused to extend the family leave. She resigned, explaining
to the manager that she could not return to work in a hostile environment,
the lawsuit said. After quitting, she filed complaints with the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission. In March, the EEOC issued Serial two
Notices of Right To Sue for civil rights and discrimination based on
disability violations.
cjonline.com
Apr 11, 2016
Affidavit: Elaborate smuggling ring at CCA Leavenworth left inmates like
'zombies'
On Monday, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom announced charges for seven people
for their roles in what prosecutors allege was an elaborate drug-smuggling
ring that moved methamphetamine, synthetic marijuana, alcohol and cigarettes
into a maximum-security prison in Leavenworth. Seven people were charged this
week in federal court for their roles in what prosecutors allege was an
elaborate drug-smuggling ring that moved methamphetamine, synthetic
marijuana, alcohol and cigarettes into a maximum-security prison in
Leavenworth. Beginning in September 2015, Jeff Stokes, a special agent with
the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, began investigating the drug trade within
CCA Detention Center, a private prison. Listening to phone calls from
prisoners to friends and family members, Stokes heard inmate Stephen Rowlette describe how the inmates in his cell block were
“blistered” and “high.” The inmates walk around like “zombies,” Rowlette said, and some inmates were “making a mint” off
the drug trade, according to an affidavit released Monday. To buy contraband,
inmates convinced family members and friends to send money through wire
transfers to Karl Carter. a fellow inmate, and several people outside the
prison, according to an affidavit. As Rowlette
allegedly told his wife, inmates in his cell pod were strung out on “real
deal drugs.” One inmate, Mark, spent $2,000 each week on illegal contraband,
he said. A pack of cigarettes cost as much as $150 and a half pint of vodka
cost $40, according to the affidavit. A pouch of tobacco sold for $100 and a
gram of methamphetamine cost $300. In addition to wire transfers, the inmates
would exchange hundreds of dollars in person. “The inmates instructed their
family and friends to fill out a large manila envelope with a law firm
identified on the return address,” the affidavit alleges. “Affixed to the
front of the manila envelope is a letter-sized white envelope inside which
the individuals put money wrapped in white paper so the CCA guards could not
see it.” Once inmates had enough money for the drug of their choice, they
would contact Carter. Carter or another inmate would put the contraband in a
sock, put the sock down their pants and meet the buyer in one of three places
inside CCA Leavenworth: the church, the law library or a drug abuse
counseling program. There, they would exchange drugs or alcohol for money.
Though inmates often had to pass through a metal detector before returning to
their cell, one inmate told Stokes that corrections officers ignored beeps
from the metal detector “90 percent of the time.” Still, the inmates needed a
way to get the drugs inside the prison and into their hands. That,
prosecutors allege, is where Antonio Aiono came in. Aiono, 28, was a guard at
the prison. According to the affidavit, he would bring contraband into the
prison and leave it behind in a mop bucket to be picked up by an inmate working
with Carter. Aiono brought the drugs in a potato chip bag or his underwear.
Alcohol would come in a Sprite bottle, Stokes discovered. The drug trade
proved profitable for Carter, according to the affidavit. A review of his
account at the prison found $15,890 had been deposited between October 2015
and March 2016. On Monday, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom announced charges
against Carter, Aiono and five others involved in the alleged conspiracy.
Aiono, of Platte City, Mo., was charged with conspiracy to distribute
methamphetamine, providing methamphetamine to inmates, providing synthetic
marijuana to inmates and providing tobacco products to inmates. The first two
charges carry maximum sentence of 20 years in prison each and fines of more
than $1 million. Rowlette, 35, and Carter, 41, were
charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, possessing
methamphetamine, possessing synthetic marijuana and possessing tobacco
products. The first two charges carry maximum sentence of 20 years in prison
each and fines of more than $1 million. David Bishop and Catherine Rowlette, of Sedalia, Mo., were charged with conspiracy
to distribute methamphetamine, providing methamphetamine to inmates,
providing synthetic marijuana to inmates and providing tobacco products to
inmates. If convicted, they also face more than 40 years in prison and fines
of more than $1 million. Lorenzo Black was charged with conspiracy to
distribute methamphetamine, providing methamphetamine to inmates, providing
synthetic marijuana to inmates and providing tobacco products to inmates. He
also faces more than 40 years in prison and fines of more than $1 million if
convicted. Alicia Tackett, 29, of Independence, Mo., was charged with
providing synthetic marijuana to inmates and providing tobacco products to
inmates. If convicted, she faces one year in prison and a fine of up to
$200,000. The charges announced Monday were the result of a seven-month
investigation by the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Secret Service, Kansas
Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service and Social Security
Administration, Grissom said. Grissom’s news conference is likely his last as
U.S. attorney. The 62-year-old announced Monday he is resigning his position,
effective Friday. Monday’s news conference marks the second time in as many
years that a guard at a Leavenworth prison stands accused of smuggling. In
August 2015, Michael Harston was accused of taking
bribes in exchange for carrying contraband tobacoo
into the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth. That institution, operated by the
Federal Bureau of Prisons, is a medium-security prison. Harston,
a resident of Kansas City, Mo., was charged with one count of conspiracy to
commit bribery and four counts of accepting bribes. Harston
also received payments from the relatives of inmates through wire transfers,
Grissom’s office alleged, and was caught on video surveillance distributing
tobacco to inmates.
Aug 5, 2015 kmbc.com
Correctional employees arrested after Edwardsville car
burglaries
Victimized want charges filed. I figure if somebody's
going to break into it, they're going to, but i
can't afford to replace the window so i don't ever
lock it. Peggy: loretta moore's
unlocked car is one of four burglarized early sunday
morning. The burglars didn't get anything, but loretta
says they sure tried. They went through the console. I think they were
probably looking for loose change. And they pulled the ashtray out. They just
more or less trashed it. Peggy: most of edwardsville
court was asleep at the time, but not della vinson. From her third floor window, she was watching
what the security cameras were capturing -- a man who'd gotten out of a white
pickup truck, rummaging through residents' vehicles. So i
just kept looking out the window and then he went from one car to the other
and i called 911. Peggy: della
was still on the phone with 911 when the suspects were leaving this parking
lot. She saw them heading out her to 4th street, and police weren't far
behind. They soon discovered the suspects were prison officers at cca, corrections corporation of america.
It's a private federal holding facility in leavenworth.
Tonight cca says the officers are on paid
administrative leave and further action could be taken later. No charges yet,
but residents here say they hope there will be soon for violating the
public's trust and trying to steal from older people in a housing project. We
don't have very much. We'd like to keep what little we got.
February 11, 2011 AP
The attorney for a therapist accused of stalking a soldier says her treatment
while jailed at a Leavenworth facility may constitute "cruel and
unusual" punishment. Rachelle Santiago is charged with stalking and
attempting to elude police at Fort Riley. Attorney Ronald Wurtz
claimed in a court filing Thursday that Santiago's anti-anxiety medication
has been reduced against the court's order. He says the combination of a cold
room, cold food and lack of medication is unreasonable, especially for
someone with a post-psychotic mental condition. His asks that the 43-year-old
Manhattan woman be placed at a mental facility immediately or at a halfway
house until a bed is available at one.
January 7, 2011 Kansas City Star
A Kirkwood, Mo., man charged in Kansas City with sex trafficking tried to
hire a hit man to kill his purported victim and a federal prosecutor,
authorities have alleged. Bradley Cook, 32, allegedly hatched the scheme
while he was incarcerated at a private jail for federal inmates in
Leavenworth, according to a statement prosecutors filed Thursday evening with
a federal appeals court in St. Louis. In a written statement, U.S. Attorney
Beth Phillips said her office took immediate steps to protect the victim and
the prosecutor upon learning of the alleged threat. “We consider it a serious
matter whenever there are allegations of anyone making threats against crime
victims or attorneys in our office,” Phillips said. Cook’s lawyer, Carter
Collins Law, responded in a court filing Friday afternoon, calling the new
allegations “dramatic,” “incendiary” and “extraordinarily inflammatory.” Law
criticized prosecutors for presenting them, without evidence, in an unsealed
public filing. “The government has never produced any evidentiary support for
this allegation in any court,” Law wrote. Cook and four others were charged
in September in Kansas City with sexually abusing and torturing a young woman
in Lebanon, Mo., then broadcasting the abuse online. Cook and the others have
pleaded not guilty. Defense lawyers in the case have said they plan to
investigate whether the alleged victim consented to the treatment as part of
a bondage and sadomasochistic lifestyle. The allegations of attempted
murder-for-hire came in response to an appeal that Cook had filed with the
8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking that he be released on bond pending
trial. Prosecutors, who contended that Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia Cordes
was a target of the scheme, filed the allegations to explain why Cook had
been moved from the detention facility in Leavenworth to a jail in Bates
County, Mo. Prosecutors alleged that Cook had attempted to give details about
his alleged victim’s location and information about Cordes’ family, home,
work hours and personal history to a “professional killer.” Cook also made
plans to create an offshore account into which $20,000 would be wired to pay
for the murders, the filing said.
October 7, 2009 Leavenworth Times
An inmate at a Leavenworth detention facility has been sentenced to more than
three years in prison for the attempted battery of a correctional officer.
Maurice Dickens was sentenced Tuesday in Leavenworth County District Court to
39 months in prison. This will run consecutive to a life sentence he is serving
for the state of Maryland. Dickens, who is in custody at the Corrections
Corporation of America Leavenworth Detention Center, pleaded no contest in
August to one count of attempted aggravated battery. The charge stemmed from
an Oct. 22, 2008, incident at the CCA facility.
September 23, 2009 Leavenworth Times
An inmate has been acquitted of aggravated battery charges related to an
October incident at a Leavenworth detention facility, a prosecutor said. The
not-guilty verdict came Tuesday in the trial of Joseph Bellamy. He had been
accused of stabbing two correctional officers Oct. 22 at the Corrections
Corporation of America Leavenworth Detention Center. The victims, Kennith Lajiness and Cory
O’Neill, survived the incident and testified during the trial. Bellamy won’t
be released from custody as a result of the acquittal. County Attorney Todd
Thompson said Bellamy already is serving a life sentence plus 48 years he
received in Maryland.
September 21, 2009 Leavenworth Times
A judge has denied a request for a change of venue in the scheduled trial of
an inmate accused of stabbing two officers at a Leavenworth detention
facility. The trial of Joseph Bellamy is scheduled to begin Monday in
Leavenworth County District Court. He is accused of stabbing two correctional
officers during an Oct. 22 incident at the Corrections Corporation of America
Leavenworth Detention Center. He faces two counts of aggravated battery.
Bellamy’s attorney, Kevin Reardon, argued Friday for the trial to be held
outside of Leavenworth County. The attorney said the county has four major
correctional facilities and everyone in the jury pool will have some
connection to prisons.
September 1, 2009 Leavenworth Times
An inmate has been sentenced to six months in jail for battering an
officer at a Leavenworth detention facility. Michael Matthews was sentenced
Monday in Leavenworth County District Court after pleading no contest to a
misdemeanor charge of battery. He won’t serve any additional jail time
because the sentence will run concurrent to a life sentence he’s already
received in Maryland. Matthews battered Michael Sullivan Oct. 22 at the
Corrections Corporation of America Leavenworth Detention Center.
June 30, 2009 Leavenworth Times
Two inmates accused of attacking officers at a Leavenworth detention
facility appeared Monday in county district court. Maurice Dickens appeared
in court for a pretrial conference. Dickens faces a charge of aggravated
battery for allegedly assisting in the stabbing of a correctional officer,
Cory O’Neill, Oct. 22 at the Corrections Corporation of America Leavenworth
Detention Center, according to County Attorney Todd Thompson. Joseph Bellamy
appeared Monday in Leavenworth County District Court for an arraignment on
charges of two counts of aggravated battery. Bellamy is accused of stabbing
O’Neill and correctional officer Kennith Lajiness. The crimes are alleged to have occurred during
the same Oct. 22 incident, according to Thompson.
June 19, 2009 Leavenworth Times
Three inmates accused of battering correctional officers at a Leavenworth
detention facility were in court earlier this week. Trials have been
scheduled for two of the men charged for an Oct. 22 incident at the
Corrections Corporation of America Leavenworth Detention Center. The third
inmate will be back in court later this month for his arraignment, according
to County Attorney Todd Thompson.
October 27, 2008 Leavenworth Times
The Corrections Corporation of America Leavenworth Detention Center
remained under a lockdown Friday following attacks on two guards earlier in
the week, according to a spokeswoman for the facility. Spokeswoman Connie
Parish said the two correctional officers who were stabbed during Wednesday
night’s attacks remained in the hospital Friday but there was a chance one of
the men may be released later that day. Parish said the investigation into
the simultaneous attacks continued Friday. Weapons used by the attackers
still hadn’t been found at the private detention facility. “They continue to
look,” Parish said. The Leavenworth Detention Center houses inmates awaiting
federal trial under a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service. The attacks
reportedly occurred at about 10:15 p.m. Wednesday in the day room of a pod
considered a high security area for male inmates. Three inmates were placed
in segregation following the attacks. Two were suspected of being involved.
The third was their cellmate, according to Parish. The Leavenworth County
Sheriff’s Office was contacted to help with the investigation with plans of
sending a case to the Leavenworth County Attorney’s Office for a
determination about criminal charges.
October 23, 2008 Kansas City Star
Two officers from the Corrections Corp. of America’s Leavenworth
Detention Facility are recovering today after at least two inmates assaulted
them Wednesday night. Connie Parish, a spokeswoman for the privately run
corrections facility, said the officers were doing well in a Kansas City area
hospital and their injuries do not appear to be life-threatening. One, Parish
said, had a small puncture wound to the lung, the apparent victim of a
stabbing. Neither will require surgery. Parish described the attacks as two
separate assaults that occurred about 10:15 p.m. in a high-security area at
the facility, 100 Highway Terrace in Leavenworth. The officers were making
rounds, checking on inmates in a day room, when they were assaulted. Parish
said that three inmates from the same cell were placed in segregation after
the assault, and that at least two were involved. No inmates were injured,
she said. Authorities are investigating the assaults and are looking for a
weapon or weapons that were used. The Leavenworth County Sheriff Department
returned to the facility this morning to investigate the assaults and
interview inmates. The facility has been placed on lockdown, Parish said, and
because of that, there has been no visitation.
April 27, 2007 Leavenworth Times
A man has been sentenced to 40 years in federal prison after he
orchestrated drug deals while an inmate at a Leavenworth detention facility,
according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office. Francisco Ortiz,
22, Kansas City, Kan., was sentenced Wednesday for using his 16-year-old
sister and other family members to deal drugs for him while he was awaiting
sentencing in a federal drug trafficking case. Ortiz allegedly orchestrated
deals by telephone while an inmate at the Corrections Corporation of America
Leavenworth Detention Center. In March 2005, Ortiz had entered into a plea
agreement to one count of possession with intent to distribute more than five
grams of methamphetamine. The agreement required him to cooperate with
investigators from the Drug Enforcement Administration. “What the defendant
did not tell the DEA was that he was trafficking in drugs while he was
incarcerated at the Corrections Corporation of America by using his
16-year-old sister,” Eric Melgren, U.S. attorney
for Kansas, said in the release. “Nor did he tell DEA agents that he was
orchestrating drug deals, obtaining profits and directing customers to meet
with family members to make drug payments — all while incarcerated on the
original charges.” Investigators retrieved the records of Ortiz’s telephone
calls from CCA for April 2006 through July 2006. The records showed he had
been engaging in multiple drug transactions through associates and family
members who were not incarcerated, including his sister and his mother.
August 24, 2006 AP
A southern Iowa man has been convicted by a federal jury on charges he
threatened the life of a federal judge. Christopher O. Myers, 41, of Ottumwa
faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Sentencing was scheduled for
Sept. 5. Myers was initially charged in a three-count federal indictment,
which alleged that he mailed threatening letters to Judge Linda Reade and a
federal public defender in August 2005 from his prison cell at a federal
prison in Leavenworth, Kan. Reade, a judge in the U.S. District Court in
Cedar Rapids, testified Monday that she took the threats seriously. "I
think the general tenor of the letter suggested that Mr. Myers was
threatening to kill me," she said. Court documents said Myers was in the
Corrections Corporation of America Leavenworth Detention Center, a privately
run prison, which contracts with the federal government located in
Leavenworth, Kan., when a white business-sized envelope was mailed to U.S.
District Court in Des Moines addressed to Linda Reede,
a misspelling of the judge's name.
August 21, 2006 AP
Federal Judge Linda Reade testified today that a southern Iowa man sent her a
threatening letter shortly after she sentenced him to federal prison for
threatening other judges and President Bush. "I think the general tenor
of the letter suggested that Mr. Myers was threatening to kill me,"
Reade said on the witness stand in the trial of Christopher O. Myers. Myers,
41, of Ottumwa is charged in a three-count federal indictment, which alleges
that Myers mailed threatening letters in August 2005 from his prison cell at
the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan. Court documents said Myers was in the
Corrections Corporation of America Leavenworth Detention Center, a privately
run prison, which contracts with the federal government located in
Leavenworth, Kan., when a white business-sized envelope was mailed to U.S.
District Court in Des Moines addressed to Linda Reede,
a misspelling of the judge's name. Court documents say the return address
included the name Chris Myers, a federal inmate number — 11921-030 — and the
address of the CCA detention center in Leavenworth, Kan. The envelope
contained eight pages that appeared to be two threatening letters and cover
letter.
November 25, 2005 Leavenworth Times
A former Leavenworth man has been sentenced to life in federal prison for the
murder of three Leavenworth people. A federal jury spared Demetrius R.
Hargrove, 31, of the death penalty on Tuesday in Kansas City, Kan., according
to a news release from the U.S. attorney's office. Hargrove, who already is
serving a 35-year federal prison sentence for kidnapping and a weapons
violation, was found guilty Nov. 10 of three capital murder counts and one
charge of conspiracy to kill a federal witness. The conviction came after a
six-week trial. Two of the murder counts stem from the shooting deaths of
Elmer Berg Jr. and Misty Castor, Leavenworth siblings. The third murder count
stemmed from the July 25, 1998, death of Tyrone Richards. According to the
news release from the U.S. attorney's office, Hargrove attempted to murder
Kimbrel on Jan. 3, 1999. And on Dec. 31, 1998 and Jan. 1, 1999, Hargrove made
telephone calls to other conspirators from the Corrections Corporation of
America detention facility in Leavenworth to arrange the murder of Kimbrel.
April 12, 2005 Kansas City Star
Attorneys for federal kidnapping defendant Lisa Montgomery asked a judge
Monday not to give prosecutors copies of four documents seized recently from
her Leavenworth jail cell. Jailers searched her cell and took five documents
last month. Officials at the Corrections Corporation of America jail then
passed the material to the U.S. Marshals Service, which gave it to Chief
Magistrate Judge John Maughmer. In a court filing,
defense attorney Susan Hunt argued for withholding the records from
prosecutors. “(Montgomery) asserts the documents must be returned to her, all
copies destroyed and not provided to the government,” Hunt wrote. Hunt's
motion contends that prosecutors have agreed that the letter to “Anita”
should not be disclosed to federal authorities because it is addressed to
Anita Burns, an assistant federal public defender, and thus covered by the
attorney-client privilege. Montgomery's attorneys also contend that the Feb.
20 document should be covered by the attorney-client privilege. “This
document was prepared by (Montgomery) pursuant to a request of Ron Ninemire,
one of the (defense) investigators on this case,” Hunt wrote. “Mr. Ninemire,
in one of his visits, requested (Montgomery) write down certain information
for use by him and the attorneys in preparing this case.” The documents
apparently turned up in a March 4 search.
September 27, 2002
Keith Gabriel was intially incarcerated at the
federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., where he was diagnosed as being
HIV-positive. The Federal Bureau of Prisons began immediately to
provide Gabriel with medical treatment. In 1988, he was transferred to
another federal penitentiary. His medical jacket was transferred with
him and he continued to receive appropriate treatment for his HIV
condition. In 1990, he was transferred to a penitentiary run by the
District of Columbia in Lorton. That facility was operated by CCA under
contract with that district. When Gabriel was transferred to Lorton,
his medical jacket was not transferred with him. The medical history
that was sent did not explicitly state that he was HIV-positive. After
he was moved to Lorton, Gabriel said he did not receive any further medical
treatment until his HIV status was "rediscovered" in 1998. He
alleged that as a result of his failure to receive treatment, he suffered a
decline in his T-cell count. He also experienced the onset of premature
dementia and depression. He also contended that when CCA and the
District were alerted to his HIV status, both failed to search for and obtain
his medical jacket. He also said CCA provided him with an improperly
low dosage of one of the drugs he needed. Gabriel filed suit against
the Bureau of Prisons and CCA for negligence and medical malpractice.
The U.S. District Court, District of Columbia agreed with the bureau that BOP
was not a state official acting under color of state law. The CCA then
asked for dismissal, saying it was not a proper defendant because it wasn't a
public entity. The company said it could not be held accountable
in the same manner as a governmental organization. The CCA also said
Gabriel had not filed his claim within the required two years.
August 14, 2000
A guard pleaded guilty to drug charges after he was caught delivering a half
once of crack cocaine to an undercover officer. The guard admitted to
smuggling contraband into the prison for inmates. (AP, August 14, 2000)
Prison Health Services
Shawnee County, Kansas
Prison Health Sservices
September 20, 2002 Shawnee County corrections director Betsy Gillespie said
Thursday she was confident that jail medical and correctional staff members
didn't make any errors causing the death of an inmate earlier this month. Roy
Hardy III died Sept. 2 in the jail's custody. His family claims Hardy, who
had a congenital heart defect, died because medical staff failed to provide
him with his medication. Hardy-Smith declined to say whether the family plans
a wrongful death suit against the jail, but any lawsuit likely would include
Prison Health Services Inc., a Tennessee-based company specializing in
correctional health care. The county entered a contract with the company in
November 2001. The contract states PHS will cover court costs if inmates sue
the county and the jail on health care issues. An almost complete turnover of
medical staff ensued March 1, when PHS took over medical services. Only one
nurse who previously worked for the county health agency remained. Daily dose
Topekan Allen Stann was jailed for two days earlier
this month for a traffic violation. Stann knew he had to do his time, but
said he was upset because he didn't receive his medication, Celebrex, twice a
day for arthritis. "It was like cruel and unusual punishment," he
said. Stann did get Ibuprofen his first full morning at the jail and until
his release. He said he went to the jail the week before serving his sentence
to learn if he had to do anything to ensure he received his medication.
"I even went in early the morning I checked in to make sure about
it," he said. After his release, Stann said, he called the jail because
he was concerned about other inmates. "I told them while I was in a lot
of pain, it didn't kill me. But I said to them 'what if I had a serious
illness and didn't get my medication. I could have died.' I said that to them
and then found out about Mr. Hardy," he said. (Topeka Capitol Journal)
Reno County Jail Annex
Reno, Kansas
MgtGp Inc.
January 8, 2004
Former Reno County Sheriff Larry Leslie and Hutchinson attorney Gerald Hertach won't pay $750,000 in restitution sought by the
state, a senior judge ruled Tuesday morning. Instead, the case will be
closed when the two have served their one-year jail sentences that end in
January - Leslie on Saturday from the Saline County Jail and Hertach on Jan. 31 from the Rice County Jail.
(Hutch News)
September 17, 2003
With prospects for a negotiated settlement dimming, a senior judge set a
trial date for Reno County's civil lawsuit against the former private
operators of its jail annex. Judge Michael Barbara set Oct. 29 as the
start date in Reno County District Court for the county's bid to recover
almost $750,000 in annex operations profits from MgtGp
Inc., which operated the center for four years. Former Reno County
Sheriff Larry Leslie and Hutchinson attorney Gerald Hertach
were partners in MgtGp. That alliance landed
the two men in jail for a year on two counts of misdemeanor conflict of
interest, for failing to disclose the contract. Both men apparently are
going to serve their one-year terms without offering a court-ordered plan to
repay the county, a condition of parole. In August, attorneys for the
two men and Reno County said they were close to a negotiated settlement in
the case. Barbara gave the two sides 10 days to reach an agreement, a
time frame that more than passed before the judge took action late last
week. Stan Hill, Reno County's counsel for the civil suit, offered no
comment on the trial date Monday. Efforts Monday to contact Leslie's
attorney, Mike Gillespie, and Hertach's attorney,
Steve Joseph, were unsuccessful. Gillespie is handling the case from
his new job with a Manhattan law firm, Seaton, Bell and Seaton. Leslie
and Hertach formed the partnership in 1997 to
operate MgtGp and the annex. The two men
established dummy corporations in Nevada to route the annex profits back to
their personal corporations in Kansas. Leslie and Hertach
were convicted in October 2002 of two counts of misdemeanor conflict of
interest, the result of a plea bargain from 21 original counts of
bribery. Leslie's sentence expires Jan. 3, 2004; Hertach's
28 days later. (The Hutchinson News)
January 10, 2003
Former
Reno County Sheriff Larry Leslie spent his first day as an inmate
Friday, beginning his jail sentence for misdemeanor conflict of interest
in the county jail annex scandal.
Leslie and his business partner, Hutchinson attorney Gerald Hertach, were convicted in October of misdemeanor
conflict of interest. The two men
formed MgtGp Inc., a private company that ran the
jail annex until late last year. Leslie, as an elected official, was required
by Kansas law to divulge his "substantial interest" in MgtGp to Reno County commissioners. (The Hutchinson
News)
December 20, 2002
It came down to that old line from the film "Jerry Maguire."
"Show me the money." So when Larry Leslie and Gerald Hertach wouldn't - or couldn't - the result was a year in
jail for their illegal partnership as MgtGp Inc.,
running Reno County's jail annex. The people wanting to see where Hertach and Leslie's share off about 570,000 in annex
profits went were numerous. And the two who mattered the most - Senior
Judge Michael Barbara and prosecutor John Bork - didn't get any answers
Wednesday in Reno County District Court. "I wouldn't said it
played the main role in my decision, but it played a role, of course,"
said Barbara, who sentenced the two men to jail terms for conflict of
interest in the annex case. "The 285,000 your client received from
the annex profits - what happened to that?" Barbara asked Steve Joseph,
representing Hertach. "I don't know,
your honor," Joseph replied. Both times the men and their
attorneys offered no direct explanation, instead raising general claims of
financial ruin. "Jerry doesn't have $750,000 or significant funds
at all," his attorney said. Gillespie had little to say Wednesday
about Leslie's future, only noting that the former sheriff is close to
bankruptcy. Leslie isn't paying three creditors he owes a total of
$46,000, the attorney said, and had $300 in monthly disposable income after
he pays the rest. Leslie will voluntarily surrender his law enforcement
certification, Gillespie said. And a case against Hertach's
law license will be revived by the state's legal review board in Topeka,
Joseph said, now that sentencing has been completed. (The Hutchinson
News)
December 19, 2002
In a prepared statement, Kansas Attorney General Carla Stovall on Wednesday
defended her decision to accept a plea bargain in the Larry Leslie-Gerald Hertach bribery case. In the statement, issued by
prosecutor John Bork, one of Stovall's assistants, the AG said the state's
decision to accept two misdemeanor conflict-of-interest convictions
"serves the interest of justice by ensuring a conviction and
establishing restitution for the unlawful acts perpetrated by the
defendants.... Stovall said the presumptive sentences in the original
bribery cases filed against Leslie and Hertach
would have been probation. However, Senior Judge Michael Barbara,
angered by the lack of a clear plan to repay $750,000 in annex profits to
Reno County, sentenced the two men Wednesday to a year in jail on each of the
conflict-of-interest counts. The plea bargain came under local criticism
as a slap on the two men's wrists. District Attorney Keith Schroeder,
whose office played a role in uncovering the allegations, said he will refuse
to refer cases to Stovall's office as a result of the light deal. (The
Hutchinson News)
December 19, 2002
Larry Leslie and Gerald Hetach will begin the new
year in jail, a senior judge ruled in Reno County District Court Wednesday
afternoon. How long they have to stay depends on whether they can come
up with their share of an estimated $750,000 in restitution to Reno county,
money "cheated" from local taxpayers in the private and illegal
operation of the county's jail annex, Judge Michael Barbara ruled.
Leslie, 59, the former Reno County sheriff, and Hertach,
56, a Hutchinson attorney, were sentenced to a year in jail Wednesday - six
months consecutively on each of two misdemeanor conflict-of-interest
counts. Both men were moved out of Reno County for security concerns,
Barbara said. The charges grew out of the two men's partnership in MgtGp Inc., a private firm that in 1997 obtained a
contract to manage the jail annex - without divulging to the Reno county
Commission that Leslie, then sheriff, was involved. A clearly angry
Barbara rejected pleas from the defense for probation in both cases, instead
taking issue with the two men's refusal to provide plans to repay almost
$750,000 in profits from the annex operation. A year owed to the people
of Reno County, Barbara said as he handed down the sentence.
"Counsel wondered today what good it would do to send these men to
jail," the judge said. "Well, a viable objective in the
sentencing process is viable deterrents. "Counsel has agreed that
deceit was involved in this case - political not criminal. But pure,
deliberate greed was involved." (The Hutchinson News)
November 27, 2002
By
signing off at the last minute on a plea bargain agreement in the Reno County
Jail Annex case, Attorney General Carla Stovall agreed Oct. 7 to toss out 21
felony bribery charges against three criminal defendants accused of bilking
taxpayers out of $570,000. Instead of putting the facts before a jury, the
lame duck attorney general accepted guilty pleas to two misdemeanors apiece
and endorsed potentially meaningless promises of restitution from former
Sheriff Larry Leslie, Hutchinson attorney Gerald Hertach
and MgtGp Inc. The outrageous decision not only
deepened this newspaper's disappointment with Stovall's job performance as
attorney general, it also set three dreary precedents that could have
undesirable long-term consequences on public policy in the Sunflower State.
Different laws The Stovall-approved plea agreement shows that county sheriffs
in Kansas, particularly those who have friends in high places, have the
latitude to operate under a different set of laws than other public
officials. KBI Director Larry Welch received documents tying Leslie to the
illegal payment scheme in the summer of 1999. Yet Welch disgraced his
position by failing to initiate an investigation of Leslie, a long-time
friend, until prompted a second time - 18 months, 19 payments and $140,250
later – by outgoing Reno County District Attorney Tim Chambers. The U.S.
Attorney's Office of Kansas took a similar hands-off attitude toward an FBI
investigation. Coincidentally, Welch's son, Lanny, worked there during that
time as the office's top criminal prosecutor. Chilling effect. Most of all,
Stovall's decision to cut a deal with defendants Leslie-Hertach-MgtGp Inc. will have a chilling effect on government
whistleblowers in Kansas. Consider that employees at the Reno County
Sheriff's Department expressed the greatest frustration with the plea
bargain. Several employees uncovered the scheme and tried to prompt an
outside investigation. "I don't think he got near what he
deserved," said Sherri Owston, the sheriff's
office manager. Former Sheriff Leslie directed Owston
to help him prepare invoices to bill Hertach for
supposed jail consulting services. (Hutchinson News)
October 18, 2002
Four years of memories came flooding back this week in the Reno County
Sheriff's Department. Secretaries to deputies were stopped cold with
disbelief when former Sheriff Larry Leslie pleaded guilty Monday to two
counts of misdemeanor conflict of interest for collecting $285,000 from a
partnership operating the county's jail annex. Leslie had been charged
with 21 counts of bribery. Leslie and Hutchinson attorney Gerald Hertach, partners in MgtGp
Inc., each face up to a year plus restitution and fines up to $820,000 for
their role in the partnership. "It's kind of made everyone relive the
whole thing," Sheriff Randy Henderson said. "Kind of back to
the old thing that we can do something wrong and get by with it because of
who we are. The frustration with plea bargain, which likely will bring
little or no jail time, was expressed by a couple of players in the Leslie
story. "I don't think he got near what he deserved," said
Sherri Owston, the sheriff's office manager. Owston was directed by Leslie to help him prepare
invoices that were used to bill Hertach for almost
$285,000 over the three years of their annex partnership. "I was
not at all happy about their decision to plead it down to a
misdemeanor," said Howard Shipley, a detective who made the first
late-night foray into Leslie's office to copy documents about the
partnership. "I think the original charge of bribery could have
been proven. We should have gone to court and let the jury make a
decision on that." "I am somewhat discouraged that the case
did not go to trial in order for the whole truth to come out," said
Capt. Dennis Radke, who heads the detective bureau. There's also a
consensus that Leslie let his officers and employees down by taking part in the partnership. (The Hutchinson News)
October 18, 2002
The business partners in a controversial deal to operate Reno County's jail
annex entered guilty pleas Monday to misdemeanor conflict of interest
charges. The pleas by former Reno County Sheriff Larry Leslie,
Hutchinson attorney Gerald Hertach and the
attorney's MgtGp Inc. short-circuited Monday's
anticipated start of their trials on 21 bribery counts. The plea deal
also includes a "joint or separate" agreement to pay Reno County
$750,000 in restitution. The conviction falls under Kansas statue 75-4304 (b), which prohibits entering into any
contract "where any local government officer or employee, acting in that
capacity, is a signatory to or a participant in the making of the contract
and is employed by or has a substantial interest in the person or
business." (Hutch News.com)
July 2, 2002
The bribery trial for former Sheriff Larry Leslie and his alleged business
partners will remain in Reno County District Court, a judge ruled
Tuesday. Leslie, Hertach and MgtGp each face 21 counts of bribery. The charges
allege that Hertach paid Leslie almost $285,000
over three years in exchange for Leslie's recommendation that MgtGp run the county's jail annex. (The Hutchinson
News)
June 03, 2001
Reno County commissioners filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Sheriff Larry
Leslie and the private firm hired to run the county jail annex, seeking
repayment of more than $500,000 in profits they claim the two have split
since 1998. Commissioners also asked a judge to terminate the county's
four-year, $2 million contract with MgtGp Inc.,
signed in January 2000. Leslie is charged with accepting more than
$280,000 in bribes from MgtGp Inc. secretary Gerald
Hertach in exchange for persuading commissioners to
hire the company. Hertach is also named in
the lawsuit. Leslie had an obligation to disclose any business
relationship between himself and MtgGp Inc. when he
recommended the contract, County Counselor Joe O'Sullivan said
Wednesday. "The defendant's silence when they had the duty to
speak constituted a fraud upon the plaintiffs," the suit alleges.
Kansas Attorney General Carla Stovall contends that Leslie accepted payments
ranging from $4,000 to $15,625 between June 1998 and January 2001. The
county's suit claims the alleged payments were routed through a series of
Kansas and Nevada corporations, each of which is either owned or operated by Hertach or Leslie. The lawsuit alleges that Leslie
and Hertach "negotiated and agreed to a
proposal whereby Hertach would present, and Leslie
would recommend, a management agreement to the plaintiff for the minimum
security facility." (The Wichita Eagle)
May 19, 2001
Fellow law officers and a county commissioner said Tuesday they are shocked
that Reno County Sheriff Larry Leslie has been implicated in a bribery scheme
that authorities say involves more than $280,000. Leslie, who was
elected sheriff in 1992, was arrested Monday and charged with 34 counts of
bribery. He's accused of accepting $284,875 from a Hutchinson lawyer
and, in return, influencing county commissioners to hire MgtGp
Inc., the private company that handles the daily operations of the annex,
authorities said. Commissioner Francis "Shep"
Schoepf said Leslie advised the commission in 1998
that entering into an agreement with MgtGp Inc.
would save money. The alternative was to hire more county employees to
run the new annex, he said. The county in January awarded MgtGp Inc. a new four-year contract worth $612,000 this
year alone, according to the county. Schoepf
said he "completely trusted" Leslie's judgement. "It
seemed like he was giving us good advice," Schoepf
said. "When I heard about the charges, I was absolutely
floored. I have had so much faith in that guy." According to
court records, Leslie is accused of accepting $284,875 in 34 payments from
June 1998 to last January. The largest payment -- $15,625 -- was
allegedly made on July 15, 1999, court records show. (The Wichita
Eagle)
May 17, 2001
The private company at the center of the bribery case against Reno County
Sheriff Larry Leslie was incorporated just 13 days before the county awarded
it a contract worth more than $1.5 million to run a jail annex in 1997,
according to state records. But county officials said Wednesday they
weren't concerned with the newness of the company because Leslie vouched for
one of its owners, who had experience running a dormitory for nonviolent
offenders. Leslie, 57, pleaded innocent to 34 counts of bribery at his
first appearance before a district judge Wednesday. Hutchinson lawyer
Gerald Hertach, treasurer and co-founder of MgtGp Inc., which operates the annex, also pleaded
innocent to charges that he bribed the sheriff. The company also is
named as a defendant. Leslie is accused of accepting more than $280,000
from Hertach from June 1998 to last January.
Leslie, who is still on the job, earns $59,672 a year as sheriff. It's
also a unique relationship, said Darrell Wilson, executive director of the
Kansas Association of Sheriffs. He knows of no other county in the
state that contracts with a private company to run part of its jail. MgtGp Inc. is still operating the annex, County
Administrator Ed Williams said.
Wyandotte County Jail
Wyandotte, Kansas
Aramark
August 28, 2004
The Wyandotte County sheriff closed the county jail's kitchen for 24 hours
after an inspection revealed sanitary and storage problems. Joe Connor,
county health director, said the problems were discovered Thursday in an
annual inspection of the juvenile detention center. Part of that inspection
was the food service area, which also serves adult inmates. Brad
Ratliff, a spokesman for the sheriff, said the health violations included the
buildup of grease and the improper storage of items in the kitchen, which
serves about 450 inmates. The department has a three-year contract with
Aramark Inc. to operate the kitchen. The company, which is paid about
$669,000 annually, is responsible for the cleaning. (Kansas City)
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