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Albert Sneed Correctional
Facility
La Villa, Texas
Texson Management Group
April 17, 2000
Two inmates, one convicted of aggravated sexual assault and attempted capital
murder, the other a repeated burglar, climbed through an air vent and over a
fence to escape. They escaped from the private prison in Texas around 4:00
a.m. (Valley Morning Star, Rio Grande Valley, TX)
Angelina County
Jail
Angelina County, Texas
CiviGenics (formerly run by Correctional Services Corporation)
October
26, 2005 Lufkin Daily News
When Angelina County's old downtown jail re-opens for business next year,
it will be under familiar leadership. Bob Prince, marketing liaison for
CiviGenics Texas, Inc., told Angelina County commissioners that when the jail
re-opens under CiviGenics early next year it would be with Ken Stewart at the
helm. Stewart served as Angelina County's jail administrator. Stewart was
also a vocal supporter of the county's campaign to pass a $10.5 million bond
that financed the construction of the county's current jail located on Lufkin
Avenue. According to Stewart, the downtown jail was built in 1983 with the
ability to hold 63 beds. A 1990 addition to the building increased the jail's
inmate capacity by 48 beds to 111 total. Aware of Stewart's recent retirement
and his reputation in the business of jail administration, CiviGenics
contacted Stewart to see if he could be lured out of retirement, Prince said.
October
12, 2005 Lufkin Daily News
Angelina County commissioners on Tuesday approved the purchase of new
electronic touch-screen voting equipment, made possible by a grant of almost
$600,000 through the Help America Vote Act. Commissioners did not take action
on Tuesday's agenda item to approve a lease of the county's old jail facility
by CiviGenics, a private corrections firm that operates facilities in 16
states, including eight locations in Texas. County Sheriff Kent Henson asked
that the commissioners table the contract approval until he could review the
wording on the document. "I want to make sure the county doesn't get
stuck with some things like we did the last time," Henson said, referring
to the previous corrections firm that pulled out after leasing the old county
jail facility for less than a year. Commissioners approved tabling the agenda
item and will likely consider it at their Oct. 25 meeting. Bob Prince,
CiviGenics' government liaison for marketing, was on hand at Tuesday's
meeting and told commissioners if his company came on board, it would employ
27 workers and pump more than $1 million into the local economy. Payroll
alone would account for about $700,000, he said. In addition, CiviGenics
plans to use a familiar face to serve as the facility's administrator in
naming Ken Stewart - who served in the same capacity for the county sheriff's
office before the new jail facility was built - to oversee operations.
November
10, 2004 KTRE
The old Angelina County jail is locking up. The county started leasing
the building about eight months ago to the Correctional Services Corporation
so dozens of undocumented immigrants could be housed there. The Immigration
and Naturalization Service can no longer afford that arrangement.
Bartlett State Jail
Bartlett, Texas
CCA
April 30, 2011 Killeen Daily Herald
The largest private corporation operating prisons in the U.S. is suing the
city of Bartlett after the city threatened last week to shut off the water
supply to a state jail the company operates. Corrections Corporation of
America Inc. (CCA) was granted a temporary injunction Thursday, preventing
Bartlett from cutting off water and sewer to the 1,049-bed Bartlett State
Jail. CCA alleges the city has severely over-billed the company because of a
faulty water meter. Since December, CCA has disputed the amount the city has
charged for use of its water supply. According to court filings, CCA believes
Bartlett charged the company for 44 percent more water than was actually used
at the jail. The disputed water bills amount to $213,237. CCA claims it
requested hearings with city officials each time it disputed a bill, but was
rebuffed. The company also submitted checks to the city for water usage CCA is
not disputing; however, the city has not cashed those checks. In the summer
of 2010, jail officials became suspicious that the jail's water and sewer
bills were excessive, court documents state. CCA hired two experts to examine
water usage at the Bartlett State Jail. One expert confirmed the suspicions
of CCA officials by examining the jail's water tank. The expert, Sutton G.
Page, found that over a 24-hour period, the city's water meter showed the
jail used 68,595 gallons more than the amount he measured. A second expert,
an engineer named William Johansen, examined the city's water meter. In an
affidavit filed with the court, Johansen states that the water meter is not
working properly. The jail's low-flow meter was inoperable, so Johansen
measured it as 100 percent inaccurate. The high-flow meter made a measurement
error between 14.4 percent and 95 percent, Johansen stated. "It is my
opinion that the meters at the Bartlett, Texas, State Jail do not function
properly and cannot reliably account for the amount of water flowing through
the meters," he stated in court documents. According to Bartlett's city
charter, city officials must accept CCA's account of the water bills. The
charter places a time limit on water disputes. If city officials do not meet
with a water customer or respond to their complaints about a disputed bill
within a certain timeframe, the city is automatically determined at fault.
CCA claims city officials never attempted to meet with jail officials
regarding disputed bills. City officials could not be reached for comment.
January
7, 2010 AP
A boil water notice has been issued for Bartlett where a shortage has led
to using an emergency well and portable toilets for a state jail. The
1,049-bed Bartlett State Jail ordered portable restrooms and 5,000 bottles of
water after briefly losing city service. Steve Owen with Corrections Corp. of
America says employees Wednesday occasionally shut off water so an onsite
tower could refill. Water levels in the city's two elevated storage tanks
have been declining. Officials suspect a pump malfunction. A backup well,
which failed an assessment less than two years ago, was brought online this
week after passing a bacterial test. Mayor Arthur White did not immediately
return a message Thursday from The Associated Press.
February
25, 2009 FOX 7
A former corrections employee, armed with a gun, had a central Texas jail
on full alert this morning. A swat team was called out to the Bartlett State
Jail around 11:00 Tuesday for a hostage situation. The standoff ended early
Wednesday morning, when a former employee of this jail was taken into
custody. A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice tells us
the woman confronted a current employee in the parking lot late last night.
Another employee came out to see what was going on, and the former employee
pulled out a gun and took the two men hostage, forcing them back into the
jail. That brought out the swat team and DPS, and the jail was locked down.
The hostages were in the jail's visitation area and were able to escape. At
that point, this was a standoff between the woman with the gun and the law
enforcement officers outside. By 1:25 this morning, the TDCJ spokesperson
tells us the woman was taken into custody and taken to the Williamson county
jail in Georgetown. This is a state jail under the authority of t-d-c-j, but
it's run by a private company called corrections corporation of America. The
woman accused of taking two employees hostages here is a former employee, who
stopped working here about a year ago.
January
8, 2002
Kyndall Dwight James, 22, who escaped from the Bartlett State Jail in 2000,
pleaded guilty Monday to charges of escape, a second-degree felony, and
unlawful use of a motor vehicle, a state jail felony. James was
sentenced to 20 years in prison. David Lee Sanders, a second Bartlett
inmate accused of escaping with James, will stand trial today. (The
Statesman)
August
28, 2000
Two convicted felons escape after breaking into the maintenance shop and
stealing a cutting tool to cut through the 12-foot perimeter fence.
They were caught the next day after a high speed car chase that ended with
the escapees' stolen truck tires being shot out. (Austin American-Statesman,
August 29, 2000)
Ben Reid Community Correctional
Facility
(AKA Southeast Texas Transitional Center)
Houston, Texas
GEO Group (bought Cornell Companies)
Oct 8, 2012 HoustonPress.com
The rapist of a 16-year-old girl is the latest sexual predator to slip
through the sieve that is the privately run Southeast Texas Transitional Center.
Thomas Lee Elkins, convicted of aggravated kidnapping and sexual assault in
1991, absconded from the facility, 10950 Old Beaumont Highway, October 5,
according to reports. He's the sixth offender to float away from Southeast in
24 months. Formerly known as the Ben A. Reid Community Correctional Facility,
Southeast is run by the Florida-based GEO Group, which, despite its appalling
track record in Texas and elsewhere, keeps getting sweet state contracts. But
hey, what's the big deal about losing a child rapist or two, right? Elkins is
6-3, about 200 lbs., and has a "Fu Manchu" mustache, which we're
totally sure he hasn't shaved. We're also sure GEO Group won't have to pay
any sort of penalty for this escape. They certainly weren't held accountable
when another resident, Anthony Ray Ferrell, took a stroll in October 2010 and
wound up gunning down a Good Samaritan who tried to stop Ferrell from
stealing a woman's purse at a gas station. Look, clearly the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice has more important things to do -- like monitor
employees' Facebook use -- than make sure its contractors, like, keep the
public safe and stuff. Anyone want to take bets on how long it'll be before
another degenerate escapes?
April 6, 2012 Houston Press Blogs
A high-risk child rapist who hopped over his halfway house's barbed wire
fence Thursday night is the fifth sex offender to abscond from the privately
run Southeast Texas Transitional Center in 18 months. According to the
Houston Chronicle story linked above, authorities say Michael Elbert Young,
who might be "mentally unstable if not taking medication," removed
his electronic tracking monitor. He was "released from prison after
serving eight years for two aggravated assault convictions. Both were sex
related. He also served a 20-year term for sexual assault of a child and
attempted aggravated sexual assault." Oh, and he has a history of using
knives. Owned and operated by Florida-based GEO Group, the facility at 10950
Old Beaumont Highway was formerly known as the Ben A. Reid Community
Correctional Facility. Apparently, since GEO can't keep track of its
convicted sexual predators, it just figured changing the name would solve the
problem. After all, it's much cheaper than hiring a competent staff and
improving security. In October 2010, Anthony Ray Ferrell walked out of
Southeast Texas/Ben A. Reid, and was later charged with gunning down a Good
Samaritan who intervened when Ferrell allegedly tried to snatch a woman's
purse inside a gas station convenience store. A week before Ferrell strolled
off the grounds, Bruce McCain, convicted of two sexual assaults in 1986, fled
the facility. In December 2010, Arthur William Brown, who had served 31 years
for aggravated sexual assault of two women and a 16-year-old, did the same. A
month after that, sex offender Timothy Rosales Jr. absconded. Although some
of these folks were caught, the problem is, as we wrote earlier, the place is
like a freaking sieve, and GEO has a sweet contract with the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice: There's apparently no repercussion for escapes, and once
a resident absconds, it's no longer GEO's problem. All GEO personnel have to
do is pick up a phone and notify real-life law enforcement officers. Thanks,
GEO. We certainly feel safer with y'all at the wheel. And thanks, TDCJ, for
continuing to do business with them.
January
25, 2011 KTRK
High risk, armed and dangerous are the words being used to describe a sex
offender who absconded from a Houston halfway house on Monday night. It's
been nearly 24 hours since Timothy Rosales, Jr. disappeared from the halfway
house and he is no where to be found. The Texas Department of Public Safety
has since added him to it's Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list. Rosales was
doing maintenance work in the lobby of the Reid Center on Beaumont Highway
around 6:15pm Monday when he bolted through the front door, cut off his
electronic monitoring device around his ankle and fled. Rosales then did not
report back to his parole officer and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Across
the street at Melba's Country Kitchen, the owner and her staff had no idea
he'd absconded until today. Melba Barfield says she has no reservations being
this close to a halfway house where offenders can leave, so long as they have
an approved schedule. "I've been here nine years and I've had absolutely
no problems from the guys at the halfway house. I know that several have
walked away but they haven't stopped here to get my dollar," said
Barfield.
January
25, 2011 Houston Press Blogs
Timothy Rosales Jr. is the first rapist of 2011 to escape from the privately
run Ben Reid halfway house, and the second to escape in a little over a
month. The 39-year-old sex offender fled from the Beaumont Highway facility
around 6:15 Monday night, according to the Department of Public Safety. He's
considered armed and dangerous. And, like Arthur William Brown, the rapist
who escaped in late December, he was able to remove his electronic monitoring
ankle bracelet. We wrote about the unsecured Reid facility, and its parent
company, the Florida-based GEO Group, in December. Two months before the
story ran, Anthony Ray Ferrell escaped from Reid and allegedly shot and
killed a 24-year-old good Samaritan who intervened in a gas station
purse-snatching. Another rapist split the Reid facility a few weeks before
Ferrell slipped out. Although the place is like a freaking sieve, there is
nothing in GEO's contract with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice about
a maximum number of vicious sexual predators that can be let loose on the
public in a given amount of time. And once these monsters step off the Reid
premises, they're no longer GEO's problem: It is up to actual real-life law
enforcement officers to apprehend the escapees. All GEO personnel need to do
is pick up the phone and make a few calls once they realize an offender
hasn't returned on time. Needless to say, we're a little concerned about the
kind of people who are standing between the public and some armed asshole who
likes to rape 16-year-old kids. You know who doesn't need to worry? GEO's top
executives. Their salaries and benefits are secure. They will continue to
make money off the Reid facility. And besides, their families don't live
anywhere near the facility. So what in the world would they have to worry
about?
November
16, 2010 Houston Press
The man charged with killing a Good Samaritan during a purse-snatching is the
third person to escape the same state-contracted halfway house in the last 20
months. Anthony Ray Ferrell had fled a "halfway house in the 10900 block
of Beaumont Highway" in October, according to the Houston Chronicle. The
home in that block is the Ben A. Reid Community Correctional Facility, from
which sex offender Bruce McCain escaped in October 2010 and Richard
Williamson Griffin Jr. escaped in February 2009. (McCain was arrested in the
Rio Grande Valley three weeks after his escape). The home was operated by
private prison group Cornell Companies, which was bought by its main
competitor, the Florida-based GEO Group, last April. The facility "provides
temporary housing, monitoring and transitional services for 500
minimum-security adult male offenders," according to Cornell Companies
literature. Its "security measures include 24-hour custodial
supervision, 12-foot perimeter fence, outdoor lighting, close circuit
cameras, secure entrances and frequent census checks." Cornell
Companies/GEO also operate Houston's Leidel Comprehensive Sanctions Center.
In 2005, before GEO bought Cornell, a Leidel resident who got a day-pass for
church and never bothered to return; he fled to Fort Worth, where he killed
three men. Ferrell is accused of murdering Sam Irick at a Meyerland
convenience store last week. Irick tried to intervene as Ferrell allegedly
was robbing a customer.
September
9, 2004 Houston Chronicle
Drug use by employees at a privately run halfway house for paroled felons led
to seven resignations this week after the facility's corporate owners called
for staffwide drug tests. The departure of the seven workers — including
administrators, security guards and caseworkers — was the latest problem at
the Ben Reid Community Correctional Facility, which houses up to 500 felons
in northeast Houston. The facility is operated by the
Houston-based Cornell Companies Inc. The seven employees who resigned did so
after testing positive for drug use. In May, its director of employee
training, Roy Thomas, 50, was arrested after a police officer, acting on a
tip, searched his car and found 212 tablets of hydrocodone, an addictive
painkiller, and 123 tablets of Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, police said.
Cornell fired the Ben Reid House's director and several high-level managers
last year, citing poor management and violations of numerous company
policies.
Bexar County
Courthouse
Bexar, Texas
Champion National Security
June 06, 2001
Dissatisfied with current security contractor, Commissioners Court voted
unanimously Tuesday to hire its own civilian guards to man the entrances to
Bexar County's three courthouse facilities. Henry Martinez, deputy
chief of courthouse security for Sheriff Ralph Lopez, said the current
contractor, Champion National Security, was assessed more than $85,000 in
fines for guards showing up late and for other performance infractions that
occurred over a 16-month period that ended April 30. Commissioners also
voted to reject all bids received by the March 30 deadline to take over
security operations. Among the bidders were Champion, DSS Services, the
Wackenhut Corp. and Lobo Security. "You're going to have a
better-trained guard in the future than we've had in the past," said
County Judge Nelson Wolff, who last week met with Lopez and Commissioner Paul
Elizondo to iron out the details of the sheriff's proposal. "The
position of the judges, unanimously, is that it (courthouse security) needs
to be done by the Sheriff's Department," said 226th District Judge Sid
Harle, who is serving as the county's criminal administrative judge.
(The San Antonio Express-News)
Bexar County Jail
Bexar County, Texas
Aramark, Premier Management Enterprise
May 13, 2009 KSAT
Most people can simply run out to the store when they need a jar of
peanut butter or a loaf of bread, but people behind bars are a captive
audience for such necessities, literally. Inmates at the Bexar County jail
are allowed to buy simple things like ramen soup, soap and candy bars at the
jail commissary, run by Aramark, but now some wonder if they're not being
ripped off. "The prices are just outrageous and ridiculous,” said one
inmate. "I think they're outrageous,” said another. “They're
terrible." Abel Gallardo agrees. "Here we go baby. Where are we
going, HEB?" Gallardo said to his small child as he pushed the child in
a toy car near the home they share on the southside. Gallardo is trying to
raise two kids while his wife is in jail. He said the jail commissary’s high
prices make it hard on families to get by, because money has to be spent
behind bars. "They need to treat these ladies and these guys right,”
Gallardo said. “Yeah, they committed a crime, well they're sitting in jail
paying for it." In a comparison shopping trip, the KSAT 12 Defenders
found that a bar of Irish Spring soap is $1.29 in the commissary, but $.75 at
a store. Candy bars are $1.09 in the commissary versus $.74 in the store.
Chili is $3.59 in the commissary, $1.45 at the store. A tuna pouch is $2.99
in the commissary, $.89 in the store and the ramen soup is $.69 in the
commissary, but only $.15 in the store. "It's just straight highway
robbery," said an inmate. But the jail said prices here are in line with
convenience store prices, not grocery store prices, and that the county takes
35 percent of the profits from commissary profits and puts the money back
into inmate services.
March
12, 2008 Express News
A small plane crash Monday night killed a Louisiana businessman whose
private prison services company, Premier Management Enterprises, was at the
center of a public corruption investigation that last year forced the
resignation of Bexar County Sheriff Ralph Lopez. Patrick LeBlanc, 53, died
with the pilot while trying to land in rough weather in Lafayette, La.,
according to a family friend and local press reports. LeBlanc and his
brother, Michael LeBlanc, co-owned Premier and LCS Corrections Services,
which build or service prisons in several states, including in three South
Texas counties. The brothers' company remains the subject of an ongoing FBI
investigation into "contracting irregularities," a bureau official
confirmed. "He had great integrity and honor, unlike what some of you
guys tried to do to him," said Ron Gomez, a close friend and partner in
a small weekly newspaper that published its first edition last week. Gomez
said LeBlanc went into the news business as a response to negative publicity
about his company's role in a Bexar County corruption probe that caused him
to lose a race last fall for state legislative office. Premier Management
Enterprises, which has operated jail commissaries in Texas, was at the center
of a Bexar County district attorney's investigation involving a foreign
vacation gift to Lopez and cash payments to the sheriff's top aide, John
Reynolds, before, during and after the company was given commissary
contracts. The LeBlanc brothers have repeatedly denied all wrongdoing and
have not been indicted or formally accused of any crime related to the Bexar County
jail commissary contract. But Lopez resigned and pleaded guilty to reduced
misdemeanor charges for accepting a Costa Rica golf vacation from the
LeBlancs, while Reynolds last month was sentenced to 10 years for demanding
thousands of dollars in "consulting fees" and charitable donations
from Premier. The FBI took over from state authorities, and over the last
several months, agents have interviewed Lopez and Reynolds as part of their
respective plea deals. FBI Special Agent Erik Vasys said the bureau was well
aware of LeBlanc's death but declined to discuss whether the tragedy might
affect the investigation.
December
4, 2007 San Antonio Express-News
A Bexar County judge has agreed to dismiss a libel lawsuit brought against
the San Antonio Express-News by Premier Management Enterprises, a
Louisiana-based company that formerly ran Bexar County Jail's commissaries.
In the lawsuit, filed in February 2006 against Hearst Newspaper Partnership,
the San Antonio Express-News and reporter Elizabeth Allen, Premier's
principals, Patrick and Michael LeBlanc and Ian Williamson, claimed the
newspaper published two stories and one editorial containing “false and
misleading statements” accusing them of conduct that was “unethical,
incompetent and, in some cases, illegal.” On Thursday, Judge David
Berchelmann of the 37th District Court signed an order after both parties
agreed to dismiss the suit with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought
again. As part of the agreement, the newspaper acknowledged three errors that
ran in Allen's stories and in a subsequent editorial in December 2005: LCS
Correction Services is not Premier's parent company. Michael LeBlanc had no
past legal problems at the time the articles were printed. Charges against
Patrick LeBlanc, Michael LeBlanc's brother, in connection with a charitable
bingo operation on an American Indian reservation were dismissed. The 5th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later affirmed the dismissal. Since Allen's
stories, Premier has phased out its commissary operations at the jail. Former
longtime Sheriff Ralph Lopez resigned in August as part of an agreement with
prosecutors regarding his dealings with Premier. It included that Lopez plead
no contest to three misdemeanor charges, and pay a $10,000 fine, resulting
from an all-expenses-paid golfing and fishing trip to Costa Rica that Premier
gave him in August 2005. Lopez's plea deal also shielded his wife, Nancy,
from any potential state charges. Lopez's longtime campaign manager and
friend, John Reynolds, also pleaded guilty to one felony count of theft
related to his dealings with the company. Reynolds was Lopez's appointee to
the Benevolent Fund board, which awarded and oversaw the commissary contract.
According to court documents, Reynolds told Premier to contribute to Lopez's
campaign and give charitable donations through Reynolds in exchange for
operating the commissary. Premier attorneys have insisted that there was no
wrongdoing in the way the company landed the contract. Reynolds is awaiting
sentencing.
November
8, 2007 Caller-Times
A new commissary company started this week in Kleberg County Jail after
Premier Management Enterprises and the county mutually ended Premier's
contract. Premier was investigated in Bexar County for buying a trip to Costa
Rica for former Sheriff Ralph Lopez. Lopez resigned and pleaded no contest to
three charges related to the trip. Premier, based in Lafayette, La., also
operated in Kleberg County since former Sheriff Tony Gonzalez signed the
contract in fall 2004. Sheriff Ed Mata said last month he wanted to end
Premier's contract because of the Bexar investigation and because of
performance issues. Keefe Commissary Network, based in St. Louis, began
providing commissary services Monday to the Kleberg County Jail. The one-year
contract gives the county 24 percent of net sales, defined as gross sales
minus non-commissioned items such as stamps. Keefe was chosen over Swanson
Sales Corp., which said in a proposal it could offer up to 30.25 percent of
net sales. Commissaries, which supply snacks and some toiletries, are
considered privileges for inmates. Texas law gives sheriffs sole discretion
over the contracts. A county's proceeds must be spent on items or activities
that contribute to inmates' well-being, such as education, libraries, writing
materials, clothing and hygiene items, according to state law. Kleberg Chief
Deputy Willie Vera said Keefe offered the better overall package despite the
lower commission. Some items will be marked up to make up part of the
difference. Plus, the company offered a one-year contract, while Swanson
initially wanted five, then agreed to three, Vera said. Premier had signed a
five-year contract with Gonzalez, and Vera said the current sheriff isn't
willing to sign such a long contract. "We have a year to evaluate this
company," Vera said. "If he needs to go out and search for another
company the door is still open." Keefe also recently began service to
the Nueces County Jail, making it easier for the company to add Kingsville to
its routes, Vera said. Keefe made the transition smoothly and the Kleberg
County Jail was never without commissary services, he said. Premier ran the
Nueces County Jail commissary under a contract signed by former Sheriff Larry
Olivarez until Nueces County Sheriff Jim Kaelin terminated the agreement
after taking office in January, citing performance issues. Keefe gives Nueces
County a commission of 39 percent of net sales. Mata and Kaelin have said
their staffs told them their predecessors, Gonzalez of Kleberg County and
Olivarez of Nueces County, went on that trip to Costa Rica in August 2005.
Neither Mata nor Kaelin has documentation corroborating the reports. Gonzalez
left office in 2004 after losing an election to Mata, and Olivarez resigned
in January 2006 to run for county judge. Gonzalez and Olivarez have not
responded to requests for interviews. Premier's principals, Patrick and
Michael LeBlanc, also own LCS Correctional Services, which is building a
private prison to house federal inmates near Robstown.
October
1, 2007 Caller-Times
Two local sheriffs are distancing themselves from their predecessors'
decisions to award jail commissary contracts to a company involved in a
criminal investigation in Bexar County. Kleberg County Sheriff Ed Mata said
last week officials are researching ways to end that county's five-year
agreement with the company, Premier Management Enterprises. Nueces County
Sheriff Jim Kaelin gave Premier a 30-day termination notice on Jan. 24, after
taking office. Former Bexar County Sheriff Ralph Lopez resigned and pleaded
no contest to accepting a trip to Costa Rica from the principals of Premier.
The Lafayette, La., based company runs the county jail commissary. Neither
Kaelin nor Mata has documentation corroborating what their staffs have told
them -- that their predecessors, Larry Olivarez of Nueces County and Tony
Gonzalez of Kleberg County, went on that August 2005 trip. Neither Gonzalez
nor Olivarez has responded to requests for comment. There is no known
investigation in Nueces or Kleberg counties. "At this point no case has
been submitted to me," Kleberg County District Attorney John Hubert
said. "If something is submitted to me, I take every case on its own
merits. I don't have any information other than what I've read in the papers
and -- no offense to anybody -- that's not really evidence." Nueces
County District Attorney Carlos Valdez was out of the office late last week,
and the Bexar County District Attorney's Office did not respond. The FBI
would not comment. Olivarez signed a contract with Premier five months after
the Costa Rica trip involving the former Bexar County sheriff. Gonzalez
signed a contract in September 2004. Premier's principals, Patrick and
Michael LeBlanc, also own LCS Correctional Services, which is building a
private prison to house federal inmates near Robstown. A receptionist at
Premier referred all questions to the company's chief executive officer,
Chris Burch, who did not respond. An attorney for the company, Tonya Webber
of Corpus Christi, said her clients have not been commenting because of the
open investigation in Bexar County. She said she would check with her clients
for comment on the local contracts but did not respond after that. Kaelin and
Mata both cited performance issues with Premier as reasons for terminating
the contract. Mata said the Bexar investigation also played a part.
"What I'm trying to do is just protect this county," Mata said.
"I'm not trying to pass any judgment if something was done wrong."
Kaelin said his decision was based solely on Premier's performance. He met
with Premier officials about complaints before ending the agreement,
according to correspondence the Caller-Times obtained under the Texas Public
Information Act. Kaelin and Premier also tangled over payments. A new
contract, with Keefe Supply, also is potentially more lucrative for the
county. The Premier contract gave the county $130,000 or 31 percent of net
sales, whichever was greater. The new contract gives a minimum of 39 percent
with the possibility of 41 percent after the first year. Texas law gives
sheriffs sole discretion over commissary contracts. Commissaries supply
snacks, such as chips, candy bars and soda, as well as certain toiletries,
for inmates. Friends and family put money in an inmate's account to spend on
commissary items. A county's proceeds must be used for commissary staff,
social needs of inmates (such as education or counseling), libraries, writing
materials, clothing, hygiene items or other programs that contribute to
inmates' well-being, according to state law. Kaelin said he uses commissary
profits to buy newspaper subscriptions, televisions and uniforms. Kaelin said
inmates frequently complained about Premier's service. Under that system,
inmates would order items to be packed into bags, shipped from San Antonio
and handed out the next day. Kaelin said his office received numerous
complaints about items being damaged or wrong. Keefe stores items at the
Nueces County Jail McKenzie Annex and brings items around on a cart twice a
week so inmates can choose and receive items immediately, Kaelin said.
Premier's accounting system also allowed inmates to buy on credit, and as a
result some inmates would leave custody owing money to Nueces County, Kaelin
said. Keefe's system charges inmates' accounts directly by scanning a
bracelet inmates wear. An inmate can't buy items unless there is enough money
in the account.
September
25, 2007 San Antonio Express-News
The longtime campaign manager and friend of resigned Bexar County Sheriff
Ralph Lopez pleaded guilty to one felony count of theft Tuesday that could
bring him up to a decade in prison and a $10,000 fine. John Reynolds' plea
stemmed from his demands that Premier Management Enterprises give charitable
donations, campaign contributions and other money "so you can take care
of us," in exchange for contracts to operate the jail and jail annex
commissaries, which were under the control of Lopez. According to the plea
deal, Reynolds ended up diverting the Premier money — $32,000 — for his
personal use. 'You're killing me' -- Premier's Texas point man at one time
was Ian Williamson, who no longer works for the company. Now a cooperating
witness, Williamson told Bexar County investigators that Reynolds "asked
for certain things" in exchange for awarding Premier the commissary
business. Specifically, Reynolds told Premier to pay the equivalent of 1
percent of commissary sales to Lopez's campaign fund and give three payments
of $7,500 each that Reynolds said were donations to the Optimists, when, in
fact, the money went into his own bank accounts. Williamson testified that he
called Reynolds this past spring, as the investigation was heating up, and
asked him for receipts for the three $7,500 donations. "Williamson said
there was dead silence until John Reynolds stated, 'You're killing me; you're
killing me,' at which time Ian Williamson claimed it was then that he
realized that John Reynolds had never delivered the donations,"
according to court documents. At one point, Williamson stated, Reynolds
demanded a consulting fee of $5,014. When Williamson asked why he shouldn't
write a check for a round $5,000, he said Reynolds replied: "that $5,000
looked too funny." Other filings by the district attorney's office have
shown checks made out to Reynolds' accounts and signed by Michael LeBlanc, who
is an owner of Premier along with his brother Patrick, and by Chris Burch,
who replaced Williamson as Premier's CEO. Burch said in a recent interview
that he believed Reynolds' representations that the checks were for
legitimate charities. Premier's lawyers have denied any wrongdoing. After the
scandal broke, Premier mutually agreed with the Sheriff's Office to
prematurely end its Bexar County commissary contracts. Recently, Lopez
pleaded no contest to taking a gift from Premier — an all-expense paid trip
to Costa Rica for golf and fishing. He was forced to resign and fined
$10,000; his interim replacement, Roland Tafolla, was sworn in last week.
Lopez claims he was ignorant of how Reynolds was running his campaign
finances. By pleading guilty to third-degree theft, Reynolds will be going to
prison, First Assistant District Attorney Cliff Herberg said. Under the
parole rules, the 10-year sentence would make him eligible for early release
in 2.5 years. That is much less than the potential sentence he could have
faced had he been indicted. District Attorney Susan Reed's office had
threatened to indict Reynolds as a repeat offender because of Reynolds'
previous conviction for falsifying a furniture damage claim while he was in
the military. That would have made Reynolds' minimum sentence 15 years, the
Express-News confirmed. Reynolds entered his plea before 399th District Judge
Juanita Vasquez-Gardner on Tuesday afternoon and was released on a $10,000
bond. As part of his plea, Reynolds will have to tell all he knows to federal
authorities before his Jan. 4 sentencing as part of an FBI investigation that
may — or may not — continue for some time. "The investigation is very
fluid at the moment and to comment on the direction just wouldn't be prudent
right now," said Special Agent Erik Vasys, a spokesman for the San
Antonio-based FBI office. Goals met -- Reynolds' plea effectively brings to a
close Reed's public corruption investigation of the lucrative jail commissary
contracts, granted in 2005 and 2006 by the board of the Benevolent Fund that
was controlled by Lopez and chaired by Reynolds. "Our goal was to go
after the public officials that we believe engaged in wrongdoing,"
Herberg said. "And with John Reynolds' and the sheriff's plea, we
believe we've accomplished our goal." Also caught in the investigation
was the ex-sheriff's wife, Nancy Lopez, who kept her own close ties to
Reynolds and whose signatures were found on thousands of dollars worth of
campaign checks that Reynolds allegedly deposited into his private accounts.
She was given immunity from state prosecution. Reynolds will be required to
talk with federal investigators about "all transactions. This includes
but is not limited to, all of his experiences, whether illegal or not, with
the Bexar County Sheriff's Office, the BCSO Benevolent Fund, Michael LeBlanc,
Patrick LeBlanc, Premier Management Enterprises, LCS, Louisiana Corrections
Systems, and affiliated persons and entities," states a letter from Reed
to Reynolds' lawyer, outlining the plea deal. Louisiana-based Premier and the
prison-building company called LCS Corrections Inc., which is also owned in
part by Michael and Patrick LeBlanc, operate in five South Texas counties,
Louisiana and Alabama. Lopez and Reynolds weren't the only one to benefit
from their ties to Premier. The Express-News has reported that Premier also
gave a contract for temporary staffing to John E. Curran III, who, like
Reynolds, is a friend of Lopez's and a member of the Bexar County Benevolent
Fund board. Premier gave Curran the staffing business after he'd voted to
give Premier an initial commissary contract. He later recused himself from
further votes about Premier. In summer 2006, Reynolds, in a desperate attempt
to cover up the real reason he'd taken money from Premier, handed out envelopes
full of cash to his friends, purportedly college scholarships for their
children. District attorney investigators said Reynolds concocted the
Optimists scholarships as a disguise. One of the students whose parent
received the $7,500 told investigators "he did not know the name of the
organization that awarded him the scholarship money, he didn't know about an
organization named Optimist, nor does he know what the word 'optimist'
means." In fact, Reynolds' affiliation with the Optimists had ended years
earlier, investigators found.
September
8, 2007 The Advocate
This week’s conviction of a San Antonio area sheriff for his involvement
in a bribery and money laundering scheme has ties to a Lafayette company
owned by a candidate for the state House of Representatives. Pat LeBlanc and
his brother, Michael, own Premier Management Enterprise. Bexar County
prosecutors say now-resigned Sheriff Ralph Lopez and his long-time campaign
manager John Reynolds received money and a golf and fishing trip to Costa Rica
in exchange for awarding Premier Management the contract to run the county
jail’s commissary. LeBlanc, a Republican, qualified Thursday to run for the
District 43 seat being vacated by Ernie Alexander, R-Lafayette. LeBlanc said
Friday that he is cooperating with investigators and as such cannot comment
on the specifics of the case. But LeBlanc said he is confident in his and his
company’s integrity. “We haven’t done anything wrong,” LeBlanc said. “We’re
caught up in something that’s a lot bigger than us.” Lopez and his wife,
Nancy, pleaded no contest Monday to charges of receiving an improper gift,
failing to file the proper disclosures, and tampering with a government
record. According to the couple’s plea deal, they will be required to
cooperate with both local, state and federal authorities in the ongoing
investigation. Affidavits attached to search warrants in the case allege that
in April 2005, Reynolds began lobbying the sheriff’s office Benevolent Fund
board — which at the time ran the commissary operations — in an attempt to
have the board award the commissary contract for the jail annex to Premier
Management on a trial basis. Reynolds sat on the board at the time. In June
2005, a board member intended to present the board an analysis that showed
there would be a decrease in profits if the contract were agreed to,
according to the affidavit. Lopez, the board chairman and the skeptical board
member sent a letter to Premier Management in July 2005 telling the company
the board would not be awarding it the contract, the affidavit says. Soon
thereafter, the chairman resigned from the board and Reynolds took over as
chairman. Reynolds then called a special meeting on a date when he knew two
objecting board members would be out of town; and at that meeting, Reynolds
gave Premier Management the contract, according to the affidavit. Twelve days
later, Lopez and Reynolds attended an all-expense paid golf and fishing trip
to Costa Rica, hosted by Premier Management, according to the affidavit. A
person investigators believe to be an Alabama state senator also attended. In
October 2005, the contract was formally signed. One month later, Premier
Management gave a $5,000 check to “Systems Analysts,” which prosecutors say
was a shell business controlled by Reynolds. In January 2006, Premier
Management gave $7,500 to the “Optimist Club Scholarship Fund,” which
prosecutors say is a sham nonprofit controlled by Reynolds. Another $7,500
check to Optimist followed on May 11, 2006, according to the affidavit. Two
weeks later, despite an analysis by the board’s accountant that showed the
commissary profits had decreased, the board voted to extend the contract to
the entire jail, not just the annex operations, the affidavit says. In total,
prosecutors allege, Premier Management or Michael LeBlanc gave Reynolds’
organizations more than $32,000, which Reynolds then turned into cash and
deposited into his personal bank account. Pat LeBlanc said the contracts his
company signs with state and federal officials require a great deal of disclosure,
including the requirement that his company’s books be open for review at a
moment’s notice by those agencies. “I’m proud to say I have passed muster,”
LeBlanc said. “There’s probably no candidate in Louisiana that gets more
scrutiny.” LeBlanc said he and his brother started the commissary business as
a satellite business to serve their own prisons, before deciding to branch
off to serve other facilities. It’s not a large part of the overall business,
LeBlanc said. “I would never ever risk my integrity over selling candy bars
and potato chips,” LeBlanc said. LeBlanc said that most voters see the issue
as he sees it, as a “smear campaign.” He said most Lafayette media outlets
were tipped off on the San Antonio prosecutions within a two-and-a-half hour
period. “It’s politics as usual,” LeBlanc said. “It’s the nature of the game.
It’s a blood sport. People will use every little piece of leverage they can.”
September
9, 2007 San Antonio Express-News
Bexar County Sheriff Ralph Lopez and some of his friends weren't the only
ones in South Texas who enjoyed the benefits of helping Premier Management
Enterprises secure lucrative jail commissary contracts, according to
interviews and records examined by the San Antonio Express-News. Like Lopez,
the sheriffs of two other counties awarded contracts to the Louisiana jail
services company, and either they or their associates reaped financial
benefits. Those sheriffs, now out of office, also boasted to their staffs
about going on a golf and fishing trip to Costa Rica with Premier officials,
the same trip that last week forced Lopez to resign. Here in Kleberg County,
then-Sheriff Tony Gonzalez, a close friend of Lopez, gave Premier a contract
to run his jail commissary when he was in office in 2004 and has been paid by
the company for consulting work of an unknown nature. "I've done some
consulting for them here and there," Gonzalez told the Express-News
during a brief interview at his ranch-style home on the outskirts of
Kingsville, declining to elaborate. "I'm just down here keeping my nose
clean." In Nueces County, one associate of former Sheriff Larry
Olivarez, another Lopez friend, reaped rewards after helping Premier win a
jail commissary contract there in 2005. The associate, a commercial real
estate broker who was appointed by the sheriff to an ad hoc committee that
awarded the contract, later earned a commission from the sale of 56 acres
where LCS Corrections Services Inc., another company owned in part by
Premier's principals, is building a private detention center, the
Express-News has learned. In addition, the former sheriff's chief deputy won
political backing from LCS when he ran as a candidate to replace Olivarez,
who had stepped down to run for county judge. Premier, which has come up
repeatedly in an ongoing public corruption investigation in Bexar County for
doing favors for influential people in a position to help the company, has
denied any wrongdoing. That investigation, so far, has narrowly targeted only
individuals in Bexar County, such as Lopez and his longtime campaign manager,
John Reynolds, and Reynolds' financial relationship with the sheriff's wife.
Lopez, Reynolds and at least one of their associates helped Premier land the
local jail food commissary contract in 2005. As part of an immunity deal with
Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed, the sheriff resigned, effective
Sept. 19, and pleaded no contest Tuesday to three misdemeanor charges, two of
which were related to the Costa Rica golf outing he accepted from Premier.
The deal protected him from further state prosecution; his wife wasn't
indicted. Reynolds, who played a key role in awarding the contract to
Premier, is suspected by Reed of bribery, extortion, theft, money laundering
and campaign finance violations. He also went on the Costa Rica trip and
received checks totaling more than $30,000 from Premier and one of its owners
for consulting and donations to fake charities Reynolds set up. An associate
of both Reynolds and the sheriff, John E. Curran, voted with Reynolds on a
jail board to give Premier the commissary contract, then won a contract
himself from Premier to provide temporary workers for the operation. Largely
unexamined is the broader picture of how Premier, its owners, Patrick and
Michael LeBlanc, and LCS conducted a business expansion with local government
partners throughout South Texas. A closer look at some of those operations
reveals similarities in conduct with local officials that have drawn none of
the law enforcement or media scrutiny seen in Bexar County. Nueces County
Sheriff Jim Kaelin, who succeeded Olivarez, is among those who have been
watching the news from San Antonio with keen interest because LCS is about to
open an 800-bed prison in his county. So far, no law enforcement agency has
contacted him, Kaelin said. Close relationships -- LeBlanc-run companies
Premier and LCS operate jail-related businesses in five South Texas counties.
The first started in Brooks County in 2000. They have embarked on an
aggressive expansion in recent years that has capitalized on tighter federal
immigration control policies. In addition to the work at Bexar County Jail,
the companies also operate jails, commissaries or full-scale prisons in
Brooks, Kleberg, Hidalgo and Nueces counties. They also run four jails in the
LeBlancs' home state of Louisiana and one in Alabama. Current Texas law makes
sheriffs key gatekeepers for contracts such as those sought by Premier and to
a certain extent by the prison-building LCS. Under current law, Texas
sheriffs have almost unchecked authority to contract management of their
commissaries with no competitive bidding. County commissioners must approve
deals to build private prisons but often keep their sheriffs closely in the
loop as resident overseers and advisers. Premier, LCS or sometimes both arrived
in counties served by sheriffs who maintained close personal relationships
with one another and with Bexar County's Lopez, according to interviews with
personnel in several offices. Lopez's office calendar for the past few years
shows he often traveled to visit Kleberg's Gonzalez on weekends for golfing
and that Gonzalez traveled to San Antonio. The calendar also shows a number
of trips to visit Olivarez in Corpus Christi, where he still lives in a house
near a golf course. At the Kleberg County Sheriff's Office, Gonzalez's former
staffers say the three were often joined in golfing and hunting outings by
other sheriffs and elected officials in counties where Premier or LCS are
doing business today. Among them was Balde Lozano of Brooks County, who did not
return three calls for this story. "He kept a close-knit circle of
friends," said Yvonne Barbour, Gonzalez's former office administrator.
"I know Tony was a big golfer." Those relationships would later
prove mutually beneficial for the Louisiana companies and the sheriffs or
their friends. Gonzalez, for instance, used his relationships in Nueces
County to help Premier and LCS gain entrance there. Assistant Deputy Chief
Peter B. Peralta, who worked in the office when LSC first began courting
county business, remembered that it was Gonzalez who made the introductions.
Later, Gonzalez approved giving Premier a food commissary contract for his
jail during his final weeks in office. At some point either before or after
Gonzalez left office in late 2004, he accepted private consulting work from
Premier's owners, he and a company official acknowledged. When Gonzalez
transferred the commissary contract to Premier, two lifelong Kingsville
residents, brothers who run a small local grocery, felt the pain. Betos Community
Grocery had held the contract since the 1970s and had come to rely on the
modest commissary revenue as competition from large grocery stores cut into
Betos' bottom line. They were told they should only bid for the contract if
they had a sophisticated computer system. "We didn't even get one
computer until last year," said Juan Garza, who co-owns the grocery with
his brother Albert and supported Gonzalez's last failed re-election bid.
"It hurt." It remains unclear what kind of consulting work Gonzalez
did for the company or when it started. But former five-term Brooks County
Judge Joe B. Garcia recalled one occasion — after Gonzalez lost his election
— that he came calling, apparently after hearing that Garcia had begun
agitating for Brooks County to renegotiate better terms from its LCS
detention center contract. It was during this time that Gonzalez phoned
Garcia wanting to meet for lunch and talk about local LCS operations.
"I've known Tony for a while. But I didn't want to talk to him about my
contract with LCS," Garcia said. Garcia remembered another story he
found disturbing, when Michael LeBlanc himself showed up at his office,
accompanied by the man Garcia had just beaten in the election. That LeBlanc
would travel to South Texas was not unusual; he often has personally tended
to his business affairs. But Garcia said what he heard made him feel
uncomfortable. "They said if I had a campaign debt, they would
contribute to my campaign," Garcia said. He said he told them he had no
campaign debt to pay off and wouldn't have accepted the offer even if he did.
"A lot of people try to do those type of things," Garcia said.
"I've always been the type who, hey, I've worked hard for my education.
I don't have fancy cars, no ranches." Attorneys for LCS and Premier have
declined all requests for interviews regarding the ongoing investigation in
Bexar County or for this report. Last year, the LeBlancs sued the
Express-News, alleging they were libeled in articles the paper published in
late 2005. The lawsuit is pending. But Chris Burch, chief executive officer
of Premier, acknowledged that Gonzalez had done some consulting work for the
company under an arrangement with a predecessor, Ian Williamson, who is no
longer with the company. Burch said he was not privy to any details about
that work. Gonzalez still may be working for the company as a paid
consultant, Burch said. "I do know he has done some consulting work, but
I'm not the one who put this together." Benefits and campaign -- Like
Gonzalez, then-Nueces County Sheriff Olivarez helped Premier land a
commissary deal in his jail during his final days in office in late 2005. He
then quit, as required, to run for county judge. During his time as sheriff,
LCS had a "pass through" contract with Nueces to refer federal prisoners
to its other Texas facilities, and it advanced a proposal to build the
800-bed detention center, now nearing completion. The project is expected to
generate $800,000 for the county in inmate transfer payments, plus $350,000
to $400,000 in taxes. The Express-News has learned an ally of Olivarez
benefited financially from LCS' effort to build the detention center — after
helping the sheriff give the jail commissary contract to Premier. Corpus
Christi commercial real estate broker and developer Tim Clower served in late
2005 on an ad hoc selection committee the sheriff appointed to examine bids
for the commissary management job, according to the office of Kaelin, the
current sheriff. In February 2006, several months after Clower voted for the
commissary contract, he brokered a real estate purchase of 56.6 acres on
behalf of LCS for the $20 million detention center. The property's seller,
Patricia Ann Bernsen, said Clower's company approached her and brokered the
purchase of her farmland for $4,000 an acre, or $225,000. "He did get a
commission, that's for sure," Bernsen said, declining to say how much.
"It was a good commission." On average, commercial real estate
agents earn between 6 percent and 10 percent, according to one South Texas
commercial real estate broker. At the time of the sale, the 2006 sheriff's
primary race was heating up. Clower co-signed for a $20,000 campaign loan to
Olivarez's former chief deputy, Jimmy Rodriguez, whose opponent at the time
was publicly criticizing him for helping bring LCS to town. LCS went to
Rodriguez's aid by lambasting his opponent. At one point in the campaign, LCS
went public with a threat to halt construction of its detention center if
Rodriguez did not win the Democratic primary. "We're not going to work with
or for someone who doesn't respect our company," Michael LeBlanc was
quoted in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times as saying about Rodriguez's
opponent. "If Mr. (Pete) Alvarez wins, we're out of Nueces County —
plain and simple," LeBlanc said. Rodriguez won the primary but lost the
general election. Last week, he insisted that he was paying off the $20,000
bank loan he said Clower co-signed. "He's been a friend for a long
time," Olivarez's former chief deputy said of Clower. "He had a
long history with the department before we even got there." Clower did
not return repeated calls seeking comment about the loan or his commission on
the LCS land purchase. Traveling together -- The Express-News could not
substantiate or refute comments from those in the Sheriff's Office that
Olivarez, while he was sheriff, went on the same Costa Rica trip in August
2005 with Lopez, Reynolds and Premier officials. Olivarez did not return
numerous phone calls or respond to a message left during a visit to his home.
Kaelin said Olivarez boasted of the Costa Rica trip and a separate hunting
trip to employees who remain on staff. Kleberg's Gonzalez, while in office,
also told some of his staff of going on the same Costa Rica trip, said
Kleberg Sheriff Ed Mata, who beat Gonzalez in the 2004 election. Mata
conceded that he can't prove the story, but he wondered why no one has
investigated as in Bexar County. Gonzalez, during the recent interview at his
home near Kingsville, was asked several times if he would deny going on the
trip. He declined each time. The Costa Rica trip was not the only reputed
benefit Kaelin heard about in regard to Olivarez. Shortly after taking
office, Kaelin said, a staff person phoned him to report that Olivarez had
appeared with a small group of businesspeople seeking to tour the detention
center project. Kaelin said he was told that Olivarez had represented himself
as an "unpaid spokesperson for LCS." Kaelin called LCS officials to
inquire as to whether Olivarez might have been hired to run the detention center,
a prospect Kaelin worried would undermine his office's working relationship
with it. But he was told Olivarez had no known connection to the company or
employment prospects. Bexar Sheriff Lopez's office calendar indicates he
planned to attend the detention center groundbreaking with Olivarez on Feb.
23, 2006, after Olivarez had left office to run, unsuccessfully it turned
out, for judge. Today, Olivarez works as a manager for the Corpus Christi
branch of CGT Law Group International, according to a woman who answered the
phone there. Richard Harbison, a vice president in charge of LCS' Texas
operations, is certain that Olivarez has had no financial relationship with
LCS. As he was preparing to take his own vacation to Costa Rica, Harbison
also said by phone that he was unaware of any paid trips involving sheriffs
in Texas and the LeBlancs. Burch, of Premier, said he was not working for the
company at the time of the August 2005 trip. In Bexar County, where the
public corruption investigation has been in high gear lately, District
Attorney Susan Reed has said she is mainly interested in prosecuting local
individuals such as Reynolds, whom she called "rotten fruit." None
of Premier's San Antonio offices have been searched, Reed acknowledged.
"I'm not finished, so I'm not ready to make any definitive determination
yet" about Premier, she said. The FBI and Texas Rangers, which have been
involved in the Bexar County investigation, aren't commenting. Patrick
LeBlanc, who last week formally became a candidate for the Louisiana
Legislature, is running in part on a message that he will fight against
political corruption that "robs us of our confidence in
government." Last week, he told the Lafayette Advocate that he has been
cooperating with investigators in Bexar County but couldn't elaborate.
"We haven't done anything wrong," he told the newspaper. "I
would never, ever risk my integrity over selling candy bars and potato
chips."
September
1, 2007 San Antonio Express-News
With an indictment hanging over his head, Sheriff Ralph Lopez resigned Friday
in a deal struck with prosecutors that guarantees him no jail time in
exchange for a no contest plea and $10,000 fine, a source familiar with the
negotiations told the San Antonio Express-News. Lopez's brief resignation
letter marked the end of his 15-year reign as Bexar County sheriff. The
letter was faxed to District Attorney Susan Reed at 5:36 p.m., following what
the Express-News confirmed were ongoing negotiations about resolving his
criminal case. Lopez faces misdemeanor charges stemming from an investigation
into a jail commissary contract awarded to a Louisiana private jail services
company called Premier Management Enterprises. "I, Rafael Lopez, hereby
resign my position as Sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, effective at 5:00 p.m.
on August 31, 2007," Lopez's resignation letter said. Reed turned the
resignation letter over to Commissioners Court, whose members plan to meet
Tuesday to begin choosing a successor. A new sheriff could be named by Sept.
19. The resignation was the product of a deal Lopez and his attorneys struck
with Reed's office, a source familiar with the agreement confirmed. Under the
undisclosed terms, Lopez agreed to plead no contest to all three
misdemeanors, and to pay a $10,000 fine. A review by the Express-News of the
court's records Friday showed no plea agreement was filed, and judges who
could have formalized the deal had left the building by the time Lopez's
resignation was made public. Sources familiar with the negotiations, however,
confirmed the sheriff will formalize the proposed deal in front of a judge,
possibly as early as next week. Reed declined to comment. So did Lopez's
lawyer, Mike McCrum: "I cannot comment about anything regarding his
pending case," he said. After formally resigning, Lopez retreated to the
privacy of his Leon Valley home, which raided last week by investigators, and
did not answer calls from the media. Through other officials, he requested to
be left alone. County Commissioner Paul Elizondo said Lopez may issue a
public statement in the coming days. The indictments against Lopez, issued
just as the statute of limitations was about to expire, are part of a broader
ongoing investigation into just how Premier Management Enterprises came to
win the jail commissary contract. Lopez faces three misdemeanor counts:
accepting a gift, accepting an "honorarium," and failing to
disclose the gift and honorarium in his finance reports to the county. The
alleged gifts were in the form of a golfing and fishing trip to Costa Rica in
August 2005, at a time when Premier's contract was in jeopardy. Key questions
remain unanswered. Chief among them is whether Lopez or his wife, Nancy
Lopez, still might be subject to charges in the public corruption
investigation. She has been named as a suspect in bribery, money laundering
and campaign finance law violations. Also unknown is whether Lopez and his
wife will become cooperating witnesses against others who have been named as
suspects or who have been called before the grand jury. The grand jury's term
was extended until late September. "The sheriff clearly wants to spend
more time with his family, and he's confident that his department is being
left in capable hands," said McCrum, who declined to comment on Nancy
Lopez's status or any possible deal involving Lopez himself. "He's proud
of the Bexar County Sheriff's Office and that it is in capable hands. Because
of a lot of different factors, he's decided to resign to spend more time with
his family." County officials called a news conference late Friday afternoon
to announce the resignation. Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff described a
calm, professional interaction with the sheriff during which Lopez disclosed
his intention to resign. Wolff said he didn't ask Lopez any questions.
"He did say he's going to take some time with his family and wanted some
privacy," Wolff said, later adding: "The last two or three weeks
have obviously been difficult. I think at least I feel relieved in the sense
that it's come to a conclusion, and we now know a timeline in which we will
take action. It's never good when any elected official has legal
problems." Elizondo and Commissioner Tommy Adkisson also expressed
regret. "It is sad for a person who came in with great aplomb and
reception ... to come to this juncture," Adkisson said. "I had a
very good relationship with the sheriff, and I always really respected
him," Elizondo said. "He's had an outstanding career in law
enforcement and he's done a lot to modernize and upgrade the Sheriff's Office
during his career. It's sad that it comes to this juncture." Wolff said
he had no successor in mind for Lopez. Sheriff's Deputy Al Damiani, president
of the Bexar County Sheriffs Deputy Law Enforcement Officer's Organization,
long considered a Lopez ally, expressed dismay over the resignation. The
union, known as LEO, has had its records subpoenaed, along with some of its
top members, and long has retained longtime Lopez campaign manager John
Reynolds as a political consultant. The investigation into the jail
commissary contract also has encompassed Reynolds, who served on the
nonprofit board. "If this hadn't have come up, they would have been
naming buildings after Ralph Lopez," Damiani said. "He took our
organization from the dark ages to a situation where we're a viable modern
law enforcement organization." Damiani, who only recently became LEO's
president, said he has ordered a full 10-year audit of the organization's
books that will focus on any dealings involving Reynolds. He also urged
Commissioner's Court to appoint an interim sheriff who knows the department
well and isn't currently a declared candidate for the office. He said the
office has been in "absolute turmoil." "We want someone who
can stabilize things and get us back to the business of serving the public,"
Damiani said. Premier took over management of the jail food commissary
contract at the urging of Lopez, who used close associates on a nonprofit
corporate board overseeing the jail commissary to push the contract through
when a majority of other board members were prepared to vote it down. Through
their attorneys, Ralph and Nancy Lopez and Reynolds have denied any
wrongdoing.
August
15, 2007 San Antonio Express-News
Bexar County Sheriff Ralph Lopez was indicted Thursday on three
misdemeanor criminal charges related to benefits he allegedly took from a
jail contractor, but the four-term officeholder avoided the indignity of
getting booked into his own jail. The indictments accused Lopez of accepting
and failing to report a gift and an "honorarium" — both involving the
same 2005 all-expenses paid golfing/fishing trip to Costa Rica — from a
company he helped get the contract to run his jail's food commissaries. In
particular, the indictments allege that he solicited and accepted food,
lodging, transportation and entertainment, including golfing and fishing,
from two officials of Louisiana-based Premier Management Enterprises, which
now runs the commissaries. One indictment labels the trip as a gift to a
public servant; the other an "honorarium," or informal payment, that
"was in consideration for services that the defendant would not have
been requested to provide but for defendant's official position and
duties." The third charges that he failed to report the gift on his
personal financial disclosure form. Lopez remains in office, as allowed by
law for an official under indictment, but if found guilty, Lopez would be
automatically disqualified for service and could end up behind bars. Despite
warrants issued for his arrest Thursday, Lopez never had to join his
prisoners. After reporting to a judge, he was allowed to remain free on a
personal recognizance bond. The charges are the first to surface as part of a
wider-ranging public corruption probe that District Attorney Susan Reed said
focuses on the relationship between Premier, Lopez, his longtime campaign
manager John Reynolds, members of a nonprofit board the sheriff set up and
appointed to run the jail commissaries, and others. Attorneys for Premier did
not respond to requests for comment Thursday. After testifying under subpoena
for 45 minutes before the grand jury Thursday morning, Lopez said, "I've
done nothing wrong." A Democrat who recently announced he would run for
re-election next year, Lopez called the 18-month investigation by Republican
Reed "a political witch hunt." Jason Davis, one of Lopez's
attorneys, said, "We are looking forward to our day in court." In
previous interviews, Lopez has acknowledged accepting the trip to Costa Rica
for an undisclosed business purpose, a kind of favor to friends, but has insisted
it had no bearing on his decision to help Premier take over the jail
commissaries. He maintains he has never received any form of payment from
Premier for his help. Reed characterized the indictment of Lopez as merely a
stepping-stone in an investigation that is far from over, involving the FBI
and Texas Rangers. She said the misdemeanor indictments against Lopez were
presented Thursday only because the legal time limit for filing such charges
would have ended on Monday. Reed dismissed the sheriff's accusation that the
investigation was political, noting that it began long before Lopez declared
he would run for re-election. "That is a fairly typical response from
any politician who has been indicted. In fact, I can't remember anyone not
claiming that," she said. "The sheriff has run for office before
and I have kept my distance. I didn't even support the candidates who were
running. I made no public endorsements. I felt I needed to work with him.
He's the sheriff." The charges against Lopez fall short of more penalty-heavy
public corruption or bribery, which challenge prosecutors to present evidence
that meets a more stringent standard. Instead, the two charges characterizing
the trip as a payment or benefit, if proved, each carry up to a year in
prison, a $4,000 fine, or both. A third charge accusing Lopez of failing to
report it as required on financial disclosure statements carries a penalty of
up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. Jail business -- The sheriff's
Costa Rica trip came at a time when Premier's prospects of getting the jail
business was in jeopardy, and he wasn't the only one who benefited from a
relationship with the company. Until the fall of 2005, the county's two jail
commissaries were being run and managed directly by the sheriff's office through
the nonprofit Benevolent Fund. By most accounts, the commissaries were run
efficiently and had some $2 million a year in revenue. But starting earlier
in 2005, the sheriff began pushing hard for his appointed board members to
hand over management to Premier, on grounds that a private company could run
the commissaries more professionally. Premier's principals were brothers
Michael LeBlanc and Patrick LeBlanc, as well as CEO Ian Williamson. But some
of Lopez's own staff and appointed Benevolent Fund board members strongly
objected to the change. A background check turned up information about
Premier that was generally critical of the company and cited specific
examples where another company run by the LeBlancs, a private prison firm,
had faced legal challenges to their operations. A majority of board members
were prepared to vote against the project. Even Lopez momentarily withdrew
his support, but he was soon pushing for it again. A key meeting that broke
the logjam occurred in August 2005, when Reynolds became chairman of the
board and pushed the Premier contract forward, minutes show. In a recent
court filing seeking to force Reynolds to give up handwriting samples, the
district attorney's office accused him of accepting more than $27,000 in
unreported "donations" to "shell" charities and
"consulting" fees from Premier during the time that Reynolds was
also helping the company win the jail commissary business as a
sheriff-appointed member of the Benevolent Fund board. He is a target of the
investigation, subpoenaed at least three times by the grand jury. Neither
Reynolds nor his attorney has returned phone calls. He has invoked the Fifth
Amendment right against self-incrimination all three times. It was also later
that month, from Aug. 20-23, that Lopez accompanied Michael LeBlanc and Ian
Williamson to Costa Rica, according to the sheriff's calendar and the
indictments. Investigators have interviewed a number of other current and
former Benevolent Fund board members. Among them is John E. Curran III, a longtime
political and business associate of both the sheriff and Reynolds. The
Express-News reported July 29 that Curran runs a temporary worker company
that got a contract to staff Premier's commissary operations after he helped
the Louisiana company overcome Benevolent Fund board opposition to gain a
footing at the jail during the summer of 2005. Curran said he fully disclosed
his contract, worth an estimated $15,000 annually, to the sheriff and fellow
board members and abstained from further voting as a board member on Premier
business.
August
11, 2007 The Independent
A Lafayette company headed by brothers Michael and Patrick Leblanc has
turned up in the middle of a public corruption investigation centered on the
Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in west Texas. Sheriff Ralph Lopez was recently
indicted on three misdemeanor charges related to unreported benefits he
received from the Leblancs’ company, Premier Management Enterprise. Lopez
took an all-expenses-paid golfing/fishing trip to Costa Rica with the Leblancs,
at a time when Premier was vying for a lucrative contract to run the county
jail’s commissary stores. Court filings also show that one of the sheriff’s
close associates, John Reynolds, appears to have laundered money from Premier
into his own personal bank account, through a fraudulent charity scholarship
organization named Optimists. “We were duped,” says Pat Leblanc. “I really
don’t know the whole length and breadth of the story, but I can tell you
this: If somebody played funny with our money, I want to prosecute them to
the end of the world.” Leblanc, who is a candidate for District 43 state
representative, also distanced himself from the company, which he says is
primarily run by his brother and another associate, Ian Williamson. Michael
Leblanc says he is working closely with investigators and anticipates the
entire issue should soon be resolved. “Unfortunately, we didn’t know who this
guy was,” he says, referring to Reynolds. “Shame on us.” While it appears
Premier is unlikely to face any charges from the investigation, the
circumstances surrounding its contract with the Bexar County jail have
certainly created a perception of quid pro quo. The district attorney has
labeled Lopez’s golf trip as an honorarium that “was in consideration for
services that the defendant would not have been requested to provide but for
defendant’s official position and duties.” Lopez began pushing to farm out
the county jail’s commissaries to Premier in 2005. Initially the idea met
resistance from the board of the “Benevolent Fund” — a nonprofit Lopez had
set up to manage the commissaries several years ago. One board member, Amadeo
Ortiz — who now is running against Lopez for sheriff — commissioned a
background report that was critical of Premier and another Leblanc company.
After Ortiz resigned, the issue came up again. The board approved moving
ahead with a six-month trial contract with Premier in August 2005. The vote
came at a special meeting held while two board members were out of town.
Reynolds was elected chairman of the board at the same meeting. A few weeks
after that meeting, the Leblancs took both Lopez and Reynolds on the trip to
Costa Rica. Sheriff Lopez has stated the trip, which John Reynolds also
attended, was a private conference unrelated to any county business. Pat
Leblanc says the conference addressed security issues related to one of the
Leblancs’ private prisons in Alabama. In addition to Premier, the Leblancs
own LCS Prisons, the fifth largest prison system in the U.S. with facilities
across the Gulf Coast region. “In our jail business, we hold conferences with
various law enforcement agencies to discuss security and issues having to do
with operation. That was the basis of the trip,” says Pat Leblanc. He adds
the business also “routinely entertains clients. We take them fishing and we
take them golfing,” he says. “That’s business culture; everybody in the
business world does that. All the service companies here do it.” Premier
signed its six-month contract with the Benevolent Fund’s board in October 2005,
and in the months following made a total of $27,500 in contributions to
charities now known to be controlled by Reynolds. The district attorney’s
office has bank records showing that Reynolds transferred the funds into his
personal account. Reynolds is yet to be called before a grand jury. For his
part, Sheriff Lopez, a Democrat, has maintained that he is the victim of a
“political witch hunt” by the Republican district attorney. Premier’s
Texas-based attorney, Tonya Webber, issued the following statement on behalf
of her clients: “Neither PME nor any of its employees or principals has
engaged in any misconduct. While both the company and the Leblancs typically
make charitable and political contributions they had every reason to believe
that any such charities were legitimate and that all contributions or
benefits were reported by the recipients as required by law.” Pat Leblanc
says that in hindsight, his company was too trusting of the Brexar County
officials. “We’re out of towners,” he says. “We’re not from that area. We
went in, we sold our service; they wanted us to do the commissary service. We
operate a good, clean business and to think that we might have been taken
advantage of in that regard just turns my stomach.”
July
29, 2007 San Antonio News-Express
In the summer of 2005, a determined effort by Bexar County Sheriff Ralph
Lopez to privatize the county jail commissary stores — which generated some
$2 million a year in gross sales — was on the verge of foundering. In Texas,
elected sheriffs enjoy wide leeway and independence in managing and operating
county jails, including the jail commissary, where inmates can purchase
everything from snacks to toiletries. But Lopez had met strong resistance
from several board members of a nonprofit "Benevolent Fund"
corporation that he had established several years earlier to run the
commissaries. They saw no good reason to contract out the operation to a
private vendor of Lopez's choice, Premier Management Enterprises, or any
other business. The deal seemed all but dead when Premier's fortunes took an
abrupt turn for the better. Some board members, including the chairman who
staunchly opposed the deal, resigned. The new leaders of the board along with
a new member, all allies of Lopez, would push the Premier contract through
the rough patch. Within weeks of the contract approval by the sheriff's
Benevolent Fund board in August 2005, Lopez, an avid golfer known to travel
the country playing at elite resorts, was visiting Costa Rica, where he spent
time on the greens with Premier officials at the expense of Premier's
principal owners, Patrick and Michael LeBlanc. Later, less than a month after
the contract was officially inked, board Chairman John Reynolds was allegedly
depositing the first of four checks totaling $27,500 from Premier into
accounts named for charities that were "shells" and
"fronts," according to court documents filed by a district attorney
investigator. And within four months, board Vice Chairman John E. Curran III
was preparing to cut his own financial side deal with Premier. Curran's
temporary worker company, PersoNet, now provides the very commissary
employees that Premier uses to carry out the contract Curran helped along as
vice chairman. In a recent interview, Curran said his own ongoing business with
Premier, based in Louisiana, to supply the jail commissaries with about a
dozen temporary workers is worth between $12,000 and $15,000 a year to him.
Curran said he did nothing criminally or ethically wrong, and that he
verbally disclosed the relationship with Premier to the sheriff and abstained
on relevant votes once his company had Premier's business in April 2006.
"I had the sheriff's permission prior to doing any business with
Premier, and I asked the board's permission. Both granted it," Curran said.
"I wanted to be sure there was no conflict of interest. I did not want
anyone to find out in the newspaper, or any other way, that one of my clients
was Premier." The sheriff did not reply to several telephone messages
last week. Neither Reynolds nor his attorney returned messages requesting
comment for this article. Even if no laws were broken, disclosures about
Premier's generosity toward elected and appointed officials who have helped
it win lucrative contracts have left — at the least — a public perception of
wrongdoing in how the sheriff and his allies conduct business.
"Ugh," Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff groaned when told of
Premier's arrangement with Curran's company. "This thing's worse than it
already has been. This is not good at all. Nothing about it looks good.
Whether you've violated a criminal act or an ethics issue, or neither, it's
still not appropriate behavior. It looks bad." District Attorney Susan
Reed's public corruption investigators, joined by the FBI and the Texas
Rangers, are conducting interviews and have sought grand jury subpoenas
regarding Reynolds. On several occasions, he's invoked his Fifth Amendment
right against self-incrimination in response to subpoenas, according to court
documents. First Assistant District Attorney Cliff Herberg said his office
would not discuss the investigation. Curran acknowledged that investigators
have questioned him about PersoNet's relationship with Premier. Asked if he
had ever shared any of the Premier revenue with Reynolds or anyone else, Curran
replied: "I'm not sharing my revenue with anyone but my kids. My staff
is not donating to anybody. There's just nothing there." One of
Premier's attorneys, Tonya Webber of Corpus Christi, wrote in an e-mail
reply, in part, that: "Temp-to-hire services are a prudent business
practice. This was an arms-length transaction documented in writing with an
experienced temp-to-hire company." Webber said she wasn't at liberty to
respond to specific e-mailed questions, such as why Premier chose a Benevolent
Fund board member's company, rather than more than a dozen other area
licensed temp worker companies. Created in 2002 by Lopez, the Benevolent Fund
appears to be the only one that exists in the state for the purpose of
running a jail commissary. Sheriffs in other counties have contracted the job
directly with private companies in line with state laws that allow them to do
so without competitive bidding. Because of the Benevolent Fund's unique
existence and function, said Lauri Saathoff, a spokeswoman for the Texas
attorney general's office, the question of how the state's conflict of
interest law might apply has never come up. "We don't have any previous
attorney general's opinions for a board like this," Saathoff said in
response to an Express-News request. Three-way alliance -- Curran's ties to
the sheriff and Reynolds date to the late 1990s when Curran worked as a
senior analyst in the Bexar County Personnel Division. Close alliances were
built among the three over the years, each assuming positions of potential
benefit to the others. Lopez and Reynolds have known each other for at least
15 years; Lopez has hired Reynolds as his campaign manager for years and once
made Reynolds his chief of staff. Curran began serving on various boards
alongside Reynolds, doing business with a deputies' union considered aligned
with Lopez, and working on the sheriff's campaigns that Reynolds managed.
While Reynolds was chairman of the West San Antonio Chamber of Commerce,
which he helped found, Curran was treasurer. Reynolds also nominated Curran
in 2004 for appointment to the Alamo Workforce Development board, one of 28
such boards across the state that spend Texas Workforce Commission funds to
help the unemployed find work. Curran and Reynolds also share a connection
through the Bexar County Sheriff's Deputies Law Enforcement Organization's
union. The fact that LEO routinely hires Reynolds as its paid lobbyist has
led to the perception among some deputies that Lopez wields some influence
over the organization. LEO also has given consulting contracts to Curran to
conduct salary surveys the union uses to justify pay raise requests, he said.
And Lopez's wife, Nancy, served at one time with Reynolds on a now-defunct
nonprofit fundraising arm of LEO. Curran, for his part, said he has donated
PersoNet's "time and energy" to man phone banks soliciting past
Lopez election campaign contributors and will again for the sheriff's 2008
re-election campaign. When Lopez founded the Benevolent Fund, Curran was
among the first whom the sheriff asked to serve on it. The alliance between
Curran, Reynolds and the sheriff would come into play at a critical moment
during the summer of 2005, in ways that would yield fruit for more than just
Premier. Opposition to proposed contract -- Starting in early 2005, when
commissary revenues were approaching record highs of $2 million under
Benevolent Fund board management, Lopez began pushing for Premier to run the
jail annex commissary, the smaller of two, on a six-month trial basis. If
that worked out, the contract would be expanded to the main jail commissary.
Rather than contract out the commissary at first, Lopez had opted to set up a
Benevolent Fund with a seven-member board to do the job in-house. He has
authority to nominate and appoint members. Lopez said last month that he
later wanted to switch to Premier because the commissary operations were
outgrowing the limited expertise of board members and it was time for
professional management. "None of us had experience," Lopez said.
"Running a jail is not just putting guys in jail. It's detention
ministries; it's banking and other services. It's all comprehensive."
Some of the sheriff's subordinates on the board immediately opposed the
change. But the endeavor did not run into serious trouble until the eve of a
scheduled board vote on the pilot contract June 22, 2005. The chairman at the
time, Deputy Chief Amadeo Ortiz, released the results of a background
investigation of Premier that he had quietly commissioned from the Houston
law firm McFall, Sherwood & Breitbeil. The report was generally critical
of Premier and cited specific examples where another company in which the
LeBlancs also were shareholders, LCS Corrections Services Inc., had faced
legal challenges to their operations. The background report — and a financial
analysis projecting an initial revenue loss of $103,790 if Premier took over
— raised sufficient concern for Reynolds to table the Premier contract that
day, according to meeting minutes and two former board members. Ortiz, who
resigned from the board shortly after that meeting and is running for sheriff
against Lopez, said he believes he knows why. "It would have failed a
vote at that time," said Ortiz, guessing the board would have voted 4-2
against Premier. "My fellow board members didn't like the contract
because there was nothing wrong with the way the commissary was being
run." Even the sheriff momentarily wavered in his support for Premier
because of the background report. But Lopez was soon pushing again. And in
the sheriff's corner, Ortiz and another board member said, were the only two
who had supported the proposal all along and who would go on to break the
stalemate: Curran and Reynolds, "the two Johns," as Ortiz and other
board members sometimes referred to them. Doing 'business with friends' -- On
Aug. 9, 2005, Reynolds and Curran called a special meeting. Ortiz had by then
resigned, and the two other board members were out of town, at least one of
whom was firmly opposed. Reynolds and Curran were joined by Dr. Bert Cecconi,
a 71-year-old dentist and occasional candidate for local political office who
had recently been added to the board. Only weeks earlier Reynolds has asked
him to join the board as a favor to the sheriff, Cecconi recalled in an
interview last week. He said he'd gotten to know Reynolds and Lopez over the
years at Saturday morning community breakfast meetings downtown. The three,
enough for a quorum, elected Reynolds the new board chairman and Curran the
new vice chairman. Lopez put in a brief but rare appearance at the meeting.
Then, according to meeting minutes, the trio "approved and unanimously
recommends implementation immediately" of the Premier annex commissary
tryout program. Curran acknowledged the purpose of that Aug. 9 special
meeting. "That meeting was called to help get things going
forward," he said. "We were just trying to coordinate it to get
things up and going." Cecconi, who described himself as a "passive
member" of the board, said he served for just four meetings, dropping
off shortly after signing the Premier contract. Cecconi was given to believe
the Premier deal was a routine matter requiring little scrutiny. "To me,
I thought it was like a machine with Cokes coming out of it or something. I
didn't know it was a major deal," Cecconi said last week about
transferring the $2 million a year jail commissary operations to Premier.
"I probably just said, 'OK.' I didn't give it much thought, for better
or for worse." Later that month, from Aug. 20-23, the sheriff, who
frequently played golf with Premier's owners, traveled to Costa Rica, his
office calendar shows. Lopez recalled last month that the LeBlancs paid all
of his expenses to Costa Rica for an undisclosed business trip, unrelated to
county affairs, that included tee time. Lopez still refuses to fully disclose
the business purpose of the trip, only that it involved a favor to his
Premier friends, a foreign ambassador and a senator, neither of whom he would
name in deference to a confidentiality agreement he said he struck with all
involved. He also said he was not paid. "The LeBlanc people paid for the
Costa Rica trip," the sheriff said. "I was over there carrying my
resume with me for credibility for part of the trip." From August on,
Lopez and Premier would encounter no more dissent. After several resignations,
the board, under the guidance of Chairman Reynolds and Vice Chairman Curran,
would reconstitute itself with new members who would continue clearing the
path for Premier's pilot six-month contract. On Oct. 19, 2005, Cecconi, as
board secretary, signed the contract with Premier for the pilot program, a
copy of the agreement shows. A short time later, Cecconi dropped off the
board. He told the Express-News his dental practice had gotten too busy.
About three weeks after the contract was signed, Premier wrote a $5,014 check
for "consulting" to Systems Analysts Inc., described as Reynolds'
"alter ego," according to allegations by district attorney
investigators. Three more Premier checks, totaling another $22,500, to
Reynolds-controlled accounts would follow, according to court filings.
Webber, Premier's attorney, said last month when asked about the checks that
there is no evidence of Premier being connected to any alleged wrongdoing.
Curran's firm gets hired Once Premier had its signed the pilot contract,
Curran said a company official asked him for advice about staffing the
limited operation. Premier was going to need only four of its own workers.
Curran said he offered to let Premier conduct interviews in the offices of
PersoNet, free of charge, as a favor. As vice chairman, Curran continued to
consider and discuss Premier's status until about February 2006, by which
time the tryout period was more than half over, and it was clear to board
members that Premier would secure a five-year contract to run both jail
commissaries. Curran confirmed that was about when Premier first broached the
topic of his company getting paid to provide commissary workers for the
anticipated expansion. He said he tried to refer the business elsewhere but
that the company insisted on PersoNet. "They said, 'We need
employees,'" Curran recalled. "I recommended a couple of different
avenues for them because I am in the business, and they chose not to follow
those, so ..." While there are a dozen licensed temporary staffing
companies in the greater San Antonio area, Curran said Premier preferred to
do business with him because "I guess it's all networking. You like to
do business with friends." During the February 2006 board meeting,
minutes show, Reynolds disclosed Curran's pending business relationship with
Premier. The sheriff, Reynolds announced, had requested that Curran's company
"bid" on work to supply Premier with workers. Curran's fellow board
members then approved a motion that he recuse himself "from voting on
matters that may create a conflict of interest with the (Benevolent) Fund's
activities," according to the minutes. When the time came for the
Benevolent Fund to extend the contract in April 2006, Curran abstained.
PersoNet had penned its deal with Premier. Once Premier had all the
commissary business, the Benevolent Fund no longer needed to employ the 13
commissary workers. Some were laid off; others were encouraged to reapply to
Premier for their old jobs, at substantially lower pay and with no benefits,
according to two former employees. PersoNet handled the initial reapplication
process, bringing some of the old commissary employees into PersoNet's fold
as temporary workers. It also became the equivalent of Premier's human
resources department, outsourced. Curran said he hopes his company grows with
Premier, which has contracts elsewhere in South Texas. "We want them to
do well, both as a board member and as a client," Curran said.
"Their success — just like all my other clients' success is — if I can help
them be more successful, then I'm successful. "That's business."
Bexar County Secure Juvenile
Correctional Treatment Center
Bexar County, Texas
Children’s Comprehensive Services/CCS
October, 1998
On October 21, three male inmates kicked open a rear gate and escaped. Less
than a week later, another inmate escaped through an unlocked front gate.
(San Antonio Express-News, November 11, 1998)
Big Spring Complex
Big Spring, Texas
GEO Group (bought Cornell)
November 9, 2010 NewsWest 9
An accidental shooting on Tuesday at the federal prison in Big Spring put an
inmate in the hospital. The shooting happened right before noon at the Flight
Line Prison, located at the airpark in Big Spring. According to medics, a
Hispanic man was accidentally shot by a gun in the upper arm. The wound was
not serious, but he was taken to Scenic Mountain Medical Center for a follow
up. He was alert and conscious while being transported. We still don't know
how the prisoner was shot. Details are limited at this time, but we've
learned the shooting is under investigation. NewsWest 9 has contacted the Geo
Group, which currently runs the prison, and they have not commented on the
incident. NewsWest 9 will continue to follow this story and will bring you
the very latest information when we get it.
September
14, 2008 Permian Basin 360
Questions remain unanswered concerning Friday night's prison riot in Big
Spring. Fires reportedly broke out in several buildings at the Big Spring
Correctional Center's FlightLine unit. Ambulances were seen leaving the
scene. Cornell Companies currently operates the site. "All we do is
establish a perimeter. That's all we do in these instances. They handle all
the security inside the fence," said Sgt. Tony Everett of the Big Spring
Police Department. The unit is specifically for prisoners who commit
immigration violations. At this time, Cornell Companies has yet to respond to
our calls.
September
13, 2008 NewsWest 9
Questions still remain unanswered after a prisoner fire and riot on Friday
night. Facility officials are being very cautious of what information is
being disclosed. Big Spring authorities rushed to the scene of a riot and
fire from the Flightline Correctional Center near the Big Spring airport. The
facility takes prisoners from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Services, but since it is a privately owned facility the plan for police was
to secure a perimeter. "The only reason we are here, our only purpose is
if spills outside of the fenced facility," Sergeant Tony Everett, with
the Big Spring Police Department, said. In total, about 15 police officers
stayed outside managing traffic while Big Spring firefighters went inside.
"My understating is that may be one or two buildings were on fire,"
Everett said. Several ambulances left the scene towards Scenic Mountain Medical
Center where family members were advised not to disclose any information. But
the mother of one of the injured employee was thankful to hear her son was
doing better. "I feel a whole lot better, I feel relieved that he is
O.K. Like I said earlier, I just left it in the hands of God and he is the
one who pulled me through," Inez Heins, Mother of a facility Employee,
said. NewsWest 9 also received a couple of calls from relatives who say that
seven facility staff were injured and were treated for minor injuries.
According to officials from the correctional center the riot never posed
danger to the public.
September
13, 2008 KWES TV
State and local authorities have responded to a private prison near the
airport in Big Spring after an apparent riot. Big Spring Police responded to
the riot around 9:00p.m. Friday night, and quickly set up a perimeter around
the prison. There have unconfirmed reports of injuries, but a mother of an
injured guard tells NewsWest 9 that her son did sustain injuries to the face.
We were also told that three ambulances also left the prison after the riot,
which is run by Cornell Companies. Viewers also reported seeing smoke coming
from the prison, but our crew did not see any smoke when they arrived to the
scene. Sgt. Tony Everett with the Big Spring Police Department did confirm
that a fire was started in the prison but it is now under control.
Authorities tell NewsWest 9 that the situation has calmed down for the night.
The prison handles INS cases for the federal government. There have been no
reports of inmates escaping the prison at this time.
September
12, 2008 KOSA CBS 7
Emergency officials are currently responding to a fire at the Flightline
Prison located at the Big Spring airport. CBS 7 News has confirmed that a
riot broke out at the prison about 9:00 p.m. Several ambulances were seen
leaving the prison. Fire crews confirm there are six to eight people who were
injured and taken to the hospital. No word yet on the severity of the
injuries. According to Big Spring Police spokesperson Tony Everett, the riot
is under control and Big Spring police have set up a perimeter around the
facility. CBS 7's Greg Sherman was the first reporter on the scene. He says
thick black smoke was seen coming from the prison. The Flightline unit handles
low-risk inmates who are primarily incarcerated for immigration violations.
August
16, 2005 AP
Investigators want to know what started an inmate disturbance at a privately
run prison in West Texas that left five workers hurt. The assaults happened
at the Flightline Unit of the Big Spring Correctional Center. Center
spokeswoman Janice Bishop says one staffer required hospital treatment, while
the other four suffered minor injuries. Bishop says the unit was slightly
damaged in Saturday night's incident. No inmates were injured. Bishop today
declined to release further information about the assaults. Big Spring police
say the disturbance was contained inside the prison. Texas troopers and the
Howard County sheriff's department also responded to the center run by the
Houston-based Cornell Companies.
March
13, 2001
A Cornell Corrections inmate escaped over a fence late Sunday night but his
freedom was short lived. The inmate, 29-year-old Ernesto Soto-Olivarez
climbed over the fence at the Airpark unit around 9:30 p.m. Sunday and was
spotted by correctional officers who took after him on foot. He lost
the officers in the darkness and about 30 minutes later, he approached a
house in the 2600 block of Dow where he asked the resident to call for an
ambulance, saying he was suffering from chest pains. The resident called for
an ambulance and then, according to Big Spring Police Sgt. Roger Sweatt, the
resident made another call to the police station. "The inmate,
without realizing it, had come to the residence of an off-duty police
officer," said Sweatt. (Big Spring Herald, March 13, 2001)
Bill Clayton
Detention Center
Littlefield, Texas
Southwestern Corrections (formerly run by GEO Group, formerly Correctional
Services Corporation, formerly run by Corrections Concepts)
Texas
prison boom going bust: by Mitch Mitchell, September 3, 2011, Star-Telegram.
Expose on troubles facing many communities that bought into the private
prison bonding scam.
Wanted:
Inmates and Investors Texas Lockups Go on the Block: July 19,
2011, Bond Buyer: Private prison bonding not panacea.
September
16, 2011 KCBD
After auctioning off the Bill Clayton Detention Center back in July, the
City of Littlefield thought they were free from the financial strains.
However, the private bidder has backed out of their $6 million offer. The
private buyer made the offer via telephone during the July auction. Thirty
days after the bid, the contract on the property was supposed to close.
However, the City received word that the deal had fallen through. "It
didn't happen and the reason it didn't happen was because the person who put
in the highest bid basically backed out on their bid and kind of put us in a
tailspin," City Manager Danny Davis said. After years of mismanagement
and broken contracts, the $11 million dollar detention center sat vacant. The
city was left to foot the bill, still owing more than $9 million on the
property. The city was certain the bid of $6 million would help close the gap
on their debt. The news of the bidder's change of heart is frustrating for
Davis. "With the detention center, nothing has happened easy. It's been
a struggle for us all along, so, in some ways, we were not that surprised
that we've got a continued struggle," Davis said. It was a struggle that
listing agent Jef Conn says he wasn't entirely surprised by. "We always
hope for the best and plan for the worst. It's never the best when a contract
falls out," Conn said. Conn says he is working with the City of
Littlefield to come up with a plan to get the detention center sold.
"There are some interested parties and we will be working with them and
the city of Littlefield to find the best possible option and have them come
in and buy the prison," Conn said. For Davis, he is hopeful the
detention center can be sold quickly to alleviate concerns all across the
board. "I'm retiring in two weeks, and I was very hopeful that this
would be one problem my successor wouldn't have to deal with," Davis
said.
July
28, 2011 Dallas Morning News
A debt-ridden West Texas town auctioned off the empty prison at the source of
its money problems for $6 million Thursday morning. A private prison company
bought the Bill Clayton Detention Center from the city of Littlefield, whose
approximately 5,700 residents had barely been scraping by to pay the $9
million they still owed on the facility. The company placed their offer as a
confidential bidder and is requesting to remain that way until the 30-day period
for settling the sale is complete, according to Jef Conn, a real estate
specialist for Coldwell Banker Commercial Rick Canup Realtors. The five-pod
facility was built in 2000 by hopeful city officials wanting to rake in
revenue for the small cotton-growing town. Instead, Littlefield was saddled
with more than $9 million in debt once prisoners were pulled out and the
private company operating the center left. After the sale, Littlefield will
only owe between $3 million and $4 million on the facility, officials said.
July
27, 2011 American Independent
City officials in Littlefield have big hopes for tomorrow morning’s auction,
where a minimum bid of $5 million could be enough to buy your own little
slice of Panhandle heaven: the 383-bed Bill Clayton Detention Center. It’s
being billed as a “turn-key medium security detention center,” a 383-bed
bargain with slick promotions courtesy the Williams and Williams Worldwide
Real Estate Auction house. The 11-year-old prison was refurbished in 2005,
and looks great in the slideshows and teaser trailers produced for the
auction. (Here’s a longer video tour, but scroll down for a look at the best
one, a “Battlestar Galactica” inspired tour, all quick cuts and drums.) For
the City of Littlefield, though, the prison’s last couple years haven’t been
such a thrill ride. The town paid for the prison with a $10 million bond
issue, planning for a bright future with the Texas Youth Commission. But
after TYC pulled pulled its charges from the facility in 2003, Littlefield’s
credit rating suffered as the South Florida-based private prison giant GEO
Group shopped around the country for inmates to fill its beds — first with
Wyoming’s, then with Idaho’s Department of Corrections. Idaho pulled its
prisoners in 2008, GEO Group after them, and the town’s been stuck with the
empty prison it hasn’t finished paying for. Now it’s raising taxes and fees
on its 6,500 residents to make room for bond payments. The empty prison is
the driving force behind cuts to the city budget this year, according to a
City Manager’s message in the budget: The budget for 2010-2011 has presented
new challenges for us since the debt payments for the Bill Clayton Detention
Center (BCDC) have been pushed front and center by the lack of a source of
prisoners to provide a revenue stream for those bond payments. Earlier this
week, The Bond Buyer looked at the Bill Clayton facility and a handful of
others now sitting empty around Texas. While many towns found ways to avoid
leaving taxpayers on the hook if operators left, that didn’t happen here:
Like many of the speculative detention centers built in sparsely populated
counties, the Clayton facility was meant to be an economic stimulus instead
of an economic drain. But Littlefield took the somewhat unusual step of pledging
its full faith and credit to the bonds. City officials were either on
vacation or didn’t reply to interview requests from the Independent. The
advocacy group Grassroots Leadership has made a case study of Bill Clayton,
warning of the hidden dangers private prisons can create for a town, and
folks with the group say Texas’ shrinking prison population doesn’t tell the
half of the Littlefield story. “This was like a soap opera,” said Grassroots
Leadership executive director Donna Red Wing, recalling a 2004 prison break
police said was aided by a pair of guards, and a 2008 suicide that sparked a
suit against GEO Group from the family of the inmate, alleging he’d been left
in solitary for more than a year. “You couldn’t make this stuff up, the
stories are horrible,” Red Wing said. “If you wrote that screenplay, they
wouldn’t take it.” When the Idaho DOC left the Clayton facility in 2008,
state Correction Director Brent Reinke said it was pulling out because of “an
ongoing staffing issue,” the Associated Press reported at the time, referring
to an Idaho audit that found guards had been falsifying reports of their
inmate checks. “Littlefield is a difficult place to have a facility. It’s a
long way from an employment base,” said Grassroots Leadership’s Bob Libal, who
edits the blog Texas Prison Bid’ness. Libal said the Clayton facility was
part of a much greater prison-building rush around Texas that ended around
2007, followed by national searches for inmates to fill them. The only growth
lately, Libal said, has been in facilities for Immigration and Customs
Enforcement. A $35 million prison in Jones County was built by New
Jersey-based Community Education Centers last summer, and now sits empty, as
local TV station KTXS reported, “ready to bring nearly 200 jobs to the area.”
In that case, the county formed a Public Facility Corporation to help
minimize the taxpayers’ liability — but Libal said it could still mean
trouble for the county because its credit rating is still tied to the prison
debt. In January, Littlefield officials hoped the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice would sign off on an application from Avalon Correctional
Services to operate the prison, but nothing came of it. Now the city just
wants it off the books, even at half of what they paid. NPR featured both the
Clayton facility and Jones County’s new prison back in March, before
Littlefield had announced its auction: “Too many times we’ve seen jails that
have got into it and tried to make it a profitable business to make money off
of it and they end up fallin’ on their face,” says Shannon Herklotz,
assistant director of the [Texas Commission on Jail Standards]. The packages
look sweet. A town gets a new detention center without costing the taxpayers
anything. The private operator finances, constructs and operates an oversized
facility. The contract inmates pay off the debt and generate extra revenue.
The economic model works fine until they can’t find inmates.
July
14, 2011 Willams Auction
This is a unique opportunity to acquire a turn-key medium security detention
center in Littlefield, TX. New owners will benefit from support from the town
that built the facility, the area's low cost of living as well as a ready
local workforce. Conveying with the buildings on auction day are furniture,
linens, computers, kitchen supplies and other equipment used in the operation
of the facility. Located approximately 45 minutes northwest of Lubbock, it is
easily accessible from Highway 84, the Littlefield Municipal Airport, as well
as Preston Smith International Airport. The Bill Clayton Detention Center was
built in 2000 and updated in 2005. Standing on 30+/- acres, the center has
94,437+/- sq ft of space. It consists of five one-story air-conditioned
buildings constructed of concrete block with a brick veneer and pitch seamed
metal roofs. It has a capacity of 383 inmates in 5 housing pods, complete
with dayrooms and other amenities. The buildings are contained behind a
strengthened perimeter of double fences with an electronic shaker detection
system and eight video surveillance cameras. Approximately 10 acres are
contained within the fence. The facility also has a freestanding gymnasium,
maintenance shed, armory and parking lot. At the opening bid of $5 million,
the cost per bed is approximately $13,055!
May
19, 2011 Bradenton Herald
Fitch Ratings has taken the following action on Littlefield, Texas'
combination tax and revenue certificates of obligation (COs) during the
course of routine surveillance: --$1 million combination tax and revenue COs,
series 1997 affirmed at 'BB+'. -- The Rating Outlook is Negative. -- RATING
RATIONALE: --The 'BB+' rating and Negative Outlook reflect the ongoing
financial pressures resulting from Littlefield's challenges in servicing
outstanding debt issued for a now vacant detention center. The city tapped
reserve funds to help make the August 2010 debt service payments on the
series 2000 and 2001 COs (not rated by Fitch); $268,825 was used from the
combined reserves - that money has since been repaid and the reserves are
fully funded. No reserve funds were used to make February 2011 payments.
--Despite ongoing efforts to find a new tenant/operator, the city's detention
center remains empty. The city council recently entered into a contract with
an auction company to auction off the facility within 120 days. --Financial
resources to make debt service payments have been aided by the adoption in
fall 2010 of a debt service property tax and transfers from the city's two
economic development corporations' sales tax revenues; transfers from the city's
water and wastewater utility fund, which are secondary pledged revenues for
the Series 1997 COs, remain the main source of debt service support.
--General fund finances remain weak, with limited reserves. -- WHAT COULD
TRIGGER A DOWNGRADE A failed auction would maintain financial pressure on the
city, forcing it to continue with the current practice of cobbling together
debt service payment amounts from various sources; utility system cash levels
could decline and additional reserve fund draws could occur. -- SECURITY: The
series 1997 COs are payable from and secured by a limited ad valorem tax
pledge against all taxable property in the city, plus surplus revenues of the
city's waterworks and sanitary sewer system. -- CREDIT SUMMARY: The city has
been unable to locate a new tenant and/or permanent operator of its detention
facility since the State of Idaho removed its prisoners in January 2009 and
the GEO Group terminated its operating agreement at the same time. With no
facility revenues to service the debt associated with the facility, the city
in subsequent months patched together payments from various city sources,
primarily available revenues of the water and wastewater utility system. The
city was current on its payments until August 2010, when legal questions
surrounding the city's ability to use sales tax revenues from its 4A economic
development corporation delayed use of those funds. The city used nearly
$269,000 from the debt service reserves associated with the series 2000 and
2001 COs issued for the detention center to make the August 2010 payment on
these COs. Since then, the legal question regarding use of economic
development corporation sales tax revenues has been resolved favorably for
the city and the debt service reserves were fully replenished. Also, last
fall the city council established a debt service property tax for the first
time, which is expected to generate roughly $115,000 annually to help meet
debt service requirements. Finally, Littlefield voters last fall approved the
creation of a second 4B economic development corporation (also with sales tax
collection authority), and that corporation's sales tax receipts will
supplement the revenue stream. The combination of sales tax revenues and
property tax revenues, a utility system transfer and a loan of other city
funds enabled the city to make the February 2011 principal and interest
payment on the detention center COs without tapping the reserve funds.
Acknowledging the difficulty in securing new prisoners for the facility, the
city recently executed a contract with a national auction house which will
put into motion the process of auctioning off the detention facility within
120 days. Management reports that a $5 million reserve (minimum bid) will be
included in the bid specifications. While a sale at this price will not
retire the $9.5 million outstanding in related CO debt, it would enable the
city to call a significant portion of the COs, reduce the annual debt
requirement correspondingly, and relieve the current financial pressure
measurably. Conversely, a failed auction will mean the city continues with
its current practice of piecing together city revenues from various sources
to meet debt payments - a challenging prospect that will keep pressure very
high. Financial flexibility remains limited. The general fund balance is
modest, with the city recording a $17,000 fund balance at fiscal 2010
year-end, or less than 1% of expenditures and transfers out. While the water
and sewer fund maintains healthy liquidity and has historically provided
significant general fund and detention center fund support, available surplus
funds are expected to decline going forward as excess revenues are used to
continue support of the general fund. The new debt service property tax and
additional sales tax revenues help, but do not eliminate the need for utility
system support. Utility debt service support was budgeted at more than
$390,000 for fiscal 2011, or 50% of the $781,000 annual CO debt requirement.
If the auction fails, reliance on utility system transfers until the COs are
retired does not appear feasible; an alternative permanent solution would
need to be devised. Littlefield, with a population of nearly 6,400, is
located approximately 35 miles northwest of Lubbock and serves as the county
seat for Lamb County. The area is primarily rural in nature, with agriculture
services, government, manufacturing, and trade as key components of the
county's economy. County unemployment rates have risen, with a 7.6% posted
for February 2011; however, the rate remains below the statewide average of
8.2%. While there is moderate taxpayer concentration among the top 10
taxpayers, there is generally a good mix of industries within the list.
March
28, 2011 NPR
Private Prison Promises Leave Texas Towns In Trouble by John Burnett The
country with the highest incarceration rate in the world — the United States
— is supporting a $3 billion private prison industry. In Texas, where free
enterprise meets law and order, there are more for-profit prisons than any
other state. But because of a growing inmate shortage, some private jails
cannot fill empty cells, leaving some towns wishing they'd never gotten in
the prison business. It seemed like a good idea at the time when the west
Texas farming town of Littlefield borrowed $10 million and built the Bill
Clayton Detention Center in a cotton field south of town in 2000. The
charmless steel-and-cement-block buildings ringed with razor wire would
provide jobs to keep young people from moving to Lubbock or Dallas. For eight
years, the prison was a good employer. Idaho and Wyoming paid for prisoners
to serve time there. But two years ago, Idaho pulled out all of its contract
inmates because of a budget crunch at home. There was also a scandal
surrounding the suicide of an inmate. Shortly afterward, the for-profit
operator, GEO Group, gave notice that it was leaving, too. One hundred prison
jobs disappeared. The facility has been empty ever since. A Hard Sell
"Maybe ... he'll help us to find somebody," says Littlefield City
Manager Danny Davis good-naturedly when a reporter shows up for a tour. For
sale or contract: a 372-bed, medium-security prison with double security
fences, state-of-the-art control room, gymnasium, law library, classrooms and
five living pods. Davis opens the gray steel door to a barren cell with bunk
beds and stainless-steel furniture. "You can see the facility here.
[It's] pretty austere, but from what I understand from a prison standpoint,
it's better than most," he says, still trying to close the sale. For the
past two years, Littlefield has had to come up with $65,000 a month to pay
the note on the prison. That's $10 per resident of this little city. A
Resident Burden Is the empty prison a big white elephant for the city of
Littlefield? "Is it something we have that we'd rather not have? Well,
today that would probably be the case," Davis says. To avoid defaulting
on the loan, Littlefield has raised property taxes, increased water and sewer
fees, laid off city employees and held off buying a new police car. Still,
the city's bond rating has tanked. The village elders drinking coffee at the
White Kitchen cafe are not happy about the way things have turned out.
"It was never voted on by the citizens of Littlefield; [it] is stuck in
their craw," says Carl Enloe, retired from Atmos Energy. "They have
to pay for it. And the people who's got it going are all up and gone and they
left us... " "...Holdin' the bag!" says Tommy Kelton, another Atmos
retiree, completing the sentence. The Declining Prison Population The same
thing has happened to communities across Texas. Once upon a time, it seems
every small town wanted to be a prison town. But the 20-year private prison
building boom is over. Some prisons are struggling outside Texas, too.
Hardin, Mont., defaulted on its bond payments after trying, so far
unsuccessfully, to fill its 464-bed minimum security prison. And a prison in
Huerfano County, Colo., closed after Arizona pulled out its 700 inmates.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the total correctional
population in the United States is declining for the first time in three
decades. Among the reasons: The crime rate is falling, sentencing
alternatives mean fewer felons doing hard time and states everywhere are
slashing budgets. The Texas legislature, looking for budget cuts, is
contemplating shedding 2,000 contract prison beds. Statewide, more than half
of all privately operated county jail beds are empty, according to figures
from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. "Too many times we've seen
jails that have got into it and tried to make it a profitable business to
make money off of it and they end up fallin' on their face," says
Shannon Herklotz, assistant director of the commission. The packages look
sweet. A town gets a new detention center without costing the taxpayers
anything. The private operator finances, constructs and operates an oversized
facility. The contract inmates pay off the debt and generate extra revenue.
The economic model works fine until they can't find inmates. In Waco,
McLennan County borrowed $49 million to build an 816-bed jail and charge day
rates for bunk space. But today because of the convict shortage, the fortress
east of town remains more than half empty. The sheriff and county judge, once
champions of the new jail, now decline to comment on it. Former McLennan
County Deputy Rick White, who opposed the jail, had this to say about the
prison developers who put the deal together: "They get the corporations
formed, they get the bonds sold, they get the facility built, their money is
front-loaded, they take their money out. And then there's no reason for them
to support the success of the facility." Two of Texas' busiest private
prison consultants — James Parkey and Herb Bristow — declined repeated
requests for interviews. The Inmate Market Private prison companies insist
their future is sunny. A spokesman for the GEO Group declined to speak about
the Littlefield prison, but he sent along a slew of press releases
highlighting the company's new inmate contracts and prison expansions across
the country. Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private
prison operator, says the demand for its facilities remains strong,
particularly for federal immigration detainees. New Jersey-based Community
Education Centers, which has been pulling out of unprofitable jails across
Texas, issued a statement that "the current (jail) population
fluctuation" is cyclical. One of the places where CEC is cancelling its
contract is Falls County, in central Texas, where a for-profit jail addition
is losing money. Now it's up to Falls County Judge Steve Sharp to hustle up
jailbirds: "If somebody is out there charging $30 a day for an inmate,
we need to charge $28. We really don't have a choice of not filling those
beds," he said. Another place where they're desperate for inmates is
Anson, the little town north of Abilene, Texas, once famous for its
no-dancing law. Today, Jones County owns a brand-new $34 million prison and
an $8 million county jail, both of which sit empty. The prison developers
made their money and left. Then the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
reneged on a contract to fill the new prison with parole violators. The
county's Public Facility Corporation that borrowed the money to build the
lockups owes $314,000 a month — with no paying inmates. They've got a year's
worth of bond service payments set aside before county officials start to
sweat. "The market has changed nationwide in the last 18 months or two
years. It's certainly a different picture than when we started this project.
And so we're continuing to work the problem," Jones County Judge Dale
Spurgin says. Grayson County, north of Dallas, said no to privatizing its
jail. Two years ago, the county was all set to build a $30 million, 750-bed
behemoth twice as big as was needed. But the public got queasy and county
officials ultimately scuttled the deal. "When you put the profit motive
into a private jail, by design, in order to increase your dollars, your
revenues, your profits, you need more folks in there and they need to stay
longer," says Bill Magers, mayor of the county seat of Sherman, a
leading opponent. When the supply of prison beds exceeds the demand for
prison beds, there are beneficiaries. The overcrowded Harris County Jail in
Houston, the nation's third largest, farms out about 1,000 prisoners to
private jails. Littlefield and most other under-occupied facilities in Texas
have all been in touch with Houston. "It really is a buyer's market
right now, especially a county our size," says Capt. Robin Kinetsky, who
is in charge of inmate processing for the Harris County Sheriffs Department.
"They're really wanting to get our business. So, we're getting good
deals." Nearby, disheveled and unsmiling men are brought from a holding
cell to stand before a booking officer for their intake interviews. The
detainees are wholly unaware that they may soon become the newest commodities
of the volatile inmate market. Aarti Shahani contributed to this NPR News
investigation and report.
February
3, 2011 KCBD
While the Lubbock County Detention Center is filling up with inmates, other
counties are struggling to find an inmate. Taxpayers of those counties are
now being held prisoners by their own prisons as they're forced to pay the price
of empty facilities. About an hour from Lubbock, the Bill Clayton Detention
Center in Littlefield hasn't had a single inmate in the last two years.
"This was not built to house local inmates; it was built to house
inmates from other parts of the state or other parts of U.S. It was built to
bring economic development to the city of Littlefield," said Danny
Davis, Littlefield city manager. For a while it did bring money into
Littlefield, until the State of Idaho decided to remove its inmates from the
center when the economy tanked back in 2009. "Everybody was cutting back
it seemed, and it was very difficult to find other inmates from out of state
to come in and fill the facility," said Davis. Nearly 100 people lost
their job in the area, and with $9 million left to pay for the now empty
building, residents are stuck paying the price through increased taxes and
fees." Jokingly I've told people when I took this job I weighed a lot
more and had a lot more hair, so that's how I guess you can say how the frustration
level is. It has been a frustrating situation for the whole community,"
said Davis. About two hours away Dickens County faces a similar fate. Their
contractor CEC didn't renew their contract with the Dickens County
Correctional Center. In mid-December the remaining inmates were moved to
Lubbock County's new facility, and nearly 120 jobs were lost - huge hit to
the small communities of Dickens County. "It cost money to put people in
jail. The state of the economy, the governments don't have as much money. Our
own state is cutting the budget, and there's one way to save money…that's not
to incarcerate them, and so that's why I believe our inmate population is
down," said Lesa Arnold, Dickens County Judge. So far Dickens County
hasn't had to increase taxes to foot the prison's one million dollar bill
each year, but that option might soon surface. "We need to get this
thing going within a year, and hopefully a whole lot sooner than that before
that issue comes up as to who's going to make those bond payments," said
Arnold. So how can Lubbock County fill its newly built facility while these
two and others around the U.S. are failing? It comes down to why these
facilities were built in the first place. Littlefield and Dickens County
didn't have an inmate population for the large prisons they built; instead
they were built to make a profit for the towns by contracting out the prison
cells to other parts of the state and U.S. Lubbock on the other hand, needed
the bigger facility. All 1,063 inmates currently in the Lubbock County
Detention Center are from Lubbock County, which means their cells will
constantly be filled with a local inmate population. The other facilities are
staying hopeful a new inmate population will come their way. "I can't
worry about why we have it because that's in the past. I can only worry about
what can we do with it now that we have it, and that's what we work on every
day," said Davis.
January
3, 2011 Avalanche-Journal
The city of Littlefield comes into 2011 hoping it will have a new tenant
renting the Bill Clayton Detention Center in a few months. The prison, which
closed in January 2009 after the Idaho Department of Corrections canceled a
contract with private operator GEO Group and moved its prisoners from
Littlefield to Oklahoma. Since then, the city has stretched itself
financially to keep making payments on revenue bonds it issues to build the
facility, which opened in 2000 as a juvenile detention center. The present
ray of hope comes with Avalon Correctional Services, which has applied to
TDCJ to operate an Intermediate Sanction Facility, which is a short-term
facility that houses offenders who violate terms of their community
supervision or paroles. The state issued a request for proposals in June, but
no decisions have been made yet. “It’s been on (TDCJ’s) agenda a couple of
times, but reading between the lines, it’s probably waiting until the state
gets a better handle on its budget,” said Danny Davis, Littlefield’s city
manager.
September
1, 2010 Smart Money
Owners of municipal bonds issued to pay for jails might not get to pass
Go--and could have trouble collecting interest payments as well. These tax
free bonds don't have a monopoly on defaults, but they're well represented
among failures and troubled issues among the more speculative classes of
municipal bonds. Data from Municipal Market Advisors reveals a slew of
tax-free bonds issued to fund construction of privately run prisons and
detention facilities in states from Texas to Rhode Island to Montana. The
most recent example is Littlefield, a West Texas town of about 6,500 people.
Located between the New Mexico border and Buddy Holly's hometown of Lubbock,
Littlefield had to dip into reserves to cover payments for about $1.2 in
bonds and other debt used to finance the Bill Clayton Detention Center. The
bonds were issued in 2000, but the expected revenue stream evaporated when,
after a prisoner suicide in 2008, the 310-bed private prison lost its
contract to house out-of-state inmates. In 2009, the Geo Group (GEO),
formerly known as Wackenhut Security, ended its operating agreement with the
detention center, leaving it unoccupied. In April, Fitch Ratings, which in
2009 lowered the bonds to BB from BBB, affirmed a negative rating outlook.
Littlefield city manager Danny Davis says the city is scrambling to avoid
default on the $780,000 worth of annual payments and plans to cut police and
fire service while dramatically raising property taxes when the new fiscal
year begins Oct. 1. The property could be sold or could be taken over by the
state, though neither option is certain. "It's going to be
difficult," he says. "In the meantime, we're just trying to keep
our heads above water until we get to a solution." Bob Libal is the
Texas campaign coordinator for Grassroots Leadership, a lobbying group which
opposes for-profit prisons, and the editor of the blog Texas Prison Bid'ness.
He says many small towns agree to build "speculative prisons" to be
run by private contractors using municipal bond financing but that many of
these projects in a post-Sept. 11 boom have had trouble. Libal criticizes the
development groups that get paid up front for building detention centers thus
saddling the bond-issuers (usually special public facilities corporations
created solely for those projects) with risky debt. "They go after a lot
of towns without a lot of sophistication and resources to do the due
diligence," Libal says. "If they let the bonds go under, it's very
difficult for them to issue any more debt." Matt Fabian, director of research
at Municipal Market Advisors, cites similar bond woes in Central Falls, R.I.;
Hardin, Mont.; and Baker County, Fla., where about $105 million in total debt
has run into trouble because the prison projects haven't worked out as
expected. "The incarceration rates drives speculation," he says.
"There's an idea that you can profit from this prison trend."
Investors in these increasingly-insecure jail bonds have certainly had to
assume more risk, even though they get higher yields. The $99 million Central
Falls Detention Facility bond issue of 2005 entered technical default in 2009
when it drew on its reserves to make payments. The bonds, issued at par with
a yield of 7.25%, last traded at the end of 2009 at 85.3 cents to the dollar,
with a yield of 8.69%. Municipal revenue bonds issued in 2002 that funded the
West Alabama Youth Services detention facility defaulted in 2005. The bonds
last traded in February at 9 cents to the dollar with a yield of 73.6%.
Fabian says some of the biggest private prison busts are unlikely to have
simple resolutions. A shopping center is easy to repurpose; a detention
center is not. "It's hard to restructure," he says. "Even the
land underneath a prison isn't worth as much as it was." Even with a
resurgent effort by the private prison industry to use their facilities to
detain illegal immigrants and an attempt by the U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency to overhaul detention procedures, problems persist. The
Baker Correctional Development Corporation, created to finance a correctional
facility and immigration detention center west of Jacksonville, Fla., dipped
into reserves for its August payment to holders of bonds issued in 2008. With
those bonds trading last at 71.25 cents to the dollar with a yield of 20.73%,
investors looking to lock up their money should probably seek less risky
types of municipal bonds.
June
17, 2010 Courthouse News
A man claims a corrupt private prison company, The GEO Group, bribed the
government to get contracts and then abused inmates, including his father,
who died at the Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas, from
"grossly inhumane treatment, abuse, neglect, illegal and malicious
conditions of confinement." Daniel McCullough sued Texas-based GEO Group
and its top executives, all of Florida, and the warden of the jail where his
father, Randall, died on Aug. 18, 2008. In his complaint in Comal County
Court, Daniel McCullough says his father "was found dead after
supposedly being monitored by GEO and its personnel." The complaint
states: "McCullough's death was caused by specific breaches of duty by
the Defendants ... who engaged in grossly inhumane treatment, abuse, neglect,
illegal conditions of confinement, and subsequent coverup of
wrongdoings." McCullough claims that "GEO and its personnel were found
to have fabricated evidence, including practicing 'pencil whipping,' a policy
and practice of GEO to destroy and fabricate log books and other relevant
evidence." He claims that GEO and its officers "personally engage
in efforts to illegally influence public officials in Austin, Texas and in
the Texas counties where the GEO prisons are located, including Laredo, Webb
County, Texas. Their goal is to conceal, deflect, hide or exculpate
themselves and their company from all forms of personal civil or criminal
liability, censure, detriment, or punishment in order to procure and continue
their lucrative contracts at the expense of the inmates' and their families'
suffering. They and their company, GEO, engage in a pattern and practice of
abuse, neglect, public corruption, and cover up." McCullough claims that
GEO and its officers "have a history of illegally neglecting,
manipulating, and abusing inmates, and then covering up their wrongful and
illegal conduct." He claims these abuses include "making illegal payments
to governmental entities in exchange for contracts and permits; ...
destruction of evidence and lying to state investigators; and
misrepresentations to state and governmental entities regarding conditions
inside their facilities." He seeks damages of $595 million - GEO's net
worth - for gross negligence, breach of duty, wrongful death, and pain and
suffering. He is represented by Ronald Rodriguez of Laredo.
April
14, 2010 Business Wire
Fitch Ratings takes the following rating action on Littlefield, Texas'
(the city) as part of its continuous surveillance effort; --Approximately
$1.2 million in outstanding combination tax and revenue certificates of
obligation (COs), series 1997 rated 'BB.' The Rating Outlook remains
Negative. RATING RATIONALE: --The majority of the city's outstanding debt is
for a detention center (not rated by Fitch), which had been self-supporting
from detention center operations. However, both detention center prisoners
and the private operator left the facility in 2009, and despite the city's
active efforts to locate prisoners or sell the facility, the detention center
remains vacant. --The lack of a debt service tax levy has resulted in
considerable operating pressure. --A fully funded debt service reserve
remains in place, with the February 2010 principal and interest payment made
from available funds, primarily excess water and sewer system revenues.
Officials plan to make the next interest payment in August 2010 from
available funds as well, although there is a possibility debt service reserve
funds may be needed. --General fund reserves are minimal; however, the water
and sewer fund maintained about $800,000 in unrestricted net assets for the
close of fiscal 2009. The city is considering making future detention center
debt service payments from a combination of budget reductions, available city
funds, and the imposition of an interest and sinking fund tax beginning in
fiscal 2011. --The city's tax base has shown moderate annual growth, and
county unemployment rates, although higher than a year ago, remain below the
state and nation. Proximity to the Lubbock metropolitan area offers
additional employment opportunities for residents.
August
24, 2009 Ad Hoc News
Fitch Ratings has downgraded to 'BB' from 'BBB-' the rating on Littlefield,
TX's (the city) outstanding $1.3 million combination tax and revenue
certificates of obligation (COs), series 1997, and removed the ratings from
Rating Watch Negative. The CO's constitute a general obligation of the city,
payable from ad valorem taxes limited to $2.50 per $100 taxable assessed
valuation (TAV). Additionally, the COs are secured by a pledge of surplus
water and sewer revenues. The Rating Outlook is Negative. The downgrade
reflects events related to the operation of the city's detention center
facility, which accounts for the majority of outstanding debt (which was not
rated by Fitch but is on parity with the series 1997 bonds). To the surprise
of city officials, Idaho announced their plans to leave the Littlefield
facility in January 2009, citing the need to consolidate all of its
out-of-state prisoners into a larger facility in Oklahoma. In addition, the
detention center's private operator, the Geo Group, unexpectedly announced
termination of their agreement to manage the facility effective January 2009.
The move to leave Littlefield by the Geo Group is significant, given that the
established private operator had made sizable equity investments in the
detention center reportedly totaling approximately $2 million. In the past,
the ability of the Geo Group to quickly replace prisoners with little
disruption in operations, as well as their investment in the Littlefield
detention center were cited as credit strengths. On Dec. 9, 2008, Fitch
placed the series 1997 bonds on Rating Watch Negative, reflecting the city's
active pursuit of various alternatives to remedy the situation and possibly
resolve it within the next several months. Funds to repay debt service on
detention center COs through August 2010 had been identified through
available city funds as well as a debt service reserve fund. The city
indicated to Fitch in May 2009 that it was in negotiations with another
established jail operator (the operator) to assume management of the
Littlefield facility and that the operator was attempting to secure an
agreement with a federal agency to house prisoners. Resolution or near
resolution of this agreement was expected by August 2009. However, the
operator has yet to secure a prisoner agreement and the timing for resolution
remains uncertain. The downgrade to 'BB' reflects the uncertainty as to when
and if the city can secure an operator for the detention center as well as
the city's limited financial resources to repay the detention center debt.
While the city continues to pursue an agreement with the operator (and other
private companies in the event negotiations with the operator break down),
the Negative Outlook reflects the potential financial hardship placed on the
city if a long-term viable solution is not found. Although the detention
center COs are also secured by an ad valorem tax pledge, the city levies a
property tax for operations only. Officials report that the 2010 proposed
budget does not include any property tax levy for debt service, but the city
is investigating funding alternatives for future detention center debt
service. In order to fully support the detention center COs, the ad valorem
tax rate would have to double, which is not politically feasible.
December
13, 2008 Lubbock On-line
GEO Group Inc. says it has canceled its contract with the city of
Littlefield and plans to terminate 74 employees at the Bill Clayton Detention
Center effective Jan. 5 The Boca Raton-based Fla. company gave official
notice last month, filing a mass layoff Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act
letter with the city in accordance with federal law. The letter was obtained
by The Avalanche-Journal. Under the law, an organization terminating 50 or
more employees must give at least 60 days notice. GEO's decision was made
shortly after it learned its own contract had been canceled with the Idaho
Department of Corrections, which according to the Times-News in Twin Falls,
Idaho, cited prisoner safety concerns. IDOC had contracted with the
for-profit corporation to house 300 of its inmates in the one-time youth detention
facility owned by the city. Some of those inmates, according to the
Times-News, will be transferred to the North Fork Corrections Facility in
Sayer, Okla., which is operated by Corrections Corp. of America. "We
understand the gravity of the situation and the citizens' concerns, but we
are working hard toward a solution," said Danny Davis, Littlefield city
manager, who was informed about GEO's decision on Nov. 7. He said the city
has since hired Woodlands-based Carlisle & Associates, a municipal consultant,
which has been brought on board to sell the 372-bed prison. Littlefield,
which issued revenue bonds to construct the facility as part of an economic
development strategy, still owes $10 million. However, Davis said, the city
had already set aside a year's worth of bond payments as a precautionary
measure when it made the decision to build. "We have enough to make at
least the next three payments," adding the city should not have to tap
those reserve funds until August. Danny Soliz, director of business services
for WorkForce Solutions South Plains - the area's largest job
placement/training organization - said he met with Littlefield prison guards
during 12 hours of informational sessions Wednesday. "We'll be doing
everything we can to help them," he said. Soliz said many of the workers
told him they have no intention of leaving Littlefield, while others showed
interest in applying for jobs at the new Lubbock County Jail and the Montford
Psychiatric Unit operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Soliz
said WorkForce brought in an expert from Fort Worth to assist workers in
filing for unemployment benefits. Davis said the city is working on a number
of scenarios involving filling the facility with inmates from other areas on
a temporary basis. "We've also talked with a number of people who are
interested in buying it. There are a lot of entities out there looking for
beds, but it takes time for these solutions to transpire," he said.
December
9, 2008 Yahoo
Fitch Ratings has placed the 'BBB-' rating on Littlefield, TX's (the
city) outstanding $1.4 million combination tax and revenue certificates of
obligation (COs), series 1997 on Rating Watch Negative. The CO's constitute a
general obligation of the city, payable from ad valorem taxes limited to
$2.50 per $100 taxable assessed valuation (TAV). Additionally, the COs are
secured by a pledge of surplus water and sewer revenues. The Negative Watch
reflects recent events related to the operation of the city's detention
center facility, which accounts for the majority of outstanding debt.
Officials are pursuing various alternatives to remedy the situation, with
possible resolution within the next several months. Funds to repay debt
service on detention center COs (which were not rated by Fitch) over the next
one to two years have been identified through available city funds as well as
a debt service reserve fund. However, failure to develop a viable long-term
solution within the near term will have a negative impact on the rating.
Detention center operations support approximately $1.4 million in outstanding
2000 COs and $9.0 million in outstanding 2001 COs issued for the construction
of the facility. The detention center has a history of difficulties,
beginning with construction delays and the subsequent loss of Texas Youth
Commission (TYC) prisoners in 2003 and State of Wyoming prisoners in 2006.
Detention center operations began to stabilize with the near immediate
replacement of the State of Idaho prisoners in the facility. The city's
contract with Idaho was scheduled to expire in July 2009, with negotiations
for contract renewal planned for January 2009. However, to the surprise of
city officials, Idaho recently announced their plans to leave the Littlefield
facility in January 2009, citing the need to consolidate all of its
out-of-state prisoners into a larger facility in Oklahoma. In addition, the
detention center's private operator, the Geo Group unexpectedly announced
termination of their agreement to manage the facility effective January 2009.
The move to leave Littlefield by the Geo Group is significant, given that the
established private operator had made sizable equity investments in the
detention center reportedly totaling approximately $2 million. In the past,
the ability of the Geo Group to quickly replace prisoners with little
disruption in operations as well as their investment in the Littlefield
detention center were cited as credit strengths. In response to the sudden
loss of both prisoners and operators, city officials are investigating various
options. According to the city, a number of other jail operators have
expressed interest in managing the Littlefield facility. In addition,
officials are considering selling the facility and retiring the outstanding
debt. Officials have expressed the need to resolve this issue quickly and
hope to have additional information within the next several months. In the
interim, officials report that sufficient funds are on hand to make the Feb.
1 debt service payment, with the subsequent payments made from other
resources, including the water and sewer fund as well as the debt service
reserve fund. Prior to fiscal 2006, the detention center fund required
transfers primarily from the water and sewer fund to meet operating and debt
service needs. Since that time, detention center net revenues have been
sufficient to cover its debt, providing 1.1 times (x) coverage in fiscal
2007. The water and sewer fund, which supports the remainder of the city's
general obligation debt, continues to record positive results and for fiscal
2007, net revenues were $1.4 million, providing more than 3x coverage on
water and sewer related CO debt service. In addition, the series 2000 and
2001 CO sales included provisions for a fully funded debt service reserve
fund. Although the city utilized the reserve fund to meet debt service
requirements in 2001 due to the delay in opening as well as the moratorium on
TYC transfers to the detention center, officials report that the reserve is
currently fully funded and has not been utilized since 2001 to meet debt
service needs. For fiscal 2007, the restricted reserve stood at $1.1 million
compared to fiscal 2007 debt service of approximately $780,000. Although the
detention COs are also secured by an ad valorem tax pledge, the city levies a
property tax for operations only. Officials report that they are considering
levying a property tax to partially support the detention center COs.
However, in order to fully support the detention center COs, the tax rate
would have to double, which is not feasible given political realities.
Littlefield, with a population of 6,500, is located approximately 35 miles
northwest of Lubbock and serves as the county seat for Lamb County. The area
is primarily rural in nature, with agriculture services, government, manufacturing,
and trade as key components of the county's economy. The city's population
and TAV had been flat until recently; for fiscal 2008 the city's tax base
increased nearly 5% due to the construction of several commercial projects as
well as residential development. While there is moderate taxpayer
concentration among the top 10 taxpayers, there is generally a good mix of
industries within the list. General fund finances have stabilized over the
past several years, benefitting from the recent imposition of a 0.25%
increase in the sales tax rate as well as tax base growth. Debt ratios are
very low given the level of non-property tax support for outstanding COs
although payout is slow. Fitch issued an exposure draft on July 31, 2008
proposing a recalibration of tax-supported and water/sewer revenue bond
ratings which, if adopted, may result in an upward revision of this rating
(see Fitch research 'Exposure Draft: Reassessment of the Municipal Ratings
Framework'.) At this time, Fitch is deferring its final determination on
municipal recalibration. Fitch will continue to monitor market and credit
conditions, and plans to revisit the recalibration in first quarter-2009.
November
14, 2008 Magic Valley Times-News
Families of two Idaho inmates who apparently killed themselves in lockups
run by private prison company GEO Group Inc., pleaded Thursday with Texas
state senators to bar out-of-state prisoners from the Lone Star State. The
Idaho Department of Correction has housed more than 300 prisoners at GEO-run
Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas, but recently announced
plans to move them to the private North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre,
Okla. The move follows allegations that GEO falsified reports and
short-staffed the Texas facility where Idaho inmate Randall McCullough, 37,
died. Families of Idaho inmates spoke Thursday at a Texas state Senate
hearing in Austin, Texas. The hearing, which dealt with general oversight of
the Texas prison system and did not result in specific action, was webcast live
over the Internet. Among those testifying was lawyer Ronald Rodriguez, who
represents McCullough's family as well as that of Idaho inmate Scott Noble
Payne, 43, who killed himself last year at another GEO-run prison in Dickens,
Texas. "Idaho prisoners need to be in Idaho where they have access to
their court - Where they have access to their families," Rodriguez on
Thursday told the Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice. Payne's mother,
Shirley Noble, spoke to Texas lawmakers last year and again on Thursday.
"It seems that no lessons were learned," Noble said. "If
changes had been placed - Randall would not have been so desperate to take
his own life, as my son did." Texas Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston,
chairman of the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, questioned why the
"little" state of Idaho recently decided to pull its prisoners from
Geo-run Bill Clayton. "Should we be following their lead?" he
asked. But a Texas Department of Criminal Justice official told Whitmire that
Texas inmates aren't held at Bill Clayton, and warned against painting
private prisons in Texas with a broad brush. Inmate McCullough's sister,
Laurie Williams, told Texas senators that they should do a review of all
private prisons in their state - including GEO competitor Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA). Idaho prisoners are to be taken to CCA-run
North Fork in Oklahoma, where another Idaho inmate, David Drashner, was
allegedly murdered in June. IDOC's decision to move prisoners from one
privately run lockup to another out-of-state facility concerns Williams, as
well as Drashner's wife, Pam Drashner, who have said they want Idaho to stop
shipping away its inmates. Idaho doesn't have enough room for all its
prisoners, and sending them out-of-state has been widely unpopular. Williams
also wants to talk to Idaho lawmakers, she said. "We should be
addressing the Idaho Senate," said Williams, after Thursday's hearing in
Texas. "This is Idaho sending its inmates out of state whether it's
Texas that takes them or Oklahoma and that's what we have to have
stopped." GEO made $4.9 million in annual operating revenues off its
contract with Idaho to manage prisoners at Bill Clayton. GEO officials said
shareholders won't lose out from Idaho's withdrawal because of an expanding
contract with the state of Indiana.
November
9, 2008 Magic Valley Times-News
Private prison company GEO Group Inc. isn't lamenting the loss of a
multimillion dollar contract with Idaho to manage more than 300 inmates at a
Texas lock-up owned by the city of Littlefield. Idaho was only 1 percent of
Baca Raton-based GEO's business, according to a 2007 annual report from the
company. "The discontinuation of GEO's contract with the Idaho DOC will
have no material impact on GEO's previously issued pro forma earnings guidance
for the fourth quarter of 2008," according to a GEO press release
Friday. GEO made $4.9 million in annual operating revenues off its contract
with Idaho to manage state inmates in Texas, and the company announced Friday
that revenue won't be lost because it's expanding a contract with the state
of Indiana. "GEO expects the discontinuation of its contract with the
Idaho DOC to be more than offset by the 420-bed contract expansion with the
Indiana DOC," according to the press release. Idaho Department of
Correction officials told the Associated Press Thursday it was pulling out of
the contract with GEO and cited inmate safety risks at the Bill Clayton
Detention Center, which is owned by the city of Littlefield. GEO, however,
claims Idaho pulled out of the contract for a different reason than inmate
safety or staffing levels. GEO officials said Friday that Idaho ended the
contract because the state wants to consolidate all its out-of-state
prisoners into one private facility. "We understand the decision by the
state of Idaho to consolidate its out-of-state inmate population into one
large-scale facility," said GEO Chief Executive Officer George Zoley in
the press release. "The consolidation effort has led to the
discontinuation of our out-of-state inmate contract with the Idaho Department
of Correction at the Bill Clayton Detention Center." IDOC officials told
the Times-News Friday that staffing at Bill Clayton and consolidation efforts
were both factors in its decision to cancel the contract with GEO. IDOC
didn't reply to the Times-News when asked which factor may have weighed more
heavily. The pull-out announced Thursday by IDOC came after a two-month-old
audit showed GEO guards weren't checking on inmates enough. GEO is also
terminating its contract with the city of Littlefield to run Bill Clayton,
which it has operated since 2005, the company announced Friday. GEO decided
not to manage Bill Clayton anymore in Littlefield, a town populated by about
6,500 people, "due to financial underperformance and lack of economies
of scale," according to the Friday press release. The first formal IDOC
audit of Bill Clayton dated Sept. 3 followed an apparent suicide of Idaho
inmate Randall McCullough, 37, of Twin Falls in August. IDOC had been
monitoring the facility at least two weeks out of every month since last
fall, an IDOC official said. IDOC's original two-year contract with GEO
signed in 2006 could have ended on July 20, 2008. IDOC extended it a year
until July 20, 2009, but now says all inmates will be out of Texas by January
and moved to the Northfork Correctional Facility in Sayre, Okla. - run by GEO
competitor, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which holds hundreds of
other out-of-state Idaho inmates.
November
7, 2008 The Olympian
Idaho Department of Correction officials still don't know the cause of
death for an inmate who apparently committed suicide in a private Texas
prison in August. But what they do know is disturbing: The prison was so
understaffed that the warden himself was working the midnight shift at the
Bill Clayton Detention Center on Aug. 17, the night Randall McCullough died.
A state investigation found that regularly scheduled checks on inmates either
weren't done or were done incorrectly, and there was no effective check done
on McCullough from the time he turned in his dinner tray at 5:45 p.m. to the
time his body - already cold and stiff - was found just after midnight. Log
books from that night are inaccurate, according to the investigation, and the
videotape from the prison's security system shows neither the correct date
nor the arrival of emergency workers, prompting Idaho investigators to
speculate that it might not be the tape from that night at all. "You can
see where the train wreck is coming, can't you?" state Department of
Correction Chief Investigator Jim Loucks told The Associated Press in an
interview Thursday. Department officials this week announced they're
terminating the state's multimillion dollar contract with The GEO Group, the
for-profit private prison company that runs the Bill Clayton Detention
Center. Within 60 days, the roughly 300 Idaho prisoners there will be
transferred to the Correction Corp. of America-run North Fork Correctional
Institution in Sayre, Okla. The inmates have been housed out of state because
of overcrowding in Idaho prisons. As of Oct. 1, Idaho had nearly 7,300 total
inmates. The staff at the Bill Clayton center - from then-warden Arthur
Anderson down to the correctional officers - didn't follow prison policy or
respond properly to McCullough's death, according to documents obtained by
The AP from the Idaho Department of Correction through public records
requests. Pablo Paez, spokesman for The GEO Group, has not returned repeated
phone calls from The AP. The GEO Group Vice President Amber Martin said she
couldn't comment on the documents or Idaho's decision to end the contract.
McCullough was found dead in his cell by Anderson at about 12:15 a.m.,
according to the state's investigation. Two letters were found in his cell as
well - one to his sister, Laurie Williams, and another addressed to Anderson
and the Idaho Department of Correction. "To hom it may concern,"
the misspelled, handwritten letter read. "I'v been puting this off for
long anuff. I can't set here and slowly die. Sorry for the inconvenience."
The apparent suicide surprised those who knew McCullough, according to the
investigation. The inmate, who was serving time on a robbery charge, was
within a few months of an expected parole hearing and apparently believed he
would be sent back to Idaho sometime around the end of the year, pending a
cell opening in the state's overcrowded system. McCullough had been in
segregation for several months at the Texas facility after he was accused of
assaulting a staff member. The prison, located in the tiny town of
Littlefield, Texas, competes for employees with nearby oil fields, which
often pay more than residents can make working as a correctional officer,
Loucks said. That contributed to the chronic understaffing. Around the time
McCullough died, prison employees were working as much as 20 hours of
overtime every week, and often resorted to calling in sick just to get some
time off, Loucks said. On the night of Aug. 17, 2008, five people didn't make
it in to work - leaving the prison with just 10 correctional officers for the
6 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift, below the state-mandated minimum of 12, and well
below the 15 officers generally scheduled, according to the report. To deal
with the shortage, the shift supervisor persuaded two dayshift employees to
stay until 10 p.m., and got two employees scheduled for the next day to come
in four hours early, at 2 a.m. But that still left the prison short two
officers from 10 p.m. on Aug. 17 to 2 a.m. on Aug. 18, Loucks said. That's
when Warden Anderson and Chief of Security Dennis Blevins agreed to come in
to work those middle-of-the night hours. The short-staffing led to a few bad
habits at the prison, according to the report. Officers often committed a
practice known as "pencil-whipping," filling out the log books to
show they had made security checks on the inmates every 20 minutes, even if
the checks hadn't been done. It also meant that the prison was often without
a utility officer, an employee charged with fueling the vehicles, emptying
the trash and doing other non-guard duties. Because the segregation unit had
fewer inmates than other areas, the correctional officer guarding the unit
was generally pulled away from his duties to take care of the utility officer
chores, Loucks said. That happened the night of Aug. 17, he said, and as a
result no one noticed that McCullough was unmoving and unresponsive until
12:18 a.m., when Warden Anderson walked by the cell. Anderson radioed for
help when he noticed McCullough wasn't responding to knocking on the cell
door. Medical personnel came within four minutes, but didn't bring the
necessary equipment to treat an unresponsive patient and so had to go back to
another part of the prison to get it, according to the report. Staffers began
CPR, but didn't move McCullough's body from the bed to the floor, where they
would have had a firmer surface and more effective chest compressions,
investigators found. Prison officials didn't call 911 for 15 minutes,
according to the report, but Anderson reportedly told investigators that was
because he was trying to notify enough other employees so they could safely
unlock McCullough's door and go into the cell. McCullough was dead and
apparently had been for some time - his body was cold to the touch, according
to the report. Prison officials immediately suspected that McCullough might
have overdosed on medication, and his body was sent for toxicology tests and
an autopsy. Those tests have been completed, but the Texas coroner's report
has not yet been finished, so Idaho Department of Correction officials still
don't know just how or why McCullough died. But one thing is clear: Idaho
prisoners will be removed from Bill Clayton. State Correction Department
chief Brent Reinke notes the state prison system is expanding, with roughly
600 more beds to be added next year. Reinke hopes that will provide enough
room to bring all the out-of-state prisoners home. "It's a real
unfortunate situation - it always is," Reinke said. "But there's no
question that Idaho inmates are much better to manage in Idaho."
November
6, 2008 AP
The Idaho Department of Correction has terminated its contract with
private prison company The GEO Group and will move the roughly 305 Idaho
inmates currently housed at a GEO-run facility in Texas to a private prison
in Oklahoma. Correction Director Brent Reinke notified GEO officials Thursday
in a letter. Reinke said the company's chronic understaffing at the Bill
Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas, put Idaho offenders' safety
at risk. An Idaho Department of Correction audit found that guards routinely
falsified reports to show they were checking on offenders regularly — even
though they were sometimes away from their posts for hours at a time. "I
hope you understand how seriously we're taking not only the report but the safety
of our inmates," Reinke told The Associated Press on Thursday.
"They have an ongoing staffing issue that doesn't appear to be able to
be solved." The contract will end Jan. 5. Reinke said the department
wanted to pull the inmates out immediately, but state attorneys found there
wasn't enough cause to allow the state to break free of the contract without
a 60-day warning period. In the meantime, Reinke said, Idaho correction
officials have been sent to the Texas prison to help with staffing for the
next two months. GEO will be responsible for transferring the inmates to the
North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayer, Okla., which is run by Corrections
Corp. of America. GEO will cover the cost of the move, Reinke said, but Idaho
will have to pay $58 per day per inmate in Oklahoma, compared to $51 per day
at Bill Clayton. Amber Martin, vice president for The GEO Group, of Florida,
said she couldn't comment on the audit or on Idaho's decision to end the
contract. She referred calls to the company spokesman, Pablo Paez, who could
not immediately be reached by the AP. As of Oct. 1, Idaho had nearly 7,300
total inmates. The Bill Clayton audit describes the latest in a series of
problems that Idaho has had with shipping inmates out of state. Overcrowding
at home forced the state to move hundreds of inmates to a prison in Minnesota
in 2005, but space constraints soon uprooted them again, this time to a
GEO-run facility in Newton, Texas. There, guard abuse and prisoner unrest
forced another move to two new GEO facilities: 125 Idaho inmates went to the
Dickens County Correctional Center in Spur, Texas, while 304 went to Bill
Clayton in Littlefield. Conditions at Dickens were left largely unmonitored
by Idaho, at least until inmate Scott Noble Payne committed suicide after complaining
of the filthy conditions there. Idaho investigators looking into Payne's
death detailed the poor conditions and a lack of inmate treatment programs,
and the inmates were moved again. That's when the Idaho Department of
Correction created the Virtual Prisons Program, designed to improve oversight
of Idaho inmates housed in contract beds both in and out of state. The extent
of the Bill Clayton facility understaffing was discovered after Idaho
launched an investigation into the apparent suicide of inmate Randall
McCullough in August. During that investigation, guards at the prison said
they were often pulled away from their regular posts to handle other duties —
including taking out the garbage, refueling vehicles or checking the
perimeter fence — and that it was common practice to fill out the logs as if
the required checks of inmates were being completed as scheduled, said Jim
Loucks, chief investigator for the Idaho Department of Correction. For
instance, Loucks said, correction officers were supposed to check on inmates
in the administrative segregation unit every 30 minutes. But sometimes they
were away from the unit for hours at a time, he said. The investigation into
McCullough's death is not yet complete, department officials said. The audit also
found several other problems at Bill Clayton. The auditor found that
"the facility entrance is a very relaxed checkpoint," prompting
concerns that cell phones, marijuana and other contraband could be smuggled
past security. In addition, the prison averages a 30 percent vacancy rate in
security staff jobs, according to the audit. Though it was still able to meet
the one-staffer-for-every-48-prisoners ratio set out by Texas law, employees
were regularly expected to work long hours of overtime and non-security
staffers sometimes were used to provide security supervision, according to
the audit. "Based on a review of payroll reports, there are significant
concerns with security staff working excessive amounts of overtime for long
periods of time," the auditors wrote. "This can lead to compromised
facility security practices and increased safety issues." When the audit
was done, there were 29 security staff vacancies, according to the report.
That meant each security staff person who was eligible for overtime worked an
average of 21 hours of overtime a week. That extra expense was borne by GEO,
not by Idaho taxpayers, said Idaho Department of Correction spokesman Jeff
Ray. The state's contract with GEO also required that at least half of the
eligible inmates be given jobs with at least 50 hours of work a month.
According to the facility's inmate payroll report, only 35 out of 371
offenders were without jobs. But closer inspection showed that the prison
often had several inmates assigned to the same job. In one instance, nine
inmates were assigned to clean showers in one unit of the prison — which only
had nine shower stalls. So although each was responsible for cleaning just
one shower stall, the nine inmates were all claiming 7- and 8-hour work days,
five days a week. GEO is responsible for covering the cost of those wages,
Ray said. "While the contract percentage requirement is met, the
facility cannot demonstrate the actual hours claimed by offenders are spent
in a meaningful, skill-learning job activity," the auditors wrote.
Auditors also found that too few inmates were enrolled in high school diploma
equivalency and work force readiness classes.
October
1, 2008 AP
For a decade, Idaho has been shipping some of its prisoners to
out-of-state prisons, dealing with its ever-burgeoning inmate population by
renting beds in faraway facilities. But now some groups of prisoners are
being brought back home. Idaho Department of Correction officials are
crediting declining crime rates, improved oversight during probation, better
community programs and increased communication between correction officials
and the state's parole board. The number of Idaho inmates has more than
doubled since 1996, reaching a high of 7,467 in May. But in the months since
then, the population has declined to 7,293 -- opening up enough space that 80
inmates housed in the North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre, Okla., and
at Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas, could be bused back
to the Idaho State Correctional Institution near Boise. The inmates arrived
Monday night. Idaho Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke hailed
their arrival as one of the benefits the system was reaping after years of
work. "It's more about having the right inmates at the right place at
the right time," Reinke said. "People are communicating better and
we're working together better than we were in the past."
September
21, 2008 Times-News
Pam Drashner visited her husband every weekend in prison, until she was
turned away one day because he wasn't there. He had been quietly transferred
from Boise to a private prison in Sayre, Okla. She never saw him again. In
July, she went to the Post Office to pick up his ashes, mailed home in a box.
He died of a traumatic brain injury in Oklahoma, allegedly assaulted by
another inmate. David Drashner was one of hundreds of male inmates Idaho
authorities have sent to private prisons in other states. About 10 percent of
Idaho's inmates are now out-of-state. The Department of Correction say they
want to bring them all home, they simply have no place to put them. Drashner,
who was convicted of repeat drunken driving, is one of three Idaho inmates
who have died in the custody of private lockups in other states since March
2007, and was the first this year. On Aug. 18, Twin Falls native Randall
McCullough, 37, apparently killed himself at the Bill Clayton Detention
Center in Littlefield, Texas. McCullough, serving time for robbery, was found
dead in his cell. IDOC officials say he left a note, though autopsy results
are pending. His family says he shouldn't have been in Texas at all.
"Idaho should step up to the plate and bring their prisoners home,"
said his sister, Laurie Williams. Out of Idaho -- Idaho has so many prisoners
scattered around the country that the IDOC last year developed the Virtual
Prison Program, assigning 12 officers to monitor the distant prisons. In 2007
Idaho sent 429 inmates to Texas and Oklahoma. This year; more than 700 - and
by one estimate it could soon hit 1,000. But officials say they don't know exactly
how many inmates may hit the road in coming months. The number may actually
fall due to an unexpected drop in total prisoner head-count, a turnabout
attributed to a drop in sentencings, increased paroles and better success
rates for probationers. The state will also have about 1,300 more beds in
Idaho, thanks to additions at existing prisons. State officials say bringing
inmates back is a priority. "If there was any way to not have inmates
out-of-state it would be far, far better," said IDOC Director Brent
Reinke, a former Twin Falls County commissioner, noting higher costs to the
state and inconvenience to inmate families. Still, there's no end in sight
for virtual prisons, which have few fans in state government. "I do
think sending inmates out-of-state is counter-productive," said Rep.
Nicole LeFavour, D-Boise, a member of the House Judiciary, Rules and
Administration Committee. LeFavour favors treatment facilities over prisons.
"We try to make it (sending inmates out-of-state) a last resort, but I don't
think we're doing enough." Even lawmakers who favor buying more cells
would like to avoid virtual lockups. "It's more productive to be
in-state," said Sen. Denton Darrington, R-Declo, chairman of the Senate
Judiciary and Rules Committee, who said he would support a new Idaho prison
modeled after the state-owned but privately run Idaho Correctional Center
(ICC). "We don't want to stay out-of-state unless we have to ��- It's
undesirable." A decade of movement -- Idaho has shipped inmates
elsewhere for more than a decade, though in some years they were all brought
home when beds became available at four of Idaho's state prisons. The
1,500-bed ICC - a state-owned lockup built and run by CCA (Corrections
Corporation of America) - also opened in 2000. But that wasn't enough:
"It will be years before a substantial increase in prison capacity will
allow IDOC to bring inmates back," the agency said in April. In 2005,
former IDOC director Tom Beauclair warned lawmakers that "if we delay
building the next prison, we'll have to remain out-of-state longer with more
inmates," according to an IDOC press release. That year inmates were
taken to a Minnesota prison operated by CCA, where Idaho paid $5 per inmate,
per day more than it costs to keep inmates in its own prisons. "This
move creates burdens for our state fiscally, and can harden our prison
system, but it's what we must do," IDOC said at the time. "Our
ability to stretch the system is over." Attempts to add to that system
have largely failed. Earlier this year Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter
asked lawmakers for $191 million in bond authority to buy a new 1,500-bed
lockup. The Legislature rejected his request, but did approve those 1,300 new
beds at existing facilities. Reinke said IDOC won't ask for a new prison when
the next Legislative session convenes in January. With a slow economy and a
drop in inmate numbers, it's not the time to push for a new prison, he said.
Still, recent projections for IDOC show that without more prison beds here,
43 percent of all Idaho inmates could be sent out-of-state in 2017.
"It's a lot of money to go out-of-state," Darrington said.
Different cultures -- One of eight prisons in Idaho is run by a private
company, as are those housing Idaho inmates in Texas and Oklahoma. The Bill Clayton
Detention Center in Texas is operated by the Geo Group Inc., which is
managing or developing 64 lockups in the U.S., Australia and South Africa.
The North-Fork Correctional Facility in Oklahoma is owned and operated by
CCA, which also has the contract to run the Idaho Correction Center. CCA
houses almost 75,000 inmates and detainees in 66 facilities under various
state and federal contracts. Critics of private prisons say the operators
boost profits by skimping on programs, staff, and services. Idaho authorities
acknowledge the prisons make money, but consider them well-run. "Private
prisons are just that - business run," Idaho Virtual Prison Program
Warden Randy Blades told the Times-News. "It doesn't mean out-of-sight,
or out-of-mind." Yet even Reinke added that "I think there's a
difference. Do we want there to be? No." The Association of Private
Correctional and Treatment Organizations (APCTO) says on its Web site that
its members "deliver reduced costs, high quality, and enhanced
accountability." Falling short? Thomas Aragon, a convicted thief from
Nampa, was shipped to three different Texas prisons in two years. He said
prisons there did little to rehabilitate him, though he's up for parole next
year. "I'm a five-time felon, all grand theft and possession of stolen
property," said Aragon, by telephone from the ICC. "Apparently I
have a problem and need to find out why I steal. The judge said I needed
counseling and that I'd get it, and I have yet to get any." State
officials said virtual prisons have a different culture, but are adapting to
Idaho standards. "We're taking the footprint of Idaho and putting it
into facilities out-of-state," Blades said. Aragon, 39, says more
programs are available in Idaho compared to the Texas facilities where he was.
Like Aragon, almost 70 percent of Idaho inmates sent to prison in 2006 and
2007 were recidivists - repeat IDOC offenders - according agency annual
reports. GEO and CCA referred questions about recidivism to APCTO, which says
only that its members reduce the rate of growth of public spending. Aragon
said there weren't enough case-workers, teachers, programs, recreational
activities and jobs in Texas. Comparisons between public and private prisons
are made difficult because private companies didn't readily offer numbers for
profits, recidivism, salaries and inmate-officer ratios. During recent visits
to the Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas - where about 371
Idaho inmates are now held - state inspectors found there wasn't a legal aid
staffer to give inmates access to courts, as required by the state contract.
Virtual Prison monitors also agreed with Aragon's assessment: "No
programs are offered at the facility," a state official wrote in a
recently redacted Idaho Virtual Prison report obtained by the Times-News.
"Most jobs have to do with keeping the facility clean and appear to be
less meaningful. This creates a shortage of productive time with the inmates.
"Overall, recreational activities are very sparse within the facility ��- Informal attempts
have been made to encourage the facility to increase offender activities that
would in the long run ease some of the boredom that IDOC inmates are
experiencing," according to a Virtual Prison report. The prison has
since made improvements, the state said. Only one inmate case manager worked
at Bill Clayton during a recent state visit, but the facility did increase
recreation time and implemented in-cell hobby craft programs, Virtual Prison
reports show. Other inmate complaints have grown from the way they have been
sent to the prisons. Inmates describe a horrific bus ride from Idaho to
Oklahoma in April in complaints collected by the American Civil Liberties
Union in Boise. The inmates say they endured painful and injurious wrist and
ankle shackling, dangerous driving, infrequent access to an unsanitary
restroom and dehydration during the almost 30-hour trip. "We're still
receiving a lot of complaints, some of them are based on retaliatory
transfers," said ACLU lawyer Lea Cooper. IDOC officials acknowledge that
they have also received complaints about access to restrooms during the long
bus rides, but they maintain that most of the inmates want to go
out-of-state. Many are sex offenders who prefer the anonymity associated with
being out-of-state, they said. Unanswered questions -- Three deaths of Idaho
interstate inmates in 18 months have left families concerned that even more
prisoners will come home in ashes. "We're very disturbed about...the
rate of Idaho prisoner deaths for out-of-state inmates," Cooper said. It
was the razor-blade suicide of sex-offender Scott Noble Payne, 43, in March
2007 at a Geo lockup in Dickens, Texas that caught the attention of state
officials. Noble's death prompted Idaho to pull all its inmates from the Geo
prison. State officials found the facility was in terrible condition, but
they continue to work with Geo, which houses 371 Idaho inmates in
Littlefield, Texas, where McCullough apparently killed himself. Noble
allegedly escaped before he was caught and killed himself. Inmate Aragon said
he as there, and that Noble was hog-tied and groaned in pain while guards
warned other inmates they would face the same if they tried to escape.
Private prison operators don't have to tell governments everything about the
deaths at facilities they run. The state isn't allowed access to Geo's
mortality and morbidity reports under terms of a contract. Idaho sent
additional inmates to the Corrections Corporation of America-run Oklahoma
prison after Drashner's husband died in June. IDOC officials said an Idaho
official was inspecting the facility when he was found. IDOC has offered few
details about the death. "The murder happened in Oklahoma," said
IDOC spokesman Jeff Ray, adding it will be up to Oklahoma authorities to
charge. Drashner said her husband had a pending civil case in Idaho and
shouldn't have been shipped out-of-state. She says Idaho and Oklahoma
authorities told her David was assaulted by another inmate after he verbally
defended an officer at the Oklahoma prison. Officers realized something was
wrong when he didn't stand up for a count, Drashner said. "He was
healthy. He wouldn't have been killed over here," she said.
August
28, 2008 Times-News
An Idaho prison inmate held at a private facility in Texas through the
state's Virtual Prison Program was in solitary confinement for more than a
year when he apparently killed himself, authorities have confirmed. Idaho
Department of Correction is still investigating the cause and manner of death
for the inmate, Randall McCullough, 37, who was found unresponsive Aug. 18 in
his cell, which measured 7.5 feet, by 12 feet, by 8 feet, said Idaho
Department of Correction Spokesman Jeff Ray. McCullough had been segregated
from other inmates since Dec. 13, 2007, after he allegedly assaulted a staff
member at the Bill Clayton Detention Center run by Geo Group Inc., said Ray.
He apparently wasn't criminally charged for that alleged assault in Texas.
"It's our understanding that the prosecutor in Texas had not made a
decision on whether or not to file charges," said Ray. "The staff
assault occurred in Texas and would be considered a Texas crime. IDOC would
not have a direct connection to it." Authorities at Geo Group's Bill
Clayton Detention Center directed all questions from the Times-News on
Wednesday back to the Idaho Department of Corrections. McCullough was in
prison for a 2001 Twin Falls County robbery conviction. He had a criminal
record involving charges of escape, forgery, controlled substance possession,
grand theft, burglary, resisting arrest, and driving violations, according to
court records. Imposing inmate segregation for one to two years as a result
of an assault on a guard would not be uncommon, and wardens at out-of-state
facilities holding Idaho inmates can decide if an inmate is put in
segregation, said Ray. Inmates in segregation eat meals in their cells and
can shower once every 72 hours. Toilets are in cells and McCullough had a
television, said Ray. Lights at the Texas facility are on 24 hours a day, Ray
said, adding that some facilities in Idaho dim lights at sleeping times.
August
21, 2008 The Times News
The state's Virtual Prison Program is only a year old and the Monday
death of inmate Randall McCullough, 37, could be the second suicide involving
the initiative outside of Idaho. Idaho prison officials said Wednesday
they're still investigating if McCullough committed suicide at a private
contracted facility in Texas - Bill Clayton Detention Center run by the GEO
Group Inc. - which is holding 371 inmates each at $51 per day under a
contract that expires in July 2009. The Virtual Prison Program started in
July 2007, but the state started putting inmates in non-state owned
facilities in October 2005, said Idaho Department of Correction Spokesman
Jeff Ray. Six state inmates have committed suicide since July 2006, not
including McCullough, Ray said.
December
11, 2007 AP
Inmates from Idaho housed at a private West Texas detention facility could
face new charges following an attack on a female guard. The woman was
attacked about 7:30 p.m. Monday after she apparently tried to take tobacco
away from at least two of the inmates at the Bill Clayton Detention Center,
Idaho Department of Correction spokesman Jeff Ray said. The woman suffered
non-life threatening injuries, he said. Afterward, as many as 15 inmates
refused to return to their cells and additional officers were called in to
help, Ray said. The inmates then agreed to return to their cells, he said.
Officials with the Littlefield police department, which is investigating the
incident, did not immediately return a phone call Tuesday. A deputy warden
with the Idaho agency is on his way to Littlefield to investigate, a release
from that department said. Those involved in the attack could face charges,
and inmates who refused to return to their cells will likely face
disciplinary sanctions, the release said. The prison is operated by The GEO
Group Inc., a Boca Raton, Fla.-based company that owns or operates 68
facilities worldwide. "We will be working cooperatively with the Idaho
Department of Correction as they conduct their investigation," said
Pablo Paez, a GEO spokesman. A lack of space in Idaho prisons brought
hundreds of inmates to Texas in early 2006. They were first housed here at a
GEO facility in Newton in East Texas. They were moved to Littlefield in
August 2006 after allegations of abuse by guards prompted an investigation.
Three employees at Newton's facility were disciplined as a result of the
investigation.
July
31, 2007 Idaho Statesman
Idaho's Department of Correction has created a new position to manage Idaho's
roughly 2,400 inmates in private, out-of-state prisons and county jail beds.
Randy Blades, who has been the warden at the Idaho State Correctional
Institution south of Boise, will monitor the 500-plus inmates, now in three
Texas prisons managed by the Geo Group Inc. of Boca Raton, Fla. He will also
monitor the 240 inmates soon to be transferred from Idaho to a private prison
in Oklahoma, and the inmates in county jail beds across the state. Correction
Director Brent Reinke created the position after disclosing that conditions
at one of those prisons were so bad that inmates will be moved elsewhere.
Inmates at the Dickens County Correctional Center are being moved to the Bill
Clayton Detention Center after an inmate suicide at Dickens revealed filthy
living conditions and poorly trained and unprofessional staff. “Times have
changed and we simply need to get in front on this issue,” Reinke said in a
statement. “We must be proactive. We need to make sure inmates are being
treated adequately and taxpayers are getting what they are paying for.”
October
24, 2006 Yahoo.com
Fitch downgrades the rating on Littlefield, TX's (the city) outstanding
$1.6 million combination tax and revenue certificates of obligation (COs),
series 1997 to 'BB+' from 'BBB+.' The Rating Outlook is Stable. The downgrade
primarily reflects the city's significantly weakened financial position. The
general fund balance has been at minimal levels for the past several years,
while the detention center fund, which supports the bulk of the city's
general obligation debt, is in a deficit unrestricted net asset position,
created by the pull-out of Texas Youth Commission (TYC) prisoners in 2003.
Some signs of financial improvement are evident, and projected fiscal 2006
results are expected to show a moderate increase in general fund reserve
levels as well as a small operating surplus in the detention center fund.
Further, the detention center is now fully occupied. Nevertheless, financial
stabilization has not been achieved, and the city remains highly dependent on
housing outside prisoners to meet operational and debt service requirements
of the detention center. Detention center operations, which experienced
problems at the onset primarily due to construction delays, were again negatively
impacted by the loss of all TYC prisoners in 2003. While TYC offenders were
subsequently replaced with state of Wyoming prisoners, the impact on finances
was severe and continued through fiscal 2005, evidenced by a $351,000
unrestricted net asset deficit recorded in the detention center fund. In
addition, the detention center fund had to rely on support from other funds,
most notably a sizable transfer from the water and sewer fund in fiscal 2004,
to meet operational and debt service needs. The contract to house Wyoming
prisoners was terminated in 2006, and subsequently a new contract with the
state of Idaho was implemented. For 2006, officials report that no outside
financial support was required and that a $30,000 operating surplus is
expected. However, the large deficit will likely remain for sometime and the
historical movement of prisoners in and out of the Littlefield facility
demonstrates the difficulty of maintaining long-term prisoner contracts. If
the city had to levy an interest and sinking fund tax to meet detention
center related debt obligations, officials estimate that the overall tax rate
would have to double over the current operations and maintenance tax rate,
which Fitch believes would be extremely difficult to impose.
September
17, 2004 Star-Tribune
Four Texans have been jailed on charges of assisting two Wyoming inmates in
escaping from the Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas, last
week. Three of the Texans worked as guards at the prison, Littlefield Police
Chief Bill McMinn said. Arrested and charged with permitting and facilitating
the escape of a convicted felon were Roy Sosa and Yvonne Delagarza, who both
worked as guards at the detention center. They were being held in the Lamb
County Jail on $50,000 bond each and face two to 20 years in prison if
convicted. Delagarza's brother, Robert Sandoval, and Tammy Harper, another
prison guard, also have been charged in the incident with hindering the
apprehension of a felon, a crime that carries a one- to 10-year prison sentence.
They were also in jail on $50,000 bonds. McMinn said the motive for the
escape appears to be that the women guards, Harper and Delagarza, were in
love with the inmates.
September 16, 2004 Houston Chronicle
Four of the five federal inmates who escaped from a Frio County private
prison last month remained at large Thursday, but officials said they've
nabbed two people who helped the escapees vanish into a protective underworld
of prison-gang sympathizers. Held on charges of instigating or aiding a federal
escape are Randy Folsom, 42, and Debra Ayala, 44, both of San Antonio. U.S.
Marshals Service officials, who arrested them Wednesday, said Folsom drove as
many as four of the "Frio Five" escapees from the Pearsall lockup
Aug. 6. The five inmates exited the private prison in daylight through cuts
in the chain-link fencing of the recreation yard. Investigators also are trying to determine whether prison
personnel aided in the escape.
September
11, 2004 Casper Star Tribune
Two Wyoming inmates were back in custody Friday, after escaping from a Texas
detention center the night before. Michael Solis and Jeremiah Zupko
apparently cut through a fence to escape from the Bill Clayton Detention
Center in Littlefield, Texas.
September
10, 2004 KCDB
Littlefield police arrested five people involved in a prison break at the
Bill Clayton Detention Center, a private facility in Littlefield. So far,
their investigation has led them to believe two female prison guards, Iyvonne
Delagarza and Tammy Harper, may be involved. Janet Simmons' daughter works at
the prison with one of the women who is suspected. At around 9:30 Thursday
night, 35-year-old Michael Solis and 22-year-old Jeremiah Zupko cut their way
through two layers of fence and razor wire using some kind of cutting tool.
Police say they are investigating how the inmates got the tool. Police have
not figured out a motive for the prison break and why these two female guards
would have reason to help them. The
inmates initially were serving time for selling methemphetamines and heroin
in Wyoming.
August
26, 2003
As the deadline nears for the Texas Commission for Youth to leave the Bill
Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, interest in the facility continues
to heat up. TCY intends to vacate the premises by Sept. 1, transferring
juvenile residents to other TCY facilities. Corrections Concepts Inc.,
a faith-based organization headquartered in Dallas, devoted about five hours
last week to meet with Littlefield city officials and tour the
facility. "At this point we're considering some of the things they
talked about," City Manager Danny Davis said Monday. The two
entities plan to meet again in September. "They're going to try to
have facilities for males, females, juveniles and geriatrics," Davis
said. "Ours would be more likely ... adult males." Financial
terms were not discussed, he said. "We did tell them what it would
take to make our facility cash (needs)," Davis said. Corrections
Concepts would use the facility for a Christian-based prison program. The
organization is in the final stage of starting a similar facility in Coleman
that will likely house state and federal prisoners. "This is
falling in line with President Bush's faith-based initiatives," Davis
said. He added that the community of Littlefield is "really
interested" in faith-based programs for the detention center.
"We're interested in seeing men's lives changed," said Bill
Robinson, chairman of trustees of Corrections Concepts. Under the
program, men in their final 12 to 24 months of their prison terms, regardless
of their offenses, could be transferred to the facility. There they would
receive Christian-based transition training. If Corrections Concepts
were to use the Littlefield facility, about $1.5 million in capital
improvements would be made in constructing a work center, Robinson said.
Those funds would come from a "number of sources," he said.
Private industry would be allowed to set up shop in the medium-security
facility and hire inmates at prevailing wage rates. (Lubbock Online)
Bi-State Jail/Bowie
County Detention Center
Bowie County, Texas
Correctional Medical Services, CiviGenics
Nov 19 2012 KTBS
New Bowie County Jail Management
is giving back the keys. bowie county officials are now working on plans for
future management of the bowie county correctional center and the bi- state
jail. k-t-b-s three's julie parr has more. Community Education Centers
notified the sheriff's department that they will not being renewing their
contract to run the two facilities. Their contract will expire in 90 days.
cec, formerly known as civigenics, has operated the bowie county correctional
center and bi-state jail since 2001. there are currently 136 employees in
both facilities. One thing I'm going to do is demand that anybody that comes
in and takes over our jail hires the employees that we have in place for as
much as possible if not 100 percent . sheriff james prince says he's also
looking for the most cost effective way to run the two jails. he says they
could hire another private company or the sheriff's office could run the
facilities. another option could be to move bowie county inmates out of the
bi-state jail. We just have to determine how much we're spending in the
Bi-State versus what it would cost us to construct the things need to comply
with jail standards in the annex. In a prepared statement .. the New Jersey
company said they've enjoyed their working relationship with Bowie County ..
but did not say why they've chosen not to renew their contract. Julie Parr,
KTBS 3 News. both facilities can hold up to 900 hundred inmates. they
currently have about 400. here's more about the company. both facilities can
hold up to 900 hundred inmates. they currently have about 400. here's more
about the company. community education centers operates halfway homes,
prisons and "re- entry centers" in 17 states. since this summer,
bowie county authorities have been investigating numerous complaints at the
bowie county correctional center .. including a guard-assisted escape, a
lawsuit alleging sexual misconduct .. and a guard assault on a prisoner.
sheriff officials say the company's leaving will not effect those
investigations. the miller county sheriff's office will soon provide inmate
meals instd of using a food service company. sheriff's officials say that
recipe will save the county about 30-thousand dollars a year. the miller
county quorum court has already approved the plan. the sheriff's office must
meet state and federal guidelines that require a daily diet of 18-hundred
calories for inmates. the current contractor is tiger correctional services
in jonesboro, arkansas. two arkansas men are arrested during a drug bust at
an ashdown business.
October
3, 2009 Texarkana Gazette
A federal lawsuit filed by the family of a one-armed, toothless man who managed
to hang himself with a suicide suit while an inmate in the Bowie County jail
annex, has been settled. Because of a confidentiality agreement, neither the
plaintiff nor the defendants are talking about the terms of the arrangement.
The family of Robert Bruce Williams filed the suit in April 2007. Named as
defendants are Bowie County, Sheriff James Prince, Civigenics Inc., which
manages the jail, Correctional Medical Services, which serves the medical
needs of Bowie County inmates, and several...
May
15, 2009 Texarkana Gazette
A former Bowie County jail guard was indicted last week by a grand jury.
Amber Hinds, 20, “turned around and went back to her car when she realized
her supervisor intended to search employees that day as they came to work,”
according to a probable cause affidavit. Officials with the jail, which is
run by Civigenics, contacted the Bowie County Sheriff’s Office about Hinds’
conduct, the affidavit said.
May
14, 2008 Texarkana Gazette
A man who smuggled marijuana into the Bowie County Correctional Center
while working as a guard there pleaded guilty Monday and received a 10-year
term of probation. Marquise Dushun Hunt, 21, had been working as a
correctional officer for CiviGenics for about two months when he was caught
bringing three sandwich bags full of marijuana into the jail. CiviGenics is a
private company that contracts with Bowie County to run the jail. A
confidential informant alerted jail officials to the marijuana in Hunt’s possession
on March 1, 2007. He was indicted by a grand jury Jan. 3.
March
1, 2007 KPXJ 21
He worked in the jail and now a Bowie County Correctional Center officer has
found himself behind bars. Bowie County sheriff's investigators say 20-year
old Marquise Hunt of Texarkana, Texas is charged with introducing a
prohibited substance into a correctional facility. Officers found three bags
of marijuana in Hunt's possession. For two months, Hunt worked for
Civigenics, which operates the jail. His bond has been set at $100,000.
January
24, 2007 Texarkana Gazette
A correctional officer at the Bowie County Correctional Center annex has been
arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle marijuana, tobacco and cigars into
the jail. Bowie County Sheriff’s Office investigators said James Porter, 18,
was booked on charges of bringing prohibited substances into a correctional
facility. Porter has also been fired. Porter’s supervisor saw him acting
nervously as he entered the jail Sunday afternoon, said Capt. Larry Parker.
The supervisor searched Porter and found the marijuana, tobacco and cigars
wrapped in three bundles. He was arrested on charges of bringing prohibited
substances into a jail and booked into the Bi-State Justice Building Jail on
a $40,000 bail. The charge is a third-degree felony. Parker said besides
drugs and weapons, it is illegal to take into a jail money, alcohol, cell
phones and tobacco. He said Porter had worked for Civigenics, the company
that operates the jail, for about four months
August
19, 2006 Texarkana Gazette
A professional tax preparer has been sentenced to three years probation for
her conviction of conspiracy to file false tax claims against the U.S.
government. Colleen D. Jordan, 44, of Texarkana, Texas, had originally
pleaded innocent to the charges in federal court in Texarkana, Texas. She
later changed her plea and was recently sentenced by U.S. District Judge
David Folsom. In addition to a three year sentence, Jordan must also pay a
$1,000 fine. Jordan was charged on Jan. 10 by a federal grand jury in Tyler
with one count of conspiracy to file false IRS claims, 12 counts of filing
false IRS claims, and 12 counts of possession of authentication features with
intent to defraud the United States. The other charges were dropped after her
sentencing. She had been employed by the Arkansas Department of Correction
since 1999 but was fired by ADC in 2003. Civigenics, a private contractor
that now runs the jail, hired her in December 2003.
January
23, 2006 Texarkana Gazette
A former Bi-State Justice Building jailer and a tax preparer have been
indicted on 25 federal counts that they used inmates’ Social Security numbers
to get more than $50,000 in tax refunds for themselves. Janice F. Koontz, 30,
of Texarkana, Ark., and Colleen D. Jordan, 44, of Texarkana, Texas, have both
pleaded not guilty to the charges in federal court in Texarkana, Texas. They
were each charged by a federal grand jury in Tyler on Jan. 10 with one count
of conspiracy to file false IRS claims, 12 counts of filing false IRS claims,
and 12 counts of possession of authentication features with intent to defraud
the United States. Jordan, according to the indictment, was a professional
tax preparer. Koontz was a jailer at the BJB jail and a security officer at
Smith-Keys Village Apartments. She was employed by the Arkansas Department of
Correction since 1999 but was fired by ADC in 2003. Civigenics, a private
contractor that now runs the jail, hired her in December 2003. Assistant U.S.
Attorney Barry Bryant alleges that Koontz obtained names, Social Security
numbers and other means to identify inmates incarcerated in the BJB. She
worked for Smith-Keys from 2000 to 2002. Bryant alleges that Koontz also
gained access to the security office of the apartments and obtained names and
means of identifying the tenants without the knowledge of the housing
authority or the residents. Jordan allegedly worked with Koontz to create W-2
forms using the names and Social Security numbers of the inmates and
residents. Forms were allegedly electronically filed with the IRS in 2003
using information gathered since 2000. The women allegedly divided up more
than $50,000 in fraudulent tax refunds.
December
30, 2005 Baxter Bulletin
An inmate at the Bi-State Jail died early Wednesday after having a fight with
another inmate at the jail, authorities say. Texarkana Police Department
spokesman Chris Rankin said Damien Wheeler, 23, of Texarkana, Ark., was
involved in a fight with another inmate, Nathaniel Cleveland, 19, of
Texarkana, Texas, between 11 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. Rankin said police
don't know why the inmates were fighting. "The details are still pretty
sketchy as far as what was going on in the jail," Rankin said Thursday.
"All we know is they were involved in a fight, they were separated, and at
some point this guy went downhill extremely fast and died." Wheeler, who
was checked by a jail nurse after the fight, was found unresponsive several
hours later, Rankin said. Wheeler was taken to Wadley Regional Medical Center
at 5 a.m. Wednesday and was pronounced dead, he said.
June 23, 2005 Texarkana Gazette
Even though Bowie County recently made what appears to be a lucrative deal to
hold some 325 state inmates, the county will actually collect less than a
quarter of the income. Last week, the county's Commissioners Court
approved a contract with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, in which
the county agrees to lease 325 of its Correctional Center spaces to hold the
state inmates. The contract calls for the state to pay the county $39
per inmate, per day, which in a year's time would amount to about
$4,626,000. However, since the county no longer employs jailers, more
than 75 percent (roughly $3,479,000) of that income will have to go to
Civigenics, a private security firm, which the county hired in November 2001
to operate and maintain the jail annex near Union Station in downtown
Texarkana. Although the county would get the remaining 25 percent of the
annual income, amounting to about $1,163,000, Bowie County Auditor William
Tye said much of that money will be easily swallowed up by residual state
inmate medical and meal expenses.
April
24, 2005 TylerPaper.com
Smith County inmates have been moved from the Bowie County Detention
Center to other facilities operated by the CiviGenics firm, because the Bowie
County facility failed its most recent inspection, county officials
announced. On Monday, Smith County commissioners are scheduled to consider
interlocal agreements with Falls and Limestone counties to house male and
female prisoners. "Those agreements are really just routine in
nature," County Judge Becky Dempsey said. "We had to enter into an
agreement with Bowie County when we began shipping our prisoners there, even
though the jail there is operated by the private company." The changes
will come at no charge to Smith County, she adds. "The terms are exactly
the same, according to information the sheriff gave us," she said.
"And Bowie County took care of the expenses involved in moving our
prisoners to the other counties."
March
21, 2005 Texarkana Gazette
A Bowie County Detention Center inmate from Grayson County, Texas, had about
five minutes of freedom Sunday morning before he was recaptured. Warden Larry
Johns said the inmate was being escorted by an officer in the sally port area
about 10 a.m. The garage type door was being opened to allow officers to
bring food into the detention center from the Bi-State Justice Center,
located about a block away in downtown Texarkana, Texas. Johns said the
inmate, who is serving time for public intoxication from Grayson County,
broke away from the officer and slid under the garage door. Two other
officers and the supervisor started chasing the inmate at 10:02 a.m. At 10:07
a.m. the inmate was recaptured. Johns declined to release the name of the
inmate since it was misdemeanor.
February
26, 2005 Texarkana Gazette
A former CiviGenics jailer has been arrested for allegedly having sex with a
female inmate inside an office at the Bi-State jail, an official said. Steven
Bradley Grisham, 35, of DeKalb, Texas, was arrested Friday on charges of
violating the civil rights of a person in custody and sexual activity with a
person in custody, said Bowie County Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy James
Manning.
October
15, 2004 Texarkana Gazette
Several employees have lost their jobs as Bi-State jail and Bowie County
Correctional Center strengthen security after the recent escape of a capital
murder suspect. CiviGenics Inc., a
Massachussetts-based company, has operated both jails since January. "We
have made some leadership changes ... it's an opportunity to fine-tune,"
said Jim Shaw, regional director for Civigenics Inc. The escape of Henry, 28,
and two other inmates has also prompted CiviGenics to evaluate security and
make some other changes. There have been two other escapes from Bi-State jail
since CiviGenics took over operations.
October
14, 2004 KTBS
An internal investigation at the Bi-State Jail in Texarkana has led to both
physical changes in the jail facility and changes in the security system. The investigation was prompted by last month's escape of
three inmates. Officials with Civigenics, which operates the jail, won't
comment specifically on the physical changes for security reasons, but tell
us they did find vulnerabilities in the jail system and that their
investigation isn't over.
September 29, 2004 Texarkana Gazette
A capital murder suspect, who escaped Tuesday
morning from the Bi-State Justice Building jail with two other inmates,
remained at large late Tuesday despite an intense manhunt by local law
enforcement. The search for Torrence Henry, 28, of Hope, Ark., was expected
to continue overnight. Henry escaped with two other Bi-State inmates sometime before 4
a.m. Tuesday, said Bi-State Jail Warden Bob Page. Henry is considered
extremely dangerous. Medical staff noticed one of the pod's inmates was missing about
4 a.m., Page said. The staff then searched the pod's shower area and found
that the escapees had apparently torn a hole in the shower's plaster ceiling
and escaped through the ventilation system. They made their way to an
electric control room and eventually down the stairwell of one of the
building's interior fire escapes. On Tuesday afternoon, the mother of one of
the suspects who was apprehended spoke out about her frustration with the
Bi-State jail. She said her son had escaped before, and that apparently no
changes have been made to improve security. "I was very relieved he
didn't get very far. Even though he was wrong to do that (escape), I feel
like they are giving him rope to hang himself with by not keeping him in a
secure environment," she said. "I know he would be safer in jail
than out running around."
September
28, 2004 Texarkana Gazette
Bowie County will have to absorb about $390,000 in Bi-State Justice Building
expenses but property taxes will not have to be increased as a result. The county is paying the extra amount for having to extend
its contract with Civigenics Inc. Specifically, the county incurred the added
expense when the Arkansas Department of Correction decided at the end of last
year to withdraw its jailers from having to guard Bi-State inmates.
July
23, 2002
Sixteen jailers at Bowie County Correctional Center will be laid off this
week, according to Warden Robert Page. CiviGenics Texas, Inc., sent
letters to the affected officers last week. Their positions will be
eliminated as of Friday due to "a decline in the inmate
population," Page said. The 488-bed facility nudged between the
Bi-State Justice Center and the railroad yard in downtown Texarkana was
housing 245 inmates as of Monday afternoon, Page said. (The Texarkana
Gazette)
B.M. Moore Correctional Center
Overton, Texas
MTC (Formerly run by CCA)
November
24, 2005 Disability Compliance Bulletin
A corrections officer sued her former employer, Corrections Corp. of America,
claiming it failed to accommodate her disability after a work-related
vehicular accident. (Cole v. Corrections Corp. of America, No. 05-cv-00411
(E.D. Texas complaint filed 10/31/05).) The case was originally filed in the
District Court of Rusk County, Texas, where it was case number 2005-450. The
lawsuit, which alleges violations of Title I of the ADA and Texas state law,
seeks back pay, compensation for emotional pain, inconvenience and mental
anguish, court costs and attorney's fees. Cole, a corrections office at the B.M.
Moore Correctional Center in Overton, Texas, was injured in a vehicular
accident during the scope of her employment. The accident, which occurred in
July 2004, left her with wrist, back, hip and leg injuries. The complaint
charges that over the next year, Cole was repeatedly discriminated against on
the basis of her disability, and classified in a manner that would deprive
her of opportunities for advancement.
Bradshaw State Jail
Henderson, Texas
CCA (formerly run by Management and Training Corporation)
June 16, 2009 Tyler Morning Telegraph
A prison guard at the Bradshaw State Jail has been arrested after it was
alleged she performed sexual acts on a male prisoner and gave him money. Rusk
County Precinct 5 Justice of the Peace Bob Richardson arraigned Hether Nicole
Bargsley, 32, last Friday on the charges of violations of civil rights of a
person in custody by sexual contact and prohibitive substance in a
correctional facility. According to court documents, Bargsley allegedly
performed a sexual act with a male Bradshaw State Jail inmate on April 25 in
a doorway to one of the prison's dormitories. As the investigation continued,
Bargsley told officials she did in fact perform the sex act and added she
also had given the inmate $200 in currency at different times. The court
documents state the offender involved has corroborated Bargsley's story. The
violation of civil rights is a state jail felony and the prohibitive
substance charge is a third-degree felony. Richardson set the woman's bonds
at $7,500 and $10,000 respectively. Steve Owen, a spokesman for Corrections
Corporation of America, which runs the private facility, said Bargsley was
hired as a guard on Sept. 22, 2008, and was terminated June 11. Owen said he
could not discuss the specifics of the case citing an ongoing investigation.
January
23, 2008 Longview News-Journal
An inmate at Bradshaw State Jail in Henderson was found dead in his cell
this past week, a Texas Department of Corrections spokesman said. Gregory
Cole, 30, was discovered hanging by a bed sheet from the light fixture in his
cell at about 11 a.m. Jan. 15, said Jason Clark. Jail personnel performed
emergency care on Cole, and he was taken to a hospital. He was pronounced
dead at 11:30 a.m. In June 2006, Cole was sentenced to 10 years in state jail
for possession and intent to deliver a controlled substance in McLennan
County, Clark said. The spokesman did not know where Cole lived. Clark said
investigators with the attorney general's office were notified of the death.
He said the attorney general's office always is notified when an inmate dies.
A call to the AG's office was not returned Tuesday.
November
25, 2003
Private prison-management corporations and their employees may be sued under
§[1983 by a prisoner who has suffered a constitutional injury. FACTS: Billy
Rosborough is a prisoner in the Bradshaw State Jail, a Texas prison owned and
operated by defendant Management and Training Corp., a private
prison-management corporation. Defendant Chris Shirley is a corrections
officer employed by MTC at the jail. Rosborough sued MTC and Shirley under 42
U.S.C. §[1983 alleging that he was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment
in violation of the Eighth Amendment when Shirley maliciously slammed a door
on Rosborough's fingers, severing two fingertips. Rosborough also alleges
that Shirley displayed deliberate indifference to Rosborough's resulting
serious medical condition. In addition, Rosborough alleges that MTC is liable
under 42 U.S.C. §[1983 for its improper training and supervision of Shirley.
Rosborough supplemented his federal action with state-law negligence claims.
The district court sua sponte dismissed Rosborough's action on the ground
that Shirley was an employee of MTC rather than an employee of the State of
Texas and, therefore, was not acting under color of state law for purposes of
suit under 42 U.S.C. §[1983. The court dismissed the supplemental state-law
claims but did not address MTC's potential liability for failing to train
Shirley. Rosborough appeals. HOLDING: Reversed and remanded. "To state a
claim under §[1983, a plaintiff must allege the violation of a right secured
by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and must show that the
alleged deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state
law." West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42 [1988]. At issue here is the
"under color of state law" requirement. The district court assumed
that this requirement prevented a person in private employ from being sued
under §[1983. The Supreme Court, however, has held that "[t]o act"under
color' of law does not require that the accused be an officer of the
state." Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144 [1970]. Under the
Supreme Court's "public function" test, a private entity acts under
color of state law "when that entity performs a function which is
traditionally the exclusive province of the state." Wong v. Stripling,
881 F.2d 200 [5th Cir. 1989]. The Supreme Court has explained that "when
private individuals or groups are endowed by t he State with powers or functions
governmental in nature, they become agencies or instrumentalities of the
State and subject to its constitutional limitations." Evans v. Newton,
382 U.S. 296 [1966]. Thus, the Supreme Court has found private actors to be
susceptible to suit under §[1983. Relevant to this case, the Supreme Court
has suggested -- though it has not actually held -- that state prisoners
might bring suit under §[1983 against privately-owned correctional
facilities. In Skelton v. Pri-Cor Inc., 963 F.2d 100 [6th Cir. 1991], the 6th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, relying on these Supreme Court precedents,
held that a private company administering a state corrections facility could
be sued under §[1983. The Sixth Circuit found determinative the fact that the
corporation was "performing a public function traditionally reserved to
the state." The court reasoned that "the power exercised by [the
private prison-management company] is possessed by virtue of state law and
made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state
law.'" Moreover it found that "'[t]here is a sufficiently close
nexus between the State and the challenged action of [the corporation] so
that the action of the latter may be fairly treated as that of the State
itself.' Thus, according to the Sixth Circuit, the private corporation
"acted under color of law for purposes of §[1983." District courts
within this circuit have similarly held that private prison-management
companies and their employees are subject to §[1983 liability because they are
performing a government function traditionally reserved to the state. The
court agrees with the Sixth Circuit and with those district courts that have
found that private prison-management corporations and their employees may be
sued under §[1983 by a prisoner who has suffered a constitutional injury.
Clearly, confinement of wrongdoers -- though sometimes delegated to private
entities -- is a fundamentally governmental function. These corporations and
their employees are therefore subject to limitations imposed by the Eighth
Amendment. The court finds that the district court erred in dismissing
Rosborough's §[1983 claim. (Texas Lawyer)
Brazoria County
Jail
Brazoria,
Texas
Capitol Corrections Resources
November 30, 2005 The Facts
Brazoria County Pct. 2 Commissioner Jim Clawson announced Tuesday he won't
seek re-election next year, opting for retirement after four terms. Clawson
said he had few regrets about his tenure, but wishes he could have stopped
the county from entering a contract with a private prison company to house
out-of-state prisoners from Missouri. Clawson voted against the project at
every stage, predicting it would turn out badly for the county because there
was no guarantee it wouldn't end up with maximum security inmates, despite
assurances to the contrary, he said. That, in fact, is exactly what happened,
leading to the 1996 shakedown, which was caught on videotape. The county
ended up settling a lawsuit brought by inmates for $2.2 million. As Clawson
predicted, the jail never became the revenue-generating machine officials
hoped it would.
January
1, 2000
A record $2.2 million class-action lawsuit reached between inmates and
CCR. Suit stemmed from videos made of guards abusing inmates.
March
2, 1997
Video tape made of Missouri inmates being abused.
September
18, 1996
Video tape made of Missouri inmates being abused.
Bridgeport
Correctional Center
Bridgeport, Texas
MTC (former run by GEO Group)
June
27, 2010 Wise County Messenger
A new management company will take over the Bridgeport Correctional
Center beginning Aug. 31. The 520-bed facility has been managed by GEO Group
Inc., since the center opened in August 1989. GEO was reawarded a three-year
contract from Sept. 1, 2005, and also had two, one-year renewals. The Texas
Department of Criminal Justice conducted a competitive bid process, and
Management & Training Corp. won the seven-year bid. "There's a
technical review of the bid and a financial review of the bid," said
Jason Clark, public information officer for the TDCJ. Clark said that the
reviews are done separately by different committees. "They score those
reviews and compile the scores and a recommendation is made to the
TDCJ."
June 28, 2005 Wise County
Messenger
The Office of the Inspector General will investigate the death of an inmate who
was housed at the Corrections Corporation of America in Bridgeport. Julia Martinez, 29, collapsed Wednesday
afternoon and was pronounced dead a short time later at Wise Regional Health
System. Warden Gwen Bowers said
Martinez reportedly collapsed in the facility’s outdoor exercise area.
Paramedics were called and transported Martinez to WRHS.
June
7, 2005 Wise County Messenger
The Rev. Gil Pansza and an official with The Catholic Diocese of Fort
Worth met with officials of the Bridgeport Correctional Center Wednesday to
discuss Pansza’s dismissal as a volunteer from the men’s division of the
center, but Pansza said he remains barred from the facility. “They didn’t
invite me back,” said Pansza, pastor of St. John’s Catholic Church in
Bridgeport and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Decatur. Pansza and
Ralph McCloud, division director of the Social Justice Ministry of the
diocese, said they met with senior warden Priscella Miles, assistant warden
Bobby Thompson and chaplain Phillip Yoder at the center. Pansza said Yoder
told him a couple of weeks ago that his services were no longer necessary at
the center, which Pansza had been visiting since February. Miles said in a
previous story that Pansza was barred because of his demeanor and because the
prison feared a security issue could occur with Catholic prisoners. On
Wednesday, Pansza said the entire group met for almost an hour, and then
Miles and McCloud met privately for a half-hour. “Warden Miles was interested
in better understanding what our concerns were, and I think she was pretty
patient in listening to what I had to say,” Pansza said. “She gave an
opportunity for the chaplain to say what his views were and then to warden
Thompson as to what his views were. Her concern is that there’s an allegation
of discrimination. I pointed out that that allegation was not by the church.
And she mentioned that the allegation really came from the community. On
prison officials’ concerns about security issues, Pansza said Thompson
mentioned that he was concerned about “offender manipulation.” Pansza said
officials were concerned that he would tell the offenders that the
institution was not giving him access to prisoners, and that “the offenders
would be quite upset about that and maybe that would become a security
issue.” “I guess I can understand that,” Pansza said. “That’s certainly not
something I would want to do. But I can understand his concern.” Yet Pansza
said Thursday that he’s confused about Thompson’s justification on the matter
of security concerns. On the day Thompson told Pansza that he supported
Yoder’s decision to bar Pansza from the prison, the subject of security
concerns was never broached, Pansza said. Pansza said he thinks that issue
emerged after the fact. Pansza said one offender in segregation asked to see
his priest but was denied access. Pansza said Yoder told him that the warden
said the prison was ready to transfer him to another unit.
June
2, 2005 Wise County Messenger
A Wise County priest says he has been barred from performing church
services or visiting with offenders at the men’s division of the Bridgeport
Correctional Center. The Rev. Gil Pansza, pastor of St. John’s Catholic
Church in Bridgeport and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Decatur,
said he doesn’t know why he has been prevented from celebrating Mass or
talking with prisoners. Priscella Miles, senior warden at the prison, said
Tuesday that Pansza has been barred from the prison, but that she is open to
talking with him. She said she talked with him last week and hopes to hear
from him again this week. Pansza said problems emerged three weeks ago, after
he saw another church service advertised on flyers on two bulletin boards at
the facility. He asked Chaplain Phillip Yoder whether Catholic Masses could
be advertised on flyers on 12 bulletin boards at the prison. He said he also
asked whether Thursday Mass could be placed on the monthly religious service
calendar. The Mass was later advertised on a corrected calendar, Pansza said.
Pansza said he and Yoder discussed church postings on bulletin boards. Yoder
agreed to allow the posting of the Catholic service flyers. About a week
later, before Pansza’s next Mass, Pansza said he visited with Yoder, who was
upset about their previous meeting and said he thought Pansza had questioned
his integrity. After some discussion on the bulletin boards and prisoner
visitation – Pansza said he apologized to Yoder if he offended him and that
he was just trying to ensure Catholic Masses receive the same treatment as
others – Yoder told Pansza that he was a guest in the facility and that he
was under his supervision. Pansza said understood prison rules but told him
that he would not “tolerate disparate treatment” from Yoder’s office or
anyone else, meaning that he didn’t accept what he thought was Yoder’s office
promoting one church service over another. “I guess he didn’t like that,”
Pansza said. Pansza said Yoder then told him that his services were no longer
necessary at the prison, Pansza said. Miles
said The GEO Group Inc. – which contracts with the state to manage the
Bridgeport unit – and the Bridgeport Correctional Center support all
religions.
Bridgeport
Pre-Parole and Transfer Facility
Bridgeport, Texas
Corrections Corporation of America
June 28, 2005
The Office of the Inspector General will investigate the death of an inmate
who was housed at the Corrections Corporation of America in Bridgeport. Julia Martinez, 29, collapsed Wednesday
afternoon and was pronounced dead a short time later at Wise Regional Health
System. Warden Gwen Bowers said
Martinez reportedly collapsed in the facility’s outdoor exercise area.
Paramedics were called and transported Martinez to WRHS.
Brooks County Detention Center
Falfurrias, Texas
Louisiana Corrections Services
October
30, 2012 Caller Times
FALFURRIAS
— A Corpus Christi jury returned a verdict Wednesday siding with the widow of
a man who died in January 2009 at the Brooks County Detention Center in
Falfurrias. The federal jury decided unanimously to award $2.25 million to
the widow of 42-year-old Mario Garcia, who died of a seizure while on suicide
watch at the center. Garcia's family contends he was denied prescribed
medications while at the facility, which led to his death 12 days after being
brought there. His condition began to quickly deteriorate after being jailed,
though he was never sent to a physician or a hospital, according to the
family's counsel. Garcia left behind a wife and a 10-year-old son. Kathy
Snapka, lead counsel for the Garcia family, called the death preventable and
said facility staff disregarded his condition. Snapka said the family hopes
the verdict in Garcia v. Niderhauser will send a message to other facilities
that they will be held accountable for neglect. "Monica Garcia's
objective was to speak for Mario to ensure that no other person is denied the
right to receive medical attention," Snapka said. Attorneys for LCS
Corrections, which owns Brooks County Detention Center, were not immediately
available for comment Wednesday. Both sides await the ruling of U.S. District
Judge Randy Crane, who has as much as 30 days to make a judgment.
July
8, 2011 KZTV 10
On New Year's Eve 2008 Mario Garcia pled guilty to 2 charges of submitting
fraudulent bids to the government to win contracts at the Corpus Christi Army
Depot. U-S District Judge Janice Graham Jack ordered Garcia be taken into
custody until sentencing. Garcia was brought to the Brooks County Detention
Center and placed on suicide watch. He was there when he died January 12th,
2009. His family is suing the jail and some of it's officials. Kathy Snapka
represents Garcia's family. "It is our allegation that the prison
disregarded his very, very serious medical condition and that's why days
after he was sent to Brooks County he died," she said. Snapka says the
case has flipped between district and federal courts, but now a February
trial date has been set in Mc Allen where U.S. District Judge Randy Crane
sits. "He's aware that the matter's been on file for a significant
length of time. And I think that he wants the case moved along," Snapka
told Action Ten News. According to the lawsuit, Garcia had a known seizure
disorder and was on medication for it. And that he suffered from seizures and
headaches while in jail. It also says jail officials 'breached their duty of
care to Garcia by failing to care for his medical needs. The Brooks County
Death Certificate lists Garcia's cause of death as seizure disorder. The
Nueces County medical examiner's autopsy says the same thing. The defendants
in the case are LCS Correction Services, which owns the jail, former jail
warden Miguel Niderhauser, and Dr. Michael Pendleton, former head of the
jail's medical staff. On Janaury 23rd 2009, just days after Garcia's death,
we reported that LCS President Dick Harbison told us Niderhauser resigned and
Pendleton's contract was terminated. Attorneys for all defendants told us by
phone today that they couldn't comment on a pending case, but that their
clients plan to vigorously defend themselves.
July
23, 2009 Caller Times
The family of a man who died in a privately run prison in Brooks County
has filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging he was denied medical
treatment. Mario Alberto Garcia, 42, was awaiting sentencing at LCS-Brooks
County on charges of bid-rigging at the Corpus Christi Army Depot when he was
found dead in January. Garcia suffered from a seizure disorder and was
prescribed medication to treat it. The lawsuit claims he was denied access to
medication, despite warnings from family members about his condition. An
autopsy by the Nueces County medical examiner found that Garcia died of the
seizure disorder. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. It names prison
owner LCS Correction Services, the prison’s former warden and former doctor
as defendants. The prison typically houses inmates facing immigration
charges. Representatives of the doctor and prison did not return calls for
comment. Garcia had pleaded guilty to submitting inflated bids for office
equipment. Along with those bids, he submitted lower bids from his own
company. In most situations, defendants facing white-collar crimes remain
free while awaiting sentencing. But a federal judge, concerned over Garcia’s
mental status, ordered him to the Brooks County facility on suicide watch.
Garcia could have been sentenced to as long as 10 years in prison, but was
likely to receive only a few months under federal sentencing guidelines.
January
14, 2009 Caller Times
An inmate awaiting sentencing on charges of rigging bids on federal contracts
was found dead Monday at the Brooks County Detention Center in Falfurrias,
and Texas Rangers are investigating how the death occurred. The circumstances
are unclear. The Nueces County Medical Examiner's Office performed an autopsy
Tuesday but has not released a cause of death. The inmate, Mario Alberto
Garcia, 42, had been placed on suicide watch at a court appearance. Garcia
pleaded guilty Dec. 31 to submitting fictitious, inflated bids to supply
office equipment at the Corpus Christi Army Depot. He submitted the fake bids
along with his company's lower bid to win contracts. Under normal
circumstances, a white-collar defendant like Garcia would remain free while
awaiting sentencing, but U.S. District Judge Janice Graham Jack ordered him
into custody over concerns that Garcia would take his life, said Garcia's criminal
defense attorney, Keith Gould. A physician at the facility removed Garcia
from suicide watch Jan. 8. He died Monday, said Al Lujan, deputy U.S.
marshal. As part of his agreement to plead guilty, a third count of lying to
U.S. Army investigators was dismissed. Prosecutors say Garcia also faxed
phony bids in July 2007. He was not prosecuted for those incidents. Juan
Reyna, an attorney representing Garcia's family, said Garcia had a medical
condition. Reyna, who declined to identify the condition, said Garcia's
family knew of it and warned jail officials about it. "The family had
some major concerns with respect to medical treatment Mr. Garcia was
receiving," Reyna said. "The family made it very clear regarding
medical treatment." Reyna said he has requested the facility preserve
several categories of records relating to Garcia. The private facility is run
by LCS Corrections Services of Lafayette, La., and is typically used to house
illegal immigrants. Gary Copes, general manager for LCS, said a Texas Ranger
visited the facility Wednesday as part of the investigation. Copes declined
further discussion.
September
15, 2004 Caller-Times
The manhunt for an escaped prisoner continued Tuesday as officers combed the
area surrounding the Brooks County Detention Center with dogs, on horseback
and by helicopter, Sheriff Balde Lozano said. On
Monday, Elias Ramirez Martinez, 20, of Veracruz, Mexico, escaped from the
privately owned holding center. Inmates were being moved from an eating area
just before 7 p.m. when Martinez made his getaway, jumping a 10-foot electric
fence, Lozano said. It was the facility's first breakout since September
2002, when two inmates escaped through the detention center's ceiling.
Measures have been taken since then to prevent similar escapes. Ceilings were
enclosed with heavy mesh and the electrical fence was installed, Lozano said.
It was not known if the fence was activated when Martinez jumped it.
September
29, 2002
Falfurrias residents reacted with fear and worry after learning that two inmates
escaped form the privately owned Brooks County Detention Center early
Saturday. The two men, Juan Guerra and Steven Torres, were being held
at the facility prior to their trials. Guerra, a Mexican national, had been
charged with murder and Torres was arrested for a parole violation- an
alleged robbery. The two men were missing during an inmate headcount at
7 a.m. after they had been present for a similar count at 3 a.m., said
Patrick LeBlanc, president of the Louisiana-based LCS Corrections Services
Inc., the company that oversees the operations of the detention
facility. "I don't think it was whim ," he said.
"I think they studied and analyzed and searched for the scene and
unfortunately they found it." The two men kicked through a
security ceiling that was welded shut, LeBlanc said. Then, they climbed
into the ceiling and got into a mechanical chase that the facility's pipes
run through- similar to the escape in the movie "Shawshank
Redemption," he said. The chase leads to a door locked form the
outside that opens on the detention center grounds, he said. There, the
two men, wearing detention-center issued orange uniforms with white T-shirts,
scaled two double fences, each topped with three lines of razor wire.
Investigators found a blood trail, LeBlanc said. As the search gout
under way, residents learned of the news by word of mouth. About half a
dozen people called KPSO-Radio 106.3 news director Steve Cantu to express
their concerns. "A lot of people are worried," he said.
"These are not some of the nicest people out there." LeBlanc
said the detention center does not have a procedure to alert area residents
of an escape, instead turning over the information to local law enforcement
to get the word out. (Caller-Times)
Burnet County Jail,
Texas
Southwestern Correctional
Texas
prison boom going bust: by Mitch Mitchell, September 3, 2011, Star-Telegram.
Expose on troubles facing many communities that bought into the private prison
bonding scam.
March 13, 2012 Daily Tribune
The escape of a man from the Burnet County Jail has grown into a family
affair with the arrest of the inmate's brother on charges the sibling tried
to help the suspected jailbird fly the coop. The news March 13 followed an
earlier report from sheriff's deputies that the brothers' mother also was
arrested a few days ago in the case. Louis Arce IV, 29, of Burnet was charged
March 12 with hindering apprehension or prosecution of a known felon. He
remained in the jail pending the setting of a bond. Deputies arrested Arce's
59-year-old mother Francis Ybarra March 10 on the same charges. She posted a
$10,000 bond and was released from jail March 11. The accusations in both
cases stem from the escape of Johnny Angel Ybarra, 40, from the
public-private jail March 1. He was recaptured about three hours later.
According to an arrest affidavit by sheriff's Investigator Bo Boshears, Arce
told Texas Rangers assisting with the case he helped Ybarra after the escape
by taking him from their mother's home on Pierce Street to a relative's place
at the nearby Green Acres Apartments. Ybarra, who is serving a life sentence
on three felony charges including burglary of a habitation with intent to
commit a sexual offense, disappeared from a handicap cell sometime from 12:50
a.m.-3:30 a.m., deputies said. Jailers discovered a hole had been knocked
through a cinder block wall under a sink in Ybarra's cell using the rail from
a toilet. The convicted felon hung towels over the sink to cover his escape
route and even rolled up blankets under his bed sheet to make it look like
somebody was sleeping there. Ybarra made his way to the roof, slipped through
razor wire and dropped to the ground, deputies said.
March
13, 2012 Daily Tribune
The mother of an accused jail escapee landed behind bars in the same
facility after deputies charged her with trying to get her son out of Texas.
Francis Ybarra, 59, is charged with hindering the apprehension or prosecution
of a known felon, Burnet County Sheriff W.T Smith said. She was released
March 11 from the Burnet County Jail after posting a $10,000 bond. The case
stems from the March 1 escape of Johnny Angel Ybarra, 40, from the
public-private jail after he received a life sentence on three felony charges
including burglary of a habitation with intent to commit a sexual offense. An
arrest affidavit by sheriff's Investigator Bo Boshears stated after the son
escaped from jail, the mother was trying to help him get out of Burnet and to
a relative's home in Colorado. But before the duo could carry out the plan,
officers captured the inmate at the Green Acres Apartments. According to the
investigators, sometime from 12:50 a.m.-3:30 a.m. March 1, Ybarra disappeared
from his cell. A hole had been knocked into a cinderblock wall under a sink
using the railing from the toilet in the handicap cell. The escape route was
hidden by towels hanging to dry on the sink. A rolled-up blanket under the
sheets made it look like someone was in the bed. Reaching the roof, the inmate
slipped through razor wire and dropped to the ground.
March
5, 2012 Daily Tribune
The Burnet County Jail has flunked a state inspection that found design flaws
in the wake of an escape March 1 by an inmate who chiseled a hole in the
wall. The state report says the private-public jail, which opened with 587
beds in April 2009 at a cost of $23 million, is "non-compliant"
with security standards. "It means something is wrong," County
Judge Donna Klaeger said March 5. The Burnet County Sheriff's Office supervises
the jail, which is operated by the private firm LaSalle Southwest
Corrections. Texas Commission on Jail Standards inspectors recently found
"deficiencies" in the network of concrete blocks and reinforcement
bars that support walls near cells for handicapped inmates, Executive
Director Adan Munoz said. It is in one of the handicapped cells that Johnny
Angel Ybarra, 40, removed a rail by a toilet and chiseled away at cinder
blocks under a sink until he created an escape route, investigators said. He
hid his handiwork by hanging towels to dry over the sink and replacing the
rail before guards noticed it was missing, they added. "Those cells are
unpopulated now," Klaeger said. Hale Mills Construction built the jail
at 900 County Lane three years ago. County Commissioner Bill Neve said he
plans to meet Hale Mills builders March 6 at the jail, along with Sheriff
W.T. Smith and LaSalle officials. "We are going to talk about
construction issues related to the jail," Neve added. Also, the
commissioners plan to hear a jail security update during the meeting March
13, Klaeger said. Neither Smith nor LaSalle officials could be reached for
comment March 5.
October
20, 2009 KXAN
New razor wire that measures more than 4 feet tall and nearly 3 feet wide is
coiled around the metal roof and down the sides of the new Burnet County
Jail. The $90,000 security measure was recently added to the 7-month-old
facility to stop another inmate from sneaking out. Authorities are still
searching for a man who made his getaway during recreation time back in
August. On a surprise visit last Thursday, jail inspectors found concerns
inside after questioning two female inmates. One was pregnant and said she
was not given proper medication. Another mental health patient said she was
not given her medication either, so inspectors checked her medical chart.
"There were certain medications that needed to be prescribed for her
that had not been given to her, and that's obviously not in compliance with
jail standards," said Adan Munoz, executive director of the Texas
Commission on Jail Standards . "They get excellent care here," said
Tammy Manning, the Burnet County Jail medical supervisor. Manning was out of
town during the inspection but normally sees the inmate who she said had been
refusing to show up to appointments after they were scheduled. The situation
had not been documented on her medical chart that state inspectors reviewed.
"We do have room for improvement in our documentation," said
Manning. "And our actional plan we put into place Friday was to improve
our documentation so this will not happen again." One of the female
inmates also said they were not getting recreation time everyday. "We
went on to check the recreation log to see if their concerns were
valid," said Munoz. "We couldn't even find a recreation log."
Burnet County Jail Warden Bruce Armstrong admits there was a breakdown there,
too. "We run rec everyday," said Armstrong. "And the officer
calls in the count to the central control officer whose suppose to be logging
the count down on how many offenders went to rec, and they were neglecting to
document the count." Armstrong said it has been taken care of, but the
state said there is one more requirement the county has yet to comply with.
The state does not have the jail's operational plan, which covers everything
from what to do in case of a fire to how to administer health care. "The
fact that it's been open since April and still not within our agency
certainly gives us great concern," said Munoz. The county told the state
they were working on it. Munoz sent written notification of the deficiencies
to the county and Southwest Corrections, the company who manages the jail.
They have 30 days to comply.
September
3, 2009 Burnet Bulletin
Only four months after opening its doors to the public with tours,
speeches and a ribbon cutting, the Burnet County Jail has been cited by the
Texas Commission on Jail Standards for a different kind of open house:
Improper supervision of inmates after a prisoner escaped Sunday night and
fled past nearby residential neighborhoods and to freedom. The controversial
privately run jail – a facility that many nearby residents unsuccessfully
fought during its development – now is officially deemed noncompliant with
Texas jail standards, confirmed Adan Munoz, a former sheriff who serves as
executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. An inspector
from the commission visited the jail and found inadequate its procedures for
checking prisoners, Munoz said. Meanwhile, the jailer responsible for supervising
prisoners into and out of a recreation yard has resigned, and two other
correctional officers at the jail face disciplinary action that could mean
suspension or termination as a result of the escape of Nuana Antonio
Fuentes-Sanchez, confirmed Billy McConnell, co-owner of the private jail
management firm. Fuentes-Sanchez, 23, a day laborer and native of El
Salvador, was arrested in connection with a violent robbery of a Burnet
County couple in April. Being noncompliant doesn't mean the jail is in danger
of being shut down. It means Southwestern Correctional LLC, the private
company hired by the county to manage the jail, has 30 days to report how it
will satisfactorily resolve the issues, Munoz said. Currently, 37 of the 247
county jails regulated by the TCJS are noncompliant with the standards, which
could be for a range of minor to major issues, such as inoperable toilet
facilities, malfunctioning intercom systems or inadequate staffing, Munoz
said. The Burnet County Jail’s issues fall under the heading of “supervision
of inmates,” a key section of the 600 standards regulated by the commission.
Munoz said “The best way to describe it is a lack of diligence, a lack of
professionalism,” Munoz said.
November
19, 2007
This Monday, concerned Burnet County residents will hold a public meeting
with Burnet County Commissioners to discuss their opposition to a proposed
500-bed private detention center. The meeting will take place Monday,
November 19th, at Old Courthouse on the square in Burnet at 7:00pm. Burnet
County residents are concerned that the proposed jail will be operated by a
Louisiana-based for-profit private prison corporation, that out-of-county
prisoners will shipped to the prison, and that Burnet County has taken steps
to float revenue bonds to pay for the prison, which could endanger the
county's future bond rating, without a public vote. Private prison
corporations have a track record that include human rights abuses, lawsuits,
higher rates of violence, and financial mismanagement. Research shows that
prison construction has no positive economic impact on communities. Counties
that finance private prison construction have been held liable for abuses
that take place in the prisons.
Central Texas Detention Facility
San Antonio, Texas
GEO Group (formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections)
June
11, 2012 San Antonio Express-News
Relatives of an inmate who hanged himself at the privately run Central Texas
Detention Facility have sued Florida-based The GEO Group and its warden,
alleging the federal prisoner was able to kill himself because he was wrongly
taken off suicide watch in December 2011. The lawsuit claims warden James
Coapland was negligent in watching over Darrell Clayton Delany, 31, and that
The GEO Group is liable for the acts of its employees. The operators of the
jail, located in downtown San Antonio, deny the allegations of the suit,
which seeks unspecified damages. Delany was sent to the jail by the U.S.
Bureau of Prisons because he had been unable to meet the conditions required
of him to serve his sentence on drug smuggling charges at a halfway house,
said a court affidavit from Brett Bement, who preceded Coapland as warden at
the jail. Bement's affidavit said that, on the morning of Dec. 29, 2011 — the
day Delany was to be released from the lockup — he was found hanging in his
cell by bed linens and was later pronounced dead at a San Antonio hospital.
He had been on suicide watch before the incident but had signed a
“no-self-harm” agreement and was removed from suicide watch two days before his
suicide, Bement's affidavit said. The affidavit, filed by lawyers for
Coapland, tries to deflect blame from Coapland, who was the jail's assistant
warden at the time. The affidavit said Coapland did not have the authority to
remove inmates from suicide watch, but does not specify who authorized
Delany's removal from suicide watch. Inmates have frequently complained to
federal judges about conditions at the lockup. And the suit comes as police
in Atascosa County arrested Jack Shane McNeal, a former guard at that lockup,
on Thursday on theft charges unrelated to the Delany incident. McNeal was out
on bond, facing federal charges that he helped members of the Texas Mexican
Mafia smuggle cell phones and heroin and marijuana into the jail.
February 10, 2012 San Antonio
Express-News
Two members of the Texas Mexican Mafia pleaded guilty Thursday to charges
that they got cellphones and drugs smuggled into a federal jail with help
from a guard. Paul “Polo” Hernandez and Jesse C. “Chuy” Guerra also pleaded
guilty to an extortion and drug-possession charge for their roles in the
gang's enforcement of a 10-percent “street tax” on other drug dealers in San
Antonio. Guerra's cousin Fernando “Klan” Delgado also pleaded guilty Thursday
to a heroin-possession charge. The three were among 12 snared in November
2010 by the San Antonio Police Department and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Three of the 12 pleaded guilty last year
and were sentenced to prison. Hernandez's plea deal said he made several
phone calls while awaiting trial on drug-related charges at the Central Texas
Detention Facility, a federal jail in San Antonio run by Florida-based The
GEO Group. In the calls, Hernandez directed his wife to find heroin and a gun
he had hidden on his property that police missed when they raided the
couple's home, the plea deal said. Hernandez also asked his wife to contact
another Texas Mexican Mafia member to let him know that Hernandez had
identified three “snitches” who cooperated with police, the plea deal said.
One of the three was later found murdered, the deal said. Hernandez and
Guerra also admitted that they had four cell phones — three were found on
Guerra and one on Hernandez — and small amounts of marijuana and heroin in
the lockup, according to deputy U.S. Marshal Eric De Los Santos. Three people
were charged in the smuggling and await trial, including former GEO employee
Jack Shane McNeal, inmate Antonio Molina-Ortega and Marisol Reyna Mermella,
records show.
March 21, 2011 San Antonio Express-News
The parents of an inmate who died last year from a heroin overdose at a
privately run federal jail in downtown San Antonio have sued the operator,
alleging guards may have smuggled the drugs in and provided them to the
prisoner. The suit filed by Albert and Sandra Gomez, which was moved from
state court to federal court last week, states that their son, Albert Gomez
Jr., died May 19 from a heroin overdose while he was held at one of the more
secure parts of the Central Texas Detention Facility. The 685-bed facility is
owned by Bexar County, but has been managed for years by the Boca Raton,
Fla.-based GEO Group Inc., which has a contract with the county and the U.S.
Marshals Service to house federal pretrial inmates there. The suit names GEO
and a female guard, listed as “Jane Doe 1,” as defendants. The suit alleges
guards are improperly trained to handle people with drug addictions and can
freely participate in “black market sale of drugs to prisoners.” One of the
Gomez couple's lawyers, Matt Wymer, said he has been informed that a criminal
investigation has been launched, but the Marshals Service declined comment
because the matter is in litigation. The GEO Group did not respond to a
request for comment, but denied the allegations in a court-filed response.
May 21, 2010 KENS 5
A federal inmate has died while in custody. Guards found the 25-year-old dead
in his cell early Wednesday morning. His family wants to know what went
wrong. Federal authorities arrested Albert Martin Gomez Jr. On January 20. He
was accused of making and passing fake $100 bills. He and a co-defendant were
charged in a counterfeit-money ring. Gomez was released, but was back at a
federal holding facility in March, awaiting sentencing. Around 6:30 a.m.
Wednesday guards found Gomez unresponsive. Sources say Gomez died from an
apparent drug overdose, but nobody is talking. Meanwhile, toxicology reports
are pending. Bexar County records show Gomez was also arrested in 2005 on an
assault charge. The autopsy was completed, but details aren't being released.
The central Texas detention facility where Gomez was being held is operated
by the GEO Group, Inc. A spokesperson had no comment on the death, only to
say it is under investigation.
November 23, 2007 American-Statesman
Sam Kambo can now hold his 4-year-old son, Seth, something he couldn't do for
a year while he was in a San Antonio prison waiting for the legal system to
sort out whether he should be deported. 'The worst thing you can do to a
useful person is to make him useless,' Kambo said On Thursday, the Austin
resident celebrated the first Thanksgiving since being released a month ago
from a federal prison in San Antonio. There he had waited for the legal
system to sort out whether he should be deported on government charges that
he was involved in mass murder in Sierra Leone, the West African country in
which he grew up and helped lead a bloodless coup in 1992 against the ruling
party. After Kambo spent nearly a year awaiting his day in court — while
federal officials ignored two orders to release him on bail — an immigration
judge rejected the government's allegation that Kambo had participated in
mass murder. The judge ordered his release, but Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agents did not comply for five months, until another federal
judge ordered him set free. Kambo's wife, Hanaan, cared for their four
children during that year, coordinated with the lawyer handling her husband's
case and survived on the charity of family and friends. "We appreciate
every day now. I appreciate every time I have a day," Sam Kambo said
Thursday, slicing a long slender eggplant for a salad in the kitchen of his
North Austin home. "I really cherish this moment." Later, his
brother, David, and mother, Susan, stopped by, both of them having been
granted status as legal residents after they followed Sam to Austin. They did
not talk about his fight with the federal government. Six children played in
a side room and occasionally ran through the kitchen, where the adults moved
about and chatted lightly, spooning plates of food from the table in an
informal pot luck style. The first course was skewered beef cooked in peanut
sauce and onions. Later came a jambalaya-like dish of rice mixed with bits of
beef, shrimp, carrots and peas, accompanied by a salad, talapia fish and
sweet blue African potatoes. Hanaan Kambo did most of the cooking, but her
husband rarely left the kitchen. Sometimes, she says, when he is out of
sight, she feels a wave of anxiety come over her. "Maybe I'll be in the
kitchen, and I just have a moment, as if I'm reliving the time he was taken
from us," she said. Kambo was arrested in October 2006 at a hearing that
he thought would determine whether he became a permanent resident of the
United States. Instead, he was arrested and locked up in the GEO Group
private detention facility in San Antonio, where he shared a cell the size of
his kitchen with five other men and drank tap water from a basin attached to
the cell's group toilet.
September 2, 2005 San
Antonio Express-News
Eight local residents, including two former jail guards, pleaded guilty
Thursday to participating in a bank-fraud conspiracy that netted between
$90,000 and $160,000. The scheme stretched from July 2003 to October 2004 and
involved opening 52 accounts at Bank of America branches and depositing
checks from a closed account or empty envelopes and quickly withdrawing cash
before bank officials caught on, court records noted. The case ensnared 12
defendants and is among the first brought to federal court by a U.S. Secret
Service-led task force formed in October 2004 to target identity-theft rings
and other organized financial crime rackets. Court documents allege Santos
Lopez III, 27, his girlfriend, Estella Ramirez, and Bruno Alejandro Jr., 40,
devised the scheme and managed the operation. Court records said the recruits
were given startup money by the organizers to open the accounts. The recruits
would then hand over personal identification numbers and ATM cards to Lopez
or Ramirez. Checks from a closed bank account would then be deposited through
automated tellers, and cash withdrawals would be made almost immediately,
according to the court documents. The court record showed recruits would be
given part of the proceeds, and Lopez and others spent much of the proceeds
on cocaine. Also pleading guilty Thursday were: Alejandro Regino, Manuel
Riojas, Jessica Guevara, Belinda Contreras, Angelica Guerra and Lopez's
ex-girlfriend, Sophia Martinez, whom Lopez started a relationship with while
she was a guard and he was incarcerated in San Antonio. Officials said both
Martinez and Guerra worked at the jail, operated by the Florida-based GEO
Group Inc., during the conspiracy. Both were terminated.
February 16, 2005 Express-News
A former guard who admitted trying to smuggle methamphetamine into a private
downtown jail that holds federal inmates was sentenced Tuesday to 2 1/2 years
in prison. U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez allowed Lou Cindy Ford, 39,
to turn herself in to federal prison officials by June 3. Ford, who worked at
the old Central Texas Parole Violators Facility across the street from the
main police station, pleaded guilty last year to intending to distribute 50
grams to 500 grams of the drug. Ford
's plea agreement said she was caught trying to deliver four ounces to an
inmate in exchange for $800 during an undercover sting July 27, 2003. Ford
was arrested later that day after she drove back to the jail, which is run by
Florida-based GEO Group Inc.
February 2, 2005 KSAT
A 19-year-old guard at the GEO Central Texas Detention Facility in San
Antonio has been placed on unpaid leave following his arrest on drug and
alcohol charges. According to a San Antonio Police Department report, Manuel
Castillo was arrested early Tuesday after he allegedly smuggled drugs and
alcohol into the federal facility.
During Castillo's midnight break, he left in his vehicle and later
returned to the facility at 218 South Laredo carrying a clear bottle filled
with vodka, the report said. Police also found some cocaine concealed in a
sock and some tobacco tucked inside his belt line. Castillo, who was hired in
July 2004, is the fourth detention officer arrested for allegedly bringing
contraband into the facility in the past 2 ½ years.
December 20, 2004 Express-News
Two San Antonio women have admitted they helped deliver a car and money for a
jailbreak attempt by several inmates, including alleged members of the Texas
Mexican Mafia. Estella Soto, 27, and Paula Soto,
23, have struck plea deals in which they've agreed to plead guilty to
conspiracy in an escape attempt from a privately run jail downtown. Inside
the lockup, which is run by The Geo Group Inc. of Florida, Soto was to escape
through a window along with alleged Mexican Mafia general Jimmy Zavala, 35,
reputed Mexican Mafia member Gerardo Sanchez, 31, and David A. Straughn, 31.
November 5, 2004 Express-News
A guard at a privately run jail that holds federal prisoners was released on
bond Thursday after pleading not guilty to planning to smuggle heroin into
the lockup. A federal grand jury indicted Juan
Roberto Ortiz, 40, on Wednesday. Ortiz had worked at the jail since November
2003 and has been placed on unpaid leave, said Pablo Paez, spokesman for
Florida-based GEO Group Inc., which runs the jail.
November 1, 2004 Express-News
A guard at a privately run jail for federal inmates made his first court
appearance today on charges that he tried to smuggle heroin and cocaine into
the lockup. During an initial hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo
ordered Juan Roberto Ortiz held pending a bail hearing on Thursday. Before his arrest this weekend, Ortiz, 40, had worked at
the Central Texas Parole Violators Facility since November 2003, according to
Pablo Paez, spokesman for The Geo Group, the Florida-based company that runs
the jail.
Ortiz's arrest was the latest for guards who worked at the jail. In the past
year, Jessica Lee Piña, 24, and David C. Higginbotham, 42, have gone to
prison for trying to smuggle drugs into the lockup. Lou Cindy Ford, 39,
pleaded guilty in March to intending to distribute 4 ounces of
methamphetamine at the jail. She awaits sentencing.
March 16, 2004
A former jail guard accused
of trying to smuggle methamphetamine into the Wackenhut detention facility
downtown has struck a plea deal. Lou Cindy Ford, 39, is scheduled to finalize
the agreement by pleading guilty today in federal court to intending to
distribute between 50 grams to 500 grams of meth. She faces five to 40 years
in prison. (San Antonio Express-News)
August 7, 2002
A jail guard who crashed a van carrying six prisoners into a downtown
lamppost earlier this week does not have a driver's license, state officials
said Tuesday. The van, operated by the private security firm Wackenhut
Corp., had just exited the feral courthouse parking lot shortly before 5 p.m.
Monday when the vehicle swerved toward the curb. Three inmates were
treated for "bruises and soreness" and sent back to their cells at
the privately operated Laredo Street lockup, said Al Pacheco, the Wackenhut
warden. Cited for driving without a license, the driver was likewise
treated and released at Christus Rosa Hospital. The wreck served as a
bloodless reminder of an earlier fiasco for the U.S. Marshals service, which
contracts with the Wackenhut and oversees federal prisoners awaiting trial in
the Western District of Texas. Two federal inmates died in April when a
prisoner transport operated by the private security firm CiviGenics crashed
en route from El Paso. Wackenhut's Pacheco said he did not know how
many times the driver, who started working as a Wackenhut guard five months
ago, had driven the daily transports to the federal courthouse on East
Durango Boulevard. (San Antonio Express-News)
April
3, 2002
A jailer was arrested last week on charges that he accepted money and what he
believed to be heroin from an undercover agent, promising to take the illegal
drug inside the privately-owned federal correction facility where he
worked. David Higginbotham was arrested March 26 outside the Central
Texas Parole Violator Facility, a Wackenhut detention center located
downtown. (San Antonio Express-News)
Sept.
5, 1996
A week after a double murderer from Oklahoma escaped through a 6-inch window,
officials at Wackenhut Corrections Center say they are stepping up security
at the private jail. The escape of John Ray Davis, 21, prompted prison
management to decide to spend $20,000 on new doors and security locks and to
implement new procedures in the coming weeks, officials said. (Houston
Chronicle)
Children's Assessment
Center Foundation
Harris,
Texas
January 16, 2002 Harris County
Commissioners Court approved an agreement Tuesday changing how the county and
a nonprofit group run a renowned center for sexually abused children. The new
contract with the Children's Assessment Center Foundation is the result of
months of study, and officials said its approval resolves problems that have
dogged the program for the past year. County Auditor Tommy Tompkins said last
year the foundation owed the county $1.5 million reimbursement for some
expenses. Officials feared the center had become distracted from that mission
last year after Tompkins' discovery of the $1.5 million debt and allegations
that Ellen Cokinos, the center's first director, was mismanaging the program.
Cokinos -- a county employee -- came under court scrutiny after employees,
volunteers and state and local officials accused her of falsifying reports on
the number of children served by the center, using employees for personal
errands and damaging relations between the CAC and partner agencies. Cokinos,
who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, resigned in May, saying her
departure was best for the program she helped build. The allegations led to
investigations by auditors and District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal. The
auditors helped tweak financial controls over the center, and prosecutors
said in November they found no indictable offenses. (Houston Chronicle)
Cleveland
Pre-Release Center
Cleveland,
Texas
CCA
Sept. 3, 1998
Corrections Corporation of America is pulling out of the pre-release prison here,
citing a disagreement with the local school board over money owed in lieu of
taxes. CCA served officials notice this week to the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice that it will no longer manage the Cleveland Pre-Release
Center in Liberty County after Dec. 31, said company spokesperson Laurie
Shanblum. "It is the result of a difference of opinion between CCA
and the Cleveland Independent School District regarding the annual amount of
money to be paid in lieu of taxes to the school district." School
board president Walter Stovall said CCA's announcement took him by
surprise. The board, he said, was merely enforcing CCA's tax obligation
and was willing to listen to abatement proposals. "It's
terrible," County Commissioner Melvin Hunt said. "Almost
everybody is unhappy. The county and city have been giving tax
abatements to CCA for a long time." The trouble between CCA and
the Cleveland school district started in 1995 - more than five years after
the facility now valued at $13.2 million, was built to house 520 state
inmates within two years of release. That year the school district sued
the for-profit corporation in federal court for reducing their $180,000
annual tax payment by $100,000 without permission. Last month, the
school district's lawsuit against CCA was settled out of court, with CCA
agreeing to pay its outstanding debt of $300,000 plus interest. Both
the city and county have given CCA more than a 50 percent tax abatement since
1995, authorities said. (Houston Chronicle)
Coastal Bend
Detention Center
Robstown, Texas
Louisiana Correctional Services
November 4, 2011 Record Star
Texas Commission on Jail Standards officials recently said the organization
is powerless to oversee any changes at the Coastal Bend Detention Center in
Robstown, after center officials decided to move out all of their county
prisoners. Adan Munoz Jr., Executive Director of the TCJS said he was
notified last week that LCS Corrections Services Inc., owners of the CBDC,
asked for the detention center to be pulled off the state's inspection rolls,
as they would no longer house county inmates.
July
12, 2011 Record Star
A Robstown detention center was recently found to be in non-compliance with
state guidelines following an inspection by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.
Coastal Bend Detention Center, owned and operated by LCS Corrections Services
Inc., was visited May 20 by representatives with the TCJS, during which an
inspection was conducted. The results were posted on the agency's Web site
last month.
May
3, 2010 Caller-Times
State jail inspectors ruled that a Robstown private detention facility
doesn't meet state standards because it failed to report an inmate's death
and its warden and deputy warden lack jailers' licenses. The Coastal Bend
Detention Center was cited Monday for failing to report the death of a
prisoner, who died April 18, according to commission Director Adan Muñoz.
Michael Higgins, a former state trooper found guilty of stealing money from
Hispanic drivers, also died of an apparent heart attack April 29, while in
the facility. Officials with the prison were not immediately available for
comment. Discussions with the deputy warden and the chief of security of the
facility revealed that neither official knew of the requirement to notify the
state agency of the deaths in custody, Muñoz said. Jail commission Assistant
Director Shannon Herklotz told the men that their lack of reporting was a
non-compliance issue and would be handled accordingly in a follow-up notice
of non-compliance for failing to report the April 18 death. Herklotz
determined that neither of the top two prison managers had proper state
licenses, a violation of state standards. "Both the lack of the jailer
licenses by the warden and deputy warden, the lack of properly or entirely
filling out the inmate screening form, and failing to report the April 18,
2010, death in custody within 24 hours as required will immediately result in
a notice of non-compliance with minimum jail standards for the Coastal Bend
Detention Center," Muñoz said. The facility is out of compliance for the
second time in a year.
February
1, 2010 Caller-Times
A private detention facility in Robstown has passed two surprise state
inspections since the accidental release of a convicted sex offender put its
compliance status at risk. The Coastal Bend Detention Center mistakenly
released Mario Estrada Martinez, 31, an undocumented immigrant from
Matamoros, Mexico, instead of Mario Estrada Antonio in November. Estrada
Antonio was supposed to be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement for deportation. Estrada Martinez, who was being held for
illegally re-entering the U.S. and set for a hearing before U.S. District
Judge Janis Graham Jack, was deported instead. The accidental release wasn’t
a violation of state standards. But the Texas Commission on Jail Standards
deemed the facility, operated by Lafayette, La.-based LCS Corrections, at
risk of falling out of state compliance and promised a series of surprise
inspections for 90 days, said Adan Muñoz, the jail commission’s executive
director. State inspector George Johnson conducted the first surprise visit
on the evening of Jan. 6, according to documents obtained by the Caller-Times
through a public information request. The inspection did not reveal any
non-compliance issues. But Johnson noted that of 118 officers, 85 were
working with temporary state jailer licenses. All must complete training and
pass a state-mandated jailer certification course within their first year of
employment.
December
29, 2009 WEAU
There will soon be a new jail boss in town and he comes with a couple
championship belts. Art Crews is the soon to be jail captain in Chippewa
County, formally known as the Blonde Bomber. As the Blonde Bomber, he took on
the likes of Ric Flair, Jesse “the Body” Ventura, Andre the Giant and, yes,
even Hulk Hogan back in the 1980's. Now, his biggest fear is Wisconsin’s cold
weather. "You're to be up here on Saturday?" Chippewa County
Sheriff Jim Kowalczyk asks his new jail captain on the phone. Kowalczyk is
looking forward to welcoming Crews up from Texas; he’s a man who comes with a
couple championship belts. "When I was in wrestling, I was in
corrections and I didn't know it,” Crews tells us with a laugh over the
phone. “In other words, you're dealing with people every single day and
wrestling has a lot of crowd psychology." Crews was in wrestling for a
decade all through the 80’s. He's been working at jails and prisons ever
since. Most recently as warden at Coastal Bend Detention Center, a private
prison in Texas. Crews said he resigned in August. Two weeks later local
newspaper reports show the prison failed an inspection. The Texas Commission
on Jail Standards told the Corpus Christi Caller Times it "borders
really close to complete incompetence." Crews said he knew it was bad
when he left. He says that's why he left. "I voiced my concerns to the
company that there were going to be issues not meeting standards and
compliances. They did not comply and I had no choice but to resign."
"He indicated they were undermanned, understaffed; he didn't have the
budget he needed that he thought he could run the facility to the best of his
ability."
December
18, 2009 Caller-Times
A private detention facility in Robstown faces frequent, unannounced
state inspections for 90 days after its inadvertent release of a convicted
sex offender. The Coastal Bend Detention Center did not violate state
standards when Mario Estrada Martinez, 31, an undocumented immigrant from
Matamoros, Mexico, mistakenly was released, but it is at risk of falling out
of state compliance after corrections officers did not follow release
procedures, according to a letter from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards
obtained by the Caller-Times through an open records request. In November,
federal authorities asked the prison run by Lafayette, La.-based LCS
Corrections to release Mario Estrada Antonio to U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement for deportation. Instead Estrada Martinez, who was awaiting
sentencing for illegal re-entry to the U.S., was released and deported. He
was gone for three weeks before LCS corrections staff figured out they
released the wrong prisoner. In Mexico, where both prisoners are from, the
middle name serves as last name, and the last name is the person’s maternal
surname. “Certainly an improperly released inmate is a liability to all
parties involved,” Adan Muñoz, the jail commission’s executive director,
wrote in the letter. Prison Warden Elberto “Bert” Bravo said an investigation
is ongoing and focused on four employees. “We are trying to narrow it down to
where it happened,” Bravo said. “It was human error. The procedures we had in
place, they failed to follow the procedures.” No other county jail or private
correctional facility holding county or out-of-state inmates is at risk,
commission officials said. Being at risk means any member of the jail
commission staff may make frequent, unannounced visits to the facility during
the next 90 days. If no violations or noncompliance issues are noted, the
facility will be removed from the at-risk list. “No one from point A to point
Z ever verified his identity during several stages of release. By more than
one detention officer, all the way to ICE, his identity was never confirmed,”
Muñoz said Friday. Estrada Martinez had a prior conviction for a sexual
offense, according to U.S. marshals. He was convicted in Iowa for sexual
abuse and sentenced to 10 years in December 1999, according to court filings.
He was paroled in 2002. U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack issued a
warrant for Estrada Martinez’s arrest when the mishap was made public. He has
not been rearrested.
December
11, 2009 Corpus Christi Caller-Times
A convicted sex offender has been missing from a Robstown lockup since
Nov. 19, unknown to the prison’s officials until Thursday. Officials at the
Coastal Bend Detention Center discovered that they inadvertently released
Mario Estrada Martinez, 31, an undocumented immigrant from Matamoros, Mexico,
who most recently was arrested for illegal re-entry. He was being held at the
Robstown facility, owned by Lafayette, La.-based LCS Corrections, awaiting
sentencing after pleading guilty to illegal re-entry to the U.S., a felony,
U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack said Friday afternoon. Federal
authorities asked the prison in November to release Estrada Martinez to U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation. Coastal Bend Detention
Center handed over Estrada Martinez. Federal authorities actually were
looking to deport Mario Estrada Antonio, according to the Texas Commission on
Jail Standards. In Mexico, where both men are from, the middle name serves as
last name, and the last name is the person’s maternal surname. “We really
want to leave the whole mix-up, specifically how it happened, to Coastal
Bend,” U.S. Marshals spokesman Carlos Alvarado said. “(I am talking about
this) just so the community knows there is not a sex offender running our
streets. He was deported and sent back. ICE deported him.” Estrada Martinez
had a prior conviction for a sexual offense, Alvarado said. He was convicted
in Iowa for sexual abuse and sentenced to 10 years in December 1999,
according to court filings. He was paroled in 2002. LCS Warden Elberto “Bert”
Bravo did not return calls. LCS Vice President of Operations Dick Harbison
would not comment and referred comment back to U.S. Marshals. The
Houston-based Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Detention and Removal
division deported Estrada Martinez early this week, said Fred Schroeder,
assistant special agent in charge for the local Immigration and Customs
Enforcement office. ICE spokesman Greg Palmer said late Friday he would
research what happened with Estrada Martinez and comment next week. It
doesn’t appear that Estrada Martinez escaped on purpose, said Adan Muñoz, the
jail commission’s executive director, after reviewing LCS’s preliminary
escape report. He was released. “What transpired between the wrongly released
inmate and the releasing officer is something that LCS will have to
investigate,” Muñoz said. “There is no overt action shown by the mistakenly
released inmate to indicate he made any statements to the releasing officer
that he was attempting to disguise who he was while being released. “And why
the receiving transport service did not verify the inmate’s identity is also
something that needs to be ascertained and investigated,” Muñoz said. LCS
contacted the jail commission within 24 hours of the discovery, which is
required by law. The company must submit a written report detailing why and
how the escape happened, Muñoz said. The release counts as an escape and
could pose problems for the prison, Muñoz said. In mid-September, Coastal
Bend Detention Center was cited by the jail standards commission for 17
compliance issues, including failure to classify inmates or to check for
contraband, improper staff training, jailers without proper state licensing
and no tuberculosis screening plan.
September
21, 2009 Corpus Christi Caller-Times
State jail inspectors have warned the owner of a private Robstown facility to
rectify 17 compliance issues immediately or face possible closure. The
Coastal Bend Detention Center was cited Monday for failing to classify
inmates, check for contraband, improper staff training, jailers without
proper state licensing and no tuberculosis screening plan, among other issues.
If the facility, owned by Lafayette, La.-based LCS Corrections, cannot
correct its problems, especially the jailers’ licensing, then the Texas
Commission on Jail Standards could temporarily close it, commission Director
Adan Muñoz said. “I have to bring any remedial order before the (jail)
commission, but this borders really close to complete incompetence,” he said.
The jail opened in September 2008. Its first inmates arrived in March. Jail
warden Art Crews was replaced in August by Elberto “Bert” Bravo, who also is
warden at LCS’ detention facility in Hidalgo County, said Dick Harbison, LCS
vice president of operations. The management shake-up should help fix the
jail’s problems, he said. “My people know exactly what needs to be done,”
Bravo said. “I know the report looks bad. They say it is the worst they have
ever seen. But honestly, we are going to be OK. It’s just going to take me a
little bit of time to do it.” The jail will be in compliance by late October,
he said. Within the past two weeks, Bravo hired two deputy wardens with more
than 60 years of combined experience. He also laid off 26 jailers until they
can get the correct state licensing. He fired another 10 for not doing what
they were told, he said. The detention facility was overstaffed and
reassigned some of its 175 staff members to cover jailer positions, Bravo
said. The facility has a capacity for 1,056 inmates. When it was inspected
last week it held 475, according to state inspectors. Most are undocumented
immigrants housed in Robstown through a contract with federal agencies.
Another 41 are inmates from Duval, Jim Wells and Kleberg counties, where
jails are overcrowded, according to the jail standards commission. Compliance
Issues-- The Coastal Bend Detention Center in Robstown had 17 compliance
issues after state inspectors reviewed the facility last week. -- Inmate
toilet and shower areas have insufficient privacy shields -- Jailers are not
being trained properly for fire drills -- Jailers are not being trained
properly in the use of air packs -- No documentation outlining generator
testing or the transfer of the facility’s electric load at least once a month
-- Inmates were not classified correctly -- Classification reviews were not
conducted within 90 days of initial inmate custody assessments --
Classification workers didn’t receive the required four hours of training --
Internal classification audit logs were not kept -- No tuberculosis screening
plan had been approved by the health department -- Twenty-four officers did
not have a required jailer’s license or temporary jailer’s license -- Hourly
face-to-face prisoner checks were not performed -- The facility did not meet
the state mandated 1-to-48 jailer-to-inmate ratio -- Personnel did not
conduct required contraband searches -- Disciplinary hearings for minor
inmate infractions were conducted by a single person rather than a
disciplinary board -- Jail did not respond to inmates with grievances within
15 days or resolve issues within 60 days as required -- Inmates did not
receive one hour of supervised physical education three days per week as
required -- A fire panel doesn’t show an inspection tag
March
7, 2009 Caller-Times
As federal prisoners began arriving at the privately owned LCS detention
facility in Robstown on Friday, a company official said employees who were
laid off in January have been rehired. In response to the influx of prisoners
into the 1,100-bed facility, which has sat empty since it opened in
September, the prison has called back some 40 employees who were laid off in
January, bringing the current number of employees up to 75, said Dick
Harbison, LCS vice president of operations. “It’s full steam ahead right
now,” he said. And beginning Monday, the company plans to hire another 80
employees with starting pay at $11 an hour. The news comes a week after
Nueces County Judge Loyd Neal and the U.S. Marshals agreed on a temporary
price tag for prisoner housing. LCS will get roughly $44 per prisoner per day
under the terms of an addendum to the contract already in place for housing
prisoners in Hidalgo County.
February
5, 2009 Record Star
With necessary paperwork stalled in Washington D.C., the Coastal Bend
Detention Center has yet to receive its first inmate, and recently laid off
or reassigned over half of its staff. The detention center, a private
facility owned by LCS Corrections Services, Inc. and located just south of
Robstown, held a grand opening ceremony in November and was expected to
receive its first inmates in early December. Arthur Crews Sr., the warden of the
Coastal Bend facility, said a final contract that requires the signature of
administrative personnel in the Washington D.C. branch of the U.S. Marshal
service has not been signed, delaying the facility's opening. While that
paperwork was filed months ago, Crews said the change in administration in
Washington D.C. has been largely to blame for the hold up. "That's
mainly due to the situation of the timing that's going on, with the
Democratic Party going in, the Republican Party coming out, department heads
not really knowing who's going to have what job and who's going to be
replaced," Crews said. The facility initially hired 72 people in
November, but that number fell to 60 by early January, as individuals found
work elsewhere or relocated. Without any inmates, the facility is not
bringing in revenue, which led the company to make significant staffing
changes two weeks ago. During that process, six staff members were
transferred to another LCS facility in the area, 12 were hired by the Nueces
County Sheriff's Department and 16 were laid off. Those who were laid off
primarily worked in the food service or customer service departments, Crews
said. Of the 26 staff members still on the payroll at the Coastal Bend
facility, most have seen their weekly hours reduced as a cost-saving measure,
Crews indicated. Nueces County Sheriff Jim Kaelin said last week the
detention center's loss was the county's gain, as the 12 individuals hired by
the county are already certified through the state as corrections officers
and will fill a significant staffing need. "It just so happens that we
had reached the point that we had vacancies where we could hire all they
wanted to send our way," Kaelin said. "It's going to be a win-win
for us and a win-win for LCS because it helps them reduce their
payroll." Although Crews could offer no timeline for when the final
paperwork might be completed, he said he has little doubt the facility will
be fully operational in the near future. "We don't know how long this
contract's going to take. It could be two weeks, it could be two months or
more. We just don't know," Crews said. "My speculation, with 22
years in the correction business, is that with us having 1,100 beds, it's not
going to sit here empty." And Crews said all the employees laid off or
reassigned have guaranteed jobs once the facility does start housing
prisoners. "I let them leave here, the ones we laid off, and keep their
ID badge and keep their uniforms," Crews said. "That's the bond
that I have with the employees, and they are going to come back."
January
24, 2009 Caller-Times
LCS Corrections Services laid off half of its Robstown detention center
employees Friday because federal authorities have yet to transfer in
prisoners, but the company plans to offer jobs to some elsewhere. LCS, a
private Lafayette, La.-based prison company, expected to have a full house at
its 1,100-bed facility shortly after the prison opened in mid-November, but
the center remains empty after a contract with the federal government
stalled, said Dick Harbison, LCS vice president of operations. Of the 35
correctional officers laid off, six will be offered positions at the LCS
detention facility in Brooks County, Harbison said. Short on correctional
officers, Nueces County Jail will offer jobs to 14 others, county officials
said. Fifteen temporarily will be left without jobs, Harbison said. To start
the intake of federal prisoners from agencies such as the U.S. Marshals
Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol, LCS
needs Nueces County to sign an agreement with marshals that will outline how
much the federal government will pay for housing their prisoners. Congress
also must pass a 2009 budget, which should occur when a continuing resolution
allowing the federal government to operate under its 2008 budget expires in
early March. The prison company intends to rehire the laid-off employees and
hire additional staff once prisoners start arriving, Harbison said. Nueces
County spent millions to clean up its jail's substandard conditions that led
to the June 2006 removal of federal prisoners. The federal inmates haven't
returned. County officials have been negotiating since January 2008 for a
higher fee to house them at the jail. The contract also will include fees for
housing federal prisoners at two LCS facilities. Because the federal
government doesn't deal with private detention contractors, LCS is dependent
on a "pass through" contract, where the county gets a share of fees
charged per prisoner for passing through overflow federal prisoners to the
company's private facilities in Hidalgo County and Robstown. Nueces County
Judge Loyd Neal said Friday that the county, the U.S. Marshals Service and
LCS are in agreement on new rates for the jail and the LCS facilities. He
wouldn't disclose the negotiated rates. The proposed fees are awaiting review
and approval from the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee, which oversees
federal detention programs. The county, which received a $45.15 daily rate
per prisoner prior to their removal from the county jail, was seeking a raise
to $61.49. County officials previously have said that negotiations were stuck
at about $53 a day per prisoner. "The marshals and I have agreed on that
rate. We have worked with LCS, and they agree it is very favorable,"
Neal said. "We did this several months ago, and we have been unable to
get any kind of funding out of the federal government. Until the new Congress
and President (Barack) Obama reach an agreement (on a budget) there is no
money available for a new arrangement for federal prisoners." The county
receives $2 a day for each prisoner sent to LCS' Hidalgo County facility, and
LCS earns roughly $43. A similar pass through deal is in the works for the
Robstown facility once the county and the federal government sign off on new
rates. "The minute we hear anything at all we will be contacting
everybody to come back to work," Harbison said.
January
23, 2009 KIII TV
A new private prison near Robstown hasn't even opened up yet, but already
some staff members have been laid off. The transition of power in Washington
is said to be the main reason for the holdup. The Coastal Bend Detention
Center is ready to go, but with no prisoners and no revenue, company
officials were forced to do this for the time being. The new private prison
in Robstown is ready for business. More than 1100 beds are made and waiting
for federal prisoners, but the transition of power in the presidency has
caused problems for the U.S. Marshal's Office to sign the contract and bring
prisoners to the facility. "So we don't have inmates at this time,"
said Art Crews, Prison Warden for the LCS Coastal Bend Detention Center.
"That's our revenue. Until we do, we can't hire the people back."
So the prison officials called a meeting for its employees. They announced
about 12 are being laid off, while another 48 are seeing their hours reduced.
"First time in my 22 years in the correction field in a warden position
having to tell them that and that hurts," Crews said. The private prison
did find jobs for about 15 guards at the Nueces and Kleberg County jail.
Coke County
Juvenile Justice Center
Bronte, Texas
GEO Group (formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections)
October 12, 2007 KRIS TV
The delayed discovery of squalid conditions at a privately run Texas Youth
Commission jail was "a human failure" and stronger oversight is
needed to prevent similar incidents, a key state senator said Friday.
"It was very simple that the monitors were not doing their job and there
was a human failure," said Sen. John Whitmire, head of the Senate
Criminal Justice Committee. "Who's monitoring the monitors?"
Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, called a committee hearing about a week after a
Coke County juvenile lockup in Bronte operated by The GEO Group, Inc., was
closed because of filthy conditions. A Texas Youth Commission ombudsman
discovered the conditions, even though the facility had passed previous
inspections by TYC monitors. The TYC system was rocked earlier this year by
allegations of rampant sexual and other physical abuse against juvenile inmates
in the system. The star witness at Friday's hearing on adult and juvenile
prison monitoring was Shirley Noble, who told how her son, 43-year-old Idaho
inmate Scot Noble Payne, endured months of horrific conditions then slit his
own throat at a private Texas prison run by GEO Group. "It seemed there
was no end to the degradation he and other prisoners were to endure with
substandard facilities," Noble said. Her son died March 4 in a private
prison in Spur. Noble questioned why Idaho sent its inmates to Texas and why
the Florida-based GEO Group was allowed to keep prisoners in what she
described as "degrading and subhuman conditions." "Please,
please hold them accountable for all the injuries and misery they have
caused," Noble said. A spokesman for GEO Group did not immediately
return a telephone call from The Associated Press to respond to comments made
at the hearing. TYC Acting Executive Director Dimitria Pope, who took over
the youth agency earlier this year, testified that she's putting more monitoring
safeguards in place. That includes sending executive staff members out to
view the lockups, something she said hadn't been done regularly in the past.
"Because of my concerns of what I saw in Coke County, I have implemented
a blitz of every facility, either the ones that we operate, that contract,
district offices, anything that has TYC affiliated with it," she said,
adding that each site will be visited by the end of October. Adan Munoz Jr.,
executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, said he has
four inspectors do annual inspections of the 267 facilities under his
oversight. He defended his agency's practice of giving two- to three-week
notices about inspection visits but said recently there have been more
surprise inspections. Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, said
privatizing prisons is an "easy way out." He said he worries about
the state continuing to contract with companies that have a history of abuse.
"It's a myth that the private sector does a better job than
government" in running prisons, Hinojosa said. "They're there to
make a profit and they'll cut corners, and they'll cut back on services and
they'll many times look the other way when abuse is taking place."
Because of Texas' size and high rate of locking up convicts, the state is in
the national spotlight for its dealings with private prison firms, said Sen.
Rodney Ellis, D-Houston. "It puts a special burden on us," he said.
"If it needs to be improved, improve it, because everybody looks to
us." Noble was the panel's final witness. The room hushed as she told
the senators her family's emotional tale. Her son, a convicted sex offender,
was kept in solitary confinement for months with a wet floor, bloodstained
sheets and smelly towels. She said he wrote long, detailed letters to family
members in which he said the only way to escape the prison's harsh conditions
was to join his late grandfather in the spirit world. Noble said she begged
for psychological help for her son. She said he wasn't supposed to have been
given a razor, and she still wonders how he got the one he used to end his
life. "After he tried to unsuccessfully slash his wrists and ankles, he
knelt in the shower and cut his own throat," she said. "Surely only
a person in utter disillusionment and horrifying conditions would bring
themselves to this end."
October
12, 2007 Dallas Morning News
Three monitors fired by the Texas Youth Commission last week for failing
to report filthy and dangerous conditions at a privately run juvenile prison
in West Texas had previously worked for the company they oversaw. Two of the
quality assurance monitors were hired directly from caseworker positions with
The GEO Group Inc. at the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center, according to
their job applications. The monitoring unit's supervisor also briefly worked
for GEO at the youth prison near Bronte four years before being hired by TYC,
records show. A clerk who was fired had previous GEO employment as well. TYC
spokesman Jim Hurley said agency executives were unaware of the terminated
workers' ties to GEO before The Dallas Morning News filed an open-records
request this week. Officials said last week that they were concerned about
entanglements between TYC employees and the company they monitored. TYC's
inspector general has launched a criminal investigation of operations at the
Coke County prison, including the possibility of financial transactions
between GEO and TYC employees. GEO's relationship with the fired TYC monitors
is a likely topic at a hearing today of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee
in Austin. It is intended to examine GEO's operation of youth and adult
prisons in Texas. State Sen. John Whitmire, the panel's chairman, was angered
to learn from a reporter Thursday that TYC monitors had previously been
employed by GEO. "I think it's outrageous," the Houston Democrat
said. "It just confirms what many of us suspected – that there was too
close a relationship between the TYC employees and GEO employees." He
said the committee also would seek answers from the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice and county jail and juvenile probation officials about their
own monitoring of private corrections companies. "Anyone that confines
individuals in the state of Texas needs to make certain they know who their
monitors are – and that they go behind their monitors and literally monitor
their monitors," Mr. Whitmire said. Mr. Hurley said the prior employment
with GEO raised questions about whether the monitors had been objective in
their evaluations of the facility. "How do you monitor the
monitors?" he said. "We need a very good answer to that." For
years, quality assurance reports on the Coke County prison had been
overwhelmingly positive. Twice, TYC named it contract facility of the year.
"You have to worry about conflicts of interest," Mr. Hurley said
Thursday. "I'm not saying there is a conflict of interest. But there is
a perception." TYC Executive Director Dimitria Pope fired four monitors
at the Coke County prison and a clerk last week after she and others toured the
facility. It was in such deplorable condition, Ms. Pope said, that she
ordered the removal of all 197 inmates. She also fired another employee at
the Coke County facility who had not worked for GEO, and two contract care
supervisors at TYC's district office in Fort Worth. The head of contract care
at TYC's headquarters in Austin resigned. Ms. Pope canceled TYC's $8 million
contract with Florida-based GEO, which had operated the Coke County facility
since it opened in 1994. GEO initially tried to reinstate the contract but,
after criticism, said it accepted the decision. The Coke County facility was
the state's largest private youth prison. It was the only Texas juvenile
facility operated by GEO, one of the nation's biggest private prison
contractors. As a result of the problems discovered at Coke County, Ms. Pope
ordered a wholesale review of the agency's contract care system. "Who
the monitors are and where they come from will be one of the issues that
we're going to look at," Mr. Hurley said. TYC employs more than 40 quality
assurance specialists and supervisors, according to personnel records
provided to The News. Some are stationed at the facilities they monitor,
several of which are in remote rural areas. Mr. Hurley shied away from
discussing what actions the agency might undertake if it learns that other
monitors had previous employment with contractors they inspect. "What we
need to do is make sure that first of all, every one of these contracts is
being monitored and that it's being monitored correctly," he said.
"If the remoteness is a problem, I think that monitoring these contracts
accurately will show us that," he said. "We need to have a sort of
evidence-based determination." The Coke County prison is in a
one-stoplight town about 30 miles north of San Angelo. It was the town's
second-largest employer after the school district. One-third of the school
district's $6 million budget is tied to programs at the prison. Two of the
fired TYC employees lived in Bronte. Valerie Jones, former supervisor of the
monitoring unit, has two children in the Bronte schools. Patti Frazee, her
clerk, is married to a member of the Bronte school board. Ms. Jones, who
worked for GEO as a chemical-dependency counselor from October 1995 to July
1996, declined to comment Thursday. She was hired by TYC as a quality
assurance monitor in spring 2000, records show. Ms. Frazee, reached at her
home, said officials of the youth agency never raised any questions about her
previous employment with GEO. "There were not very many jobs out here,"
she said. "Any time you could take a state job, it was a better job for
everybody because it paid more money. That's the only reason. It was like a
step up from GEO. That's the way everybody viewed it." Ms. Frazee was
paid $17,950 per year working as bookkeeper for GEO. As a clerk for TYC, she
earned $25,035. The two monitors hired directly from GEO, Brian Lutz and
David Roberson, earned $26,800 and $24,500 per year, respectively. With TYC,
Mr. Lutz was paid $33,945,while Mr. Roberson received $37,393, agency records
show. Several attempts to locate Mr. Lutz for comment were unsuccessful. Mr.
Roberson, reached at his home in San Angelo, declined to be interviewed. Lisa
Williamson worked as a TYC quality assurance monitor at the Coke County
facility from 1998 until 2004. She said she knew Mr. Roberson and Ms. Jones
well. She described them as honest, hard-working people devoted to their
jobs. "There is not anybody there who I wouldn't trust with my own
children," said Ms. Williamson, who now works as a juvenile probation
officer in Young County. Ms. Williamson said she had not worked for GEO. But
she said she never saw any of her colleagues who had worked for the company
ignore any problems. While she and the GEO warden, Brett Bement, frequently
tried to tell each other how to do their jobs, Ms. Williamson said, she
didn't feel pressured and didn't obey him. "He knew I wasn't a pushover,
and he couldn't get by with it. He couldn't have done that with any of
us," she said. GEO Group gave money to several state officials'
campaigns -- State Rep. Jerry Madden held his annual "How Sweet It
Is" dessert party in Plano on Thursday night to raise money for a future
campaign. One of the sponsors at the $2,500 "cherries jubilee"
level was to be The GEO Group Inc., a Florida-based corrections company.
Until last week, GEO operated the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center near
Bronte under contract with the Texas Youth Commission. In recent years, the
company has donated to the campaigns of some legislators who oversee the
youth agency. Two of them, Mr. Madden and Sen. John Whitmire, are co-chairmen
of the special legislative committee established this year to oversee reforms
of TYC in the wake of a sexual abuse scandal at the West Texas State School
in Pyote. Mr. Madden, R-Plano, received a total of $2,500 from GEO's
political action committee in 2005 and 2006, according to campaign finance
records. Mr. Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, received $2,000 from the political
action committee of Wackenhut Corrections Corp., as GEO was previously known,
in 2003 and 2004. Other recipients of GEO or Wackenhut contributions are Lt.
Gov. David Dewhurst, who received $2,500 in 2006, and House Speaker Tom
Craddick, R-Midland, who received $1,000 in 2005, state records show. In
addition to Mr. Madden, the chairman of the House Corrections Committee, two
other panel members received donations from GEO or Wackenhut. Rep. Delwin
Jones, R-Lubbock, received $250 in 2006. And Pat Haggerty, R-El Paso,
received $500 from the Wackenhut Corrections PAC in 2004. Sylvester Turner,
D-Houston, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Criminal
Justice and another member of the Joint Committee on the Operation and
Management of the Texas Youth Commission, received $250 in 2006. Mr. Madden's
predecessor as head of the corrections committee, Ray Allen, received $3,500
in 2003 and 2004 from Wackenhut. He since has left public office and is a
lobbyist for GEO. Mr. Madden acknowledged that lobbyists for GEO might attend
his fundraiser at the Southfork Hotel on Thursday night. But he said he had
told the lobbyists that he did not want a check. "Just right now, I
think it would be a bad idea to specifically look for contributions from
GEO," he said.
October
11, 2007 The Olympian
The mother of an Idaho inmate who killed himself in a Texas prison this
year has become a corrections activist. Shirley Noble travels to Austin,
Texas Friday to urge lawmakers there to stop accepting out-of-state prisoners
at their for-profit lockups. Texas is holding hearings over The GEO Group, a
Florida-based private prison company that lost its contract to oversee a
juvenile prison because of dirty bed sheets, feces-smeared cells and insects
in the food. GEO also ran the prison where Shirley Noble's son, Scot Noble
Payne, slashed his throat March 4. The convicted sex offender had been
shipped to Texas with a group of 450 Idaho inmates because of overcrowding at
prisons at home. Shirley Noble contends sending prisoners out-of-state leaves
them without family contact - and caused Idaho prison officials to neglect
them.
October
6, 2007 Dallas Morning News
The Texas Youth Commission is investigating whether its employees had
improper ties to GEO Group Inc., the company that ran a West Texas juvenile
prison where inmates lived in dangerous and squalid conditions. Acting TYC
Executive Director Dimitria Pope said Friday that agency investigators will
be checking into the backgrounds of employees to "see if they are
connected to GEO in any way." Among the areas of inquiry, she said, is whether
anyone in TYC was working as a consultant for GEO. Investigators also will
look for any other financial arrangements between TYC workers and GEO, which
operated the now-closed Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte. Any
TYC employee found to have ties to GEO will be fired, Ms. Pope said.
"I'm saying let's go back to the time this facility just opened. Let's
see if there are any interesting financial transactions," she said.
"I think if you go back and look, there will be some interesting things
to look at." On Friday afternoon, Ms. Pope toured the TYC prison in
Mart, which took in the 197 inmates removed from the GEO facility on Tuesday.
TYC canceled its $8 million contract with the company on Monday, citing
"deplorable conditions." Ms. Pope, who visited the Coke County
prison late last month after a surprise agency inspection, said she saw
indications that the relationship between TYC's on-site monitors and GEO was
not as separate as it should have been. For example, she said, GEO workers
had keys to TYC's office in Bronte. When she entered the office, she said, no
agency employee was there, but confidential inmate records remained in plain
sight. "Kids' files were laying out on the table," she said.
"There was stuff on the fax machine." Ms. Pope said she does not
know if any TYC monitors formerly worked for GEO, but she is concerned about
that as well. 'A disgrace' -- TYC has already fired seven employees whose
jobs were to monitor the Coke County unit and GEO's contract compliance.
TYC's on-site inspectors routinely filed glowing reports on the prison.
"They were there," she said of the inspectors. "They [their
reports] say absolutely nothing." At a news conference in Austin earlier
in the day, Ms. Pope blasted GEO, with whom Texas has done business since 1994.
She said it operated a fire trap and that inmates' medical needs were
ignored, schooling was "almost nonexistent" and a pattern of
"physical and psychological harm" was routinely tolerated.
"GEO should be ashamed," she said. "The Coke County Juvenile Justice
Center is a disgrace." A TYC audit of the facility described a breakdown
on many levels, including safety, hygiene, medical treatment, education and
maintenance. Asked if TYC auditors found anyone at the Coke unit who had been
doing the job properly, Ms. Pope responded: "I'm saying, 'Hell, no, they
weren't.' " "The kids had a stench because they weren't allowed to
bathe," she said. "And their teeth? Horrible." During her
visit to TYC's prison in Mart, near Waco, Ms. Pope spoke with about 25
inmates from the GEO-run unit. "I notice you have toothpaste in
there," she said to one, as the inmates stood at parade rest outside
their cells. "I got you here so you can be treated like a human
being," Ms. Pope told one 15-year-old inmate. A TYC audit of the GEO
facility, released Friday, said inmates did not have access to toothpaste or
toothbrushes for days at a time. Filth and disrepair were common throughout
the prison, the report said. Only one washer and one dryer were available to
serve nearly 200 youth. TYC auditors who visited the prison got so much fecal
matter on their shoes they had to wipe their feet on the grass outside, Ms.
Pope said. Many pieces of fire safety equipment were either inoperable or
missing, the report said. Some emergency exits were closed with locks and
chains. "I personally was locked in one of the dorms because the doors
didn't work properly," Ms. Pope said. The prison's warden said he was
aware of many of the problems pointed out by auditors. "He indicated
that corporate did not respond to many of his purchasing needs ...," the
audit report said. Dispatching audit teams -- TYC paid GEO $632,000 a month
to operate the prison, the report said. Last year, TYC spent nearly $17
million of its $249 million budget on private contractors, according to a
Dallas Morning News investigation in July, which revealed problems with the
agency's contract facilities. The agency said it was sending audit teams,
composed of former members of the state's jail standards commission, to visit
every TYC prison and halfway house. "No stone is going to go
unturned," Ms. Pope said. "I don't want any more surprises."
State Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee,
said Friday that he would hold legislative hearings on GEO's contracts to run
other correctional facilities throughout Texas. "We're preparing
ourselves for a thorough review of GEO, and it could easily take us into
other private contractors," he said. "But GEO is our focus now as a
result of Coke County and their response." He criticized not only the
conditions that GEO allowed to exist but also the company's response to the
problem. "They tried to cover it. They tried to spin it. They had their
lobbyists try to pressure legislators not to listen to TYC," Sen. Whitmire
said. "So if that's their attitude, then I question their ability to
carry out their contractual requirements in other state facilities."
Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Plano, chairman of the House Corrections Committee, said
he had no information to suggest financial corruption in the GEO contract but
added, "I think that we should let the [inspector general's]
investigation go forward and see what they find." Criminal inquiry --
TYC Inspector General Bruce Toney said Wednesday that he had begun a criminal
investigation of the GEO-run youth prison. He requested assistance from the
state auditor's office and also advised the Texas Rangers and Texas attorney
general's office of his investigation. TYC is "an agency that has had
deep internal problems, and they just don't go away overnight," Mr.
Madden said. "There should have been a lot of people who had the
responsibility of finding out that those things had happened." Ms. Pope
expressed anger at critics of TYC's cancellation of the GEO contract. "I
will no longer sit here and take the unfair jabs of individuals who are
attempting to advance their personal agenda over the welfare of youth,"
she said. She would not specify about whom she was talking. "I think it
speaks for itself," she said. Some local officials in Coke County have
said the prison does not deserve to be closed and have said TYC's actions
will have a devastating economic impact on Bronte. "Anyone who's
rallying behind GEO," Ms. Pope said, "should ... hold their heads
in shame."
October
5, 2007 San Antonio Express-News
The Texas Youth Commission's chief blasted critics Friday who questioned her
handling of problems at a juvenile center shuttered this week, but also
admitted a "significant breakdown" in her own agency's oversight.
"I will no longer sit back and take the unfair jabs from individuals who
are attempting to advance their own particular agenda over the welfare of the
youth," said Dimitria Pope, TYC's acting executive director.
"Neither money nor power can come over my No. 1 priority, which is our
youth." Pope, who made the comments at a news conference she called at
TYC's Austin headquarters, refused to name the individual critics she called
unfair or inaccurate. Her comments appeared directed, however, at two sources
of criticism. One is the elected leadership of the small town of Bronte in
West Texas, angered by the loss of 100 jobs when TYC shuttered the Coke
County Juvenile Justice Center this week and transferred about 195 young
inmates elsewhere. The other is state Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, chairman
of the House Corrections Committee, who said he wonders why TYC only now is
learning about alleged squalor and unfit conditions at the youth lockup run
by Geo Group Inc. of Boca Raton, Fla. Citing those conditions, Pope fired
seven agency "quality assurance" staffers and canceled the agency's
$8 million contract with Geo, which specializes in private prisons. The
action threw TYC in the spotlight again after a sex abuse scandal at the
agency led to investigations and intense legislative scrutiny last spring.
"I am very concerned as to how did this condition arise, how long did it
take and why are we just now finding out about it?" Madden said Friday,
applauding a criminal investigation under way by TYC's inspector general.
"We asked the question at our last hearing, were the kids safer? The
answer we got was yes. It appears to me some of them were not," Madden
added. Pope complained during her news conference that she was "damned
if I did and damned if I didn't" and asserted that the agency should get
the respect it needs as it attempts to carry out the mission of keeping
confined youths safe. "There was a significant breakdown. That will be
totally restructured," she said of the lack of checks and balances for
the agency's oversight team. TYC's acting director of quality assurance,
Elizabeth Lee, resigned this week but the agency's spokesman Jim Hurley said
he didn't know if it was connected to the problems at the Geo-run youth
facility. "Geo should be ashamed and anyone who's rallying behind Geo
should also hold their head in shame," Pope said. Geo officials, who had
said they provided quality services, said Friday they'd make no further
comments. Coke County Judge Roy Blair said that he'd been to the Geo-run
youth facility several times, and the Commissioners Court had inspected it
every quarter. "I have never noted any, what I would call severe,
problems as far as mistreatment or health issues or any significant
problems," he said. "The thing has always been relatively
clean." Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire,
D-Houston, opened an investigation of adult private prison contracts with
Geo.
October
5, 2007 Houston Chronicle
A Houston lawmaker is launching a broad investigation into a private prison
contractor after the state closed one of its youth facilities this week,
citing filth, poor safety and health violations. Democratic Sen. John
Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, cited the
"terrible job" Geo Group Inc. did running the West Texas youth lockup
and said Thursday he plans to review adult corrections contracts the state
has with the company. Boca Raton, Fla.-based Geo Group, which runs eight
adult lockups in Texas, was sued by the Texas Civil Rights Project in 2006 in
connection with an alleged rape and suicide of a woman at the Val Verde
County Jail. The suit alleged jail guards working for the company have
allowed male and female inmates to have sex with each other. The suit was
settled earlier this year with a nondisclosure agreement. Geo spokesman Pablo
Paez did not return phone calls seeking comment, but earlier stated the
company had provided quality services at the TYC facility. On Monday the
Texas Youth Commission shuttered the doors of its Coke County Juvenile
Justice Center, run by Geo, and moved nearly 200 young offenders to other TYC
facilities. "When we saw what a terrible job they were doing at Coke
County, TYC had the ability to shut it down and move their youth,"
Whitmire said. As for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, he wondered,
"When we find a failure to properly run a facility, what do they
do?" Geo operates four prisons, two shorter term lockups and a halfway
house for the adult prison system. Prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said the
agency hasn't had any "significant ongoing operational issues."
Whitmire said he found evidence that a 90-day lockup in Houston run by Geo
was out of compliance in 139 of 395 areas in a recent inspection. Lyons said
Whitmire is referring to a 2006 audit, and all problems cited have now been cleared
up. Geo also supervises state prisoners in leased space in the Jefferson and
Newton county jails. TYC spokesman Jim Hurley said the agency's inspector
general has opened a criminal investigation into the conditions at the Coke
County juvenile facility. Seven TYC employees have been fired, including
several who were responsible for on-site monitoring of the Coke facility.
This was the only contract Geo had with the Youth Commission. But the agency
has contracts with several other providers for various programs throughout
the state, including foster homes and a program to teach parenting skills to
delinquents who are pregnant.
October
3, 2007 Dallas Morning News
Seven Texas Youth Commission employees were fired Wednesday as a state
investigation widened at a privately run West Texas juvenile prison where
inmates were found living in filth. TYC Inspector General Bruce Toney said
Wednesday he has begun a criminal investigation of operations at the Coke
County Juvenile Justice Center near Bronte. Mr. Toney said his inquiry could
focus on TYC employees and those of GEO Group Inc., which operates the
prison. "We are going to follow all leads wherever they take us and as
high as they may go both in TYC and the operation of that facility," Mr.
Toney said. Citing "deplorable conditions," TYC this week canceled
its contract with GEO to operate the state's largest private juvenile prison.
All 197 male inmates were removed on Tuesday. Mr. Toney said he has requested
assistance from the state auditor's office and met with the head of the
Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit on Wednesday. He said
he also advised the Texas Rangers and Texas attorney general's office of his
investigation. He sent one of his investigators to the Coke County facility
last week. "Our initial response was to go out there and basically take
a preliminary look and see what we had out there. We will just look at
everything and see what transpires," Mr. Toney said. State Sen. John
Whitmire, D-Houston, threatened to hold a public hearing on GEO's operation
of the TYC prison. "Certainly that's an option if this goes any
further," said Mr. Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice
Committee. "If GEO thinks they've been treated unfairly, let's have a
public hearing and look at all the photographs and videos [of the Coke County
prison] and let the public decide." Mr. Whitmire said he was upset at
efforts this week by GEO lobbyists to convince legislators that TYC had
treated the company too harshly. "Now enters GEO with their paid lobbyists
attempting to put a good face on this," Mr. Whitmire said. "I'm
saying the corporation should back off. They've run a very poor facility that
probably violates the youths' civil rights. ... Kids were stepping in their
own feces. The sheets were such that a cat or dog wouldn't sleep on
them." GEO spokesman Pablo Paez said he would not comment on any
attempts by the company's lobbyists to sway legislators. Mr. Paez said his
company was disappointed in TYC's decision to cancel the contract. "We
believe we have provided quality services for the Texas Youth Commission for
many years," he said. TYC officials have been unable to explain how the
agency's own quality assurance monitors, stationed just outside the prison,
not only failed to report substandard conditions but praised the operation.
In the monitors' most recent review, in February, the prison was awarded an
overall compliance score of 97.7 percent. In that review, monitors also
thanked GEO staff for their positive work with TYC youth. "Those who were
supposed to be our quality-assurance people out at Bronte will no longer be
working for the Texas Youth Commission," agency spokesman Jim Hurley
said. He cited an "abysmal failure on their part to not report the
deterioration of that facility." Four of the TYC employees who were
fired on Wednesday worked as quality assurance monitors at the Coke County
facility. A fifth, who worked in TYC's district office in Fort Worth, was an
author of the February report. The two other employees also were in contract
care management, but Mr. Hurley said he would not disclose their specific job
titles or where they worked. TYC identified none of the employees by name.
Late last month, several TYC officials – including acting executive director
Dimitria Pope – visited the prison and found poor conditions. A report by TYC
ombudsman Will Harrell detailed numerous deficiencies. He found inmates who
had been placed in solitary confinement for five weeks. They were allowed to
leave their cells once a day, in shackles, to take a shower. Mr. Harrell also
noted that some bedsheets were dirty and that inmates "complain
regularly of discovering insects' in their food. "Children seemed almost
desperate to lodge their complaints," Mr. Harrell wrote in his report.
Many of his findings were confirmed in a report by Susan Moynahan, the TYC
liaison for the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department. Among her
discoveries at the Coke unit: Inmates in one dorm did not have a restroom, so
they were forced to defecate in plastic bags. Mr. Paez, the GEO spokesman,
said he has read the ombudsman's findings. "I have seen the
report," he said. "I really can't comment on it." State Rep.
Jerry Madden, R-Plano, said he will meet today with GEO representatives to
discuss the Coke County prison. "I want to hear their side of it."
TYC paid GEO $8 million a year to run the Coke County prison. GEO said it had
pre-tax earnings of about $800,000 a year on the contract. Last year, TYC
spent nearly $17 million of its $249 million budget doing business with private
contractors, including GEO. TYC is putting together a plan to review each
contract care program, Mr. Hurley said. "We are working right now on
plans to have a physical presence at every contract care program that we are
operating to review what is going on and to ensure the monitoring reports
that we get are accurate," he said. In July, The Dallas Morning News
found numerous problems with TYC's contractor-run facilities. The stories
revealed that private contractors housing juvenile inmates in Texas repeatedly
have lost contracts or closed operations in other states after investigators
uncovered mismanagement, neglect and abuse. Two states closed GEO-operated
units because of abuse allegations and inadequate care of inmates. TYC was
placed in a state conservatorship this year after a sex abuse scandal and
subsequent cover-up were exposed by The News and the Web site of The Texas
Observer. Mr. Madden of Plano was one of the authors of legislation this year
intended to reform TYC. He noted Wednesday that he had asked TYC officials at
a hearing last month if inmates are safer now than they were before the
reforms. Officials assured him they are. Now, Mr. Madden said, problems such
as those in Coke County have caused him to question TYC's response. "I'm
not sure the answer, 'They are safer,' is actually true," he said.
October
3, 2007 Dallas Morning News
The Texas Youth Commission is investigating why juvenile inmates endured
squalor and deprivation at a privately run West Texas prison that was repeatedly
praised by TYC's own quality-assurance monitors. The agency began busing the
197 male inmates from the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center before dawn
Tuesday. Officials also canceled an $8-million annual contract with operators
of the state's largest private juvenile prison, citing "deplorable
conditions." The problems found at the prison in Bronte, operated by the
GEO Group Inc. of Florida, were described in a report by TYC Ombudsman Will
Harrell. "There is a greater sense of fear and intimidation in this
facility than perhaps any other I have been to," Mr. Harrell wrote. He
also noted that: •Some young inmates were kept in "malodorous and
dark" security cells for five weeks. They were allowed to leave, in
shackles, only once a day for a shower. •There was an
"over-reliance" on the use of pepper spray. •Inmates "complain
regularly of discovering insects in their food." TYC announced Tuesday
that its inspector general's office, as well as Department of Public Safety
troopers, were investigating. TYC spokesman Jim Hurley said other agencies,
including the state auditor's office and the attorney general's office, could
join the investigation. Asked if TYC suspected financial wrongdoing, Mr.
Hurley would say only, "We're concerned about every aspect of the way
this facility was run and the contract was administered." The agency
"cannot tolerate this kind of situation," he added. "Not only
do there need to be financial sanctions, but there need to be other actions
taken against people who operate this way." This is only the latest
problem to beset TYC, which was placed in state conservatorship this year
after a sex abuse scandal and subsequent cover-up were exposed by The Dallas
Morning News and the Web site of The Texas Observer. In July, an investigation
by The News detailed numerous problems with TYC's contract-run facilities,
including GEO's Coke County prison. The investigation revealed that at least
two other states had closed GEO-run facilities because of inadequate care of
inmates and abuse allegations. GEO spokesman Pablo Paez said the company was
disappointed by TYC's decision, which he said was unexpected. "We had
not received any notices or any indication of any significant deficiencies at
the facility prior to agency's decision to discontinue the contract,"
Mr. Paez said. Contractor of the year -- Among other matters at the Bronte
facility near San Angelo, state investigators will explore whether inmates
were prevented from filing grievances with TYC. "I don't think the
phones worked all the time if they wanted to complain," Mr. Hurley said,
and "kids weren't let out of their cells" to file complaints. TYC
employs four full-time quality-assurance monitors at the Coke County prison.
They work in a portable building just outside the facility's secure
perimeter. Their jobs were to ensure that GEO was meeting the terms of its
contract, the first priority being inmates' health and safety, Mr. Hurley
said. "What were they doing? That's what we're asking," Mr. Hurley
said of the monitors. "I do imagine that we will be seeing personnel
actions taken as a result of this." According to TYC records, the
agency's quality-assurance monitors awarded the Coke County facility mostly
high scores on planned and unplanned inspections there over the last seven
years. In 1999 and again in 2005, TYC named Coke County its "contract
facility of the year." Mr. Hurley said monitors conducted their most
recent comprehensive review of the facility in late February 2007. Records
show few problems were recorded. Coke "achieved an overall compliance
score of 97.7 percent with twenty-eight of twenty-nine critical measures
passed," the report stated. "Thank you to the Coke County staff and
administration for the positive work they do with TYC youth." Monitors
did note that one dorm "had an offensive odor" due to a sewer
backup. "A number of youth complained that their clothing was not
getting clean and that it was returned to them still damp," the report
stated. In addition, TYC monitors wrote that the schedule for inmates'
showers had been interrupted because of emergencies requiring guards to
maintain safety in the dorms. "Administrative staff was made aware of
the issue and the need to correct," according to the report. The
comprehensive review occurred five months after 19-year-old Robert Schulze,
an inmate who had complained that he felt unsafe, hanged himself in his
solitary cell. A TYC investigation found a number of missteps that
contributed to the young man's suicide, and TYC put the facility on a
corrective action plan as a result. 'Prevalence of fear' -- Mr. Harrell, the
new TYC ombudsman, said he visited the Coke County facility on Sept. 21 as
part of his tour of the agency's West Texas facilities. He found dirty
mattresses lying on cell floors and a large infestation of spiders, beetles
and crickets crawling around the facility, he said. Inmates told him their
sheets and clothes had not been laundered in weeks or months. "Most of
what I had seen had to be pre-existing for months if not years," he said
in an interview. There was also a "real prevalence of fear" among
the inmates, he said. "If I was to be placed in a TYC facility that
would be my last pick for sure," he added. Of the schooling available to
inmates in security cells, Mr. Harrell wrote in a report on his visit: "
'Education' consists of someone dropping a single sheet of paper through the
door slot each day which usually contains a cross work [sic] puzzle, a word
game or math problems." Three days after Mr. Harrell's visit, acting TYC
Executive Director Dimitria Pope dispatched her new director of juvenile
corrections to the Coke County facility. Billy Humphrey, a former adult
prison warden, told his boss that the facility was "filthy" and
that TYC needed to "take a much deeper look" because he had a
"very uncomfortable feeling," Mr. Hurley said. On Sept. 26, a team
of TYC officials made an unannounced visit to Coke. Ms. Pope arrived at the
facility last weekend and returned on Monday to Austin, where she met with
Alfonso Royal, the governor's liaison to TYC, and Brian Newby, the governor's
chief of staff. She then ordered the GEO contract canceled and the youths
moved to another TYC prison in Mart, near Waco. "She told us that this
needs to happen," said Robert Black, the governor's spokesman. "And
we told her if this needed to happen, she needed to do it." Inmates were
moved to TYC's McLennan County facility on buses escorted by DPS troopers.
TYC made room for the Coke County youth by moving dozens of Mart inmates to
other agency facilities, said Scott Medlock, an attorney for the Texas Civil
Rights Project. At least two TYC inmates he represents in legal action
against the agency were transferred to the Crockett State School in East
Texas, he said. TYC transferred the youth without notifying parents, he said.
"I've had panicked parents calling me all day, saying, 'I can't find my
kid,' " said Mr. Medlock. Problems persist -- State Sen. Juan Hinojosa,
D-McAllen, said Tuesday he has been concerned about GEO's performance for
years, a point he raised at a legislative hearing in August. "I'm not
surprised at what they [TYC officials] found," said Sen. Hinojosa, an
author of the 2007 law aimed at reforming TYC. "There are still a lot of
problems at TYC that we're trying to clean up." A GEO news release
issued Tuesday noted that its TYC contract generated quarterly revenue of
about $2 million and pre-tax quarterly earnings of about $200,000. Now, the
company plans to market the facility to state and federal detention agencies
around the country. In the meantime, it expects to lay off most of the 140
employees. City and school district officials in Bronte said Tuesday they had
no advance notice of TYC's decision to close the Coke County facility. The
mayor and school superintendent blamed the decision on politics. "It is
straight from Gov. Perry's office. He wants this facility closed," Mayor
Gerald Sandusky said. "He's looking for public image." "This
facility does an outstanding job," Mr. Sandusky added. "It couldn't
be better."
October
2, 2007 Dallas Morning News
Texas Youth Commission officials will pull the 197 TYC inmates out of a
West Texas juvenile justice center today and cancel their contract with the
company that runs it, citing deplorable conditions at the state's largest
privately operated juvenile prison. "The decisive action ... is a clear
indication of the positive changes under way at the Texas Youth
Commission," Gov. Rick Perry said Monday. "I am deeply disappointed
that conditions at the facility have deteriorated to this point, but am
confident that today's actions will remedy the situation." The Coke
County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte, operated by the Florida-based GEO
Group Inc. since 2003, has a history of abuse and neglect, including a 2006
suicide, allegations of sexual assault that were settled out of court, and
the 2004 death of a youth whose medical conditions were ignored. As recently
as this spring, the prison realized it had hired a registered sex offender as
a guard. An investigation by The Dallas Morning News in July detailed
problems at the facility. The coverage also documented problems at GEO
facilities in other states. A representative from GEO could not be reached
for comment on Monday. In the July article, spokesman Pablo Paez told The
News that the company strives to provide high-quality service and always
reviews serious incidents to determine "what corrective actions, if any,
can be taken." After reports last month of unsanitary conditions at Coke
County, acting TYC Executive Director Dimitria Pope visited the facility last
weekend for a surprise audit. On Monday, she ordered that all youth be
transferred to other TYC units immediately. "TYC's No. 1 priority is the
safety and well being of those youths under our care," Ms. Pope said in
a statement. "The unsafe conditions I witnessed at Coke County this
weekend are unacceptable. We have zero tolerance for any form of abuse within
the system, and those responsible parties will be held accountable."
Despite the high-profile cases reported at the Coke County facility – and the
fact that at least two other states have closed their GEO facilities over
reports of abuse and neglect – GEO and the company's previous owner were
allowed to renew their contract in Texas at least seven times. GEO has the
highest rate of alleged abuse among all TYC contractors. This is hardly the
first time GEO has run into trouble in state juvenile justice systems. The
U.S. Justice Department sued the company in 2000, when it was known by a
different name, alleging that youth inmates in a Louisiana facility suffered
abuse and neglect. All youth were removed from the facility under a
settlement. Five years later, Michigan closed its state prison run by GEO
after budget problems and a lawsuit over poor inmate care. Until recently,
TYC has continued to give GEO high marks, awarding the Coke County outpost
its "contract facility of the year" award in 1999 and again in
2005. This despite a history of abuse and neglect at the facility, including:
• A 1999 lawsuit filed by former female inmates alleging sexual abuse at the
hands of Coke employees. The lawsuits, which involved girls being forced into
performing sexual act and dancing naked, were settled out of court. • The
death in 2004 of John Rodriguez, whose rashes, open sores and spiking fever
were overlooked for months by medical staff. • The hiring – and eventual
termination – of a registered sex offender to work as a prison guard. The TYC
acknowledged the GEO facility does its own hiring, and wasn't held to the
same standards as other non- contract prisons. • The 2006 suicide of Robert
Shulze, a 19-year-old inmate who repeatedly threatened to harm himself and
lost 23 pounds in two months. Nurses never put Mr. Shulze on suicide watch,
and he hanged himself in his cell. Scott Browne, a Beaumont attorney
representing Mr. Schulze's family, commended the TYC on Monday for its
action. "I would hope that changes like this by TYC would help ensure
that no one else would suffer the way Robert Schulze did," Mr. Brown
said. "... Hopefully a move like this by TYC will get the attention of
anyone who wants to be in the private corrections business."
July
29, 2007 The Dallas Morning News
Robert Schulze was scared. He threatened to harm himself unless he was moved
to another youth prison location. He lost 23 pounds in two months. Ten days
later, he hanged himself from the top bunk of his solitary cell. Texas Youth
Commission investigators presented a grim report on the prison's failings to
Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials in February. They could have
discovered even more disturbing details had they looked beyond Texas'
borders. A three-month Dallas Morning News investigation found that private
contractors housing juvenile inmates in Texas repeatedly have lost contracts
or shuttered operations in other states after investigators uncovered
mismanagement, neglect and physical and sexual abuse. In Colorado, a suicide
finally prompted state officials to close a private youth prison that
investigators said was plagued by violence and sexual abuse. In Arkansas,
former employees of a private juvenile facility said inmates were shackled
and left naked on the ground in sleeping bags. And in Michigan, a private
contractor was sued for allegedly allowing mentally ill inmates to languish
in solitary confinement. Last year, TYC spent nearly $17 million of its $249
million budget to do business with these and other private contractors. The
agency houses about 450 young inmates with 13 private operators. Legislative
reforms passed in the wake of the TYC sex abuse scandal largely overlooked
private contractors and focused instead on agency-run prisons. "They are
a much under-examined problem in the TYC system," said Scott Medlock, a
prisoners' rights attorney for the Texas Civil Rights Project, which has
filed a class-action lawsuit against TYC alleging widespread inmate abuse.
The News focused its investigation on three private contractors with the
largest number of TYC inmates and high numbers of complaints – GEO Group,
Cornerstone Programs Corp. and Associated Marine Institutes. Those
contractors have been dogged by problems in Texas strikingly similar to what
led officials in other states to take action. Such problems include
difficulties in attracting qualified employees, high turnover rates and
inadequate care for inmates – sometimes with tragic consequences. States that
hire contractors with poor performance records "obviously have a very
low regard for our children," said Isabelle Zehnder, director of the
Coalition Against Institutionalized Child Abuse, a child advocacy
organization in Washington state. "They're letting money or
circumstances stand above children." But Michele Deitch, an expert on
prison privatization at the University of Texas at Austin, said research
showed that privatization did not save money and that "private facilities
tend to have many more problems in performance, such as higher levels of
assaults, escapes, idleness." TYC officials said they were reviewing the
agency's policies on contractors but could not comment about changes under
consideration. However, just days after detailed questioning by The News, TYC
canceled bid requests for new contract facilities. Bidders included
contractors currently operating facilities in Texas that had a history of
problems in other states. The vetting process -- TYC first turned to
contractors in 1974 to relieve overcrowding. Contract care facilities vary
from group homes to large prisons, and over the years contractors have come
to provide specialized services not available at TYC prisons, such as care
for pregnant inmates. TYC's executive director makes the final decision to
hire a private contractor after a five-phase review process that includes
checks on the contractor's ability to provide adequate medical care and
educational and behavioral treatment. Companies with contracts terminated in the
last year "for deficiencies in performance" anywhere in the country
are ineligible to bid. And, under a new policy enacted in March as the TYC
sex abuse scandal unfolded, the agency reserved the right to declare
ineligible bidders with canceled contracts in the last three years. "We
ask for contracts [canceled] within 36 months, because this provides us with
additional information that might be important – [such as] funding, or lack
of funding," said Mark Higdon, TYC's business manager for contract programs.
"It might not be performance. It might be something else, and we can
look at that also." While a contract cancellation would clearly be a red
flag for TYC, there are many loopholes through which worrisome contractors
can pass. Arkansas officials, for example, let an agreement with Associated
Marine Institutes expire after an audit found the contractor had mismanaged
its billing and failed to provide proper services to young inmates.
Elsewhere, companies have negotiated deals allowing them to withdraw from
their contracts, or simply shut down after states have removed youth from
their facilities. Neither of these would constitute a terminated contract as
defined by Texas. Critics say that TYC requires private contractors to
provide less background information when bidding than it should. For example,
TYC does not request major incident reports or disclosure of lawsuits against
contractors, nor does it do any independent research. In Florida, by
contrast, companies must list and explain any "correctional facility
disturbances" – major incidents, such as escapes or deaths – in any of
the company's prisons. Such disturbances may be the result of inadequate
staffing, poor training or other factors and raise warnings about a company's
practices. TYC should require contractors to provide all incident reports,
said Ms. Deitch, a lawyer with 20 years' experience in criminal justice
policy issues. "It is absolutely important that the contracting agency
has this kind of background info," she said. "If problems occur,
there can be liability concerns for the state agency, and the costs of
dealing with the problems can far exceed any savings from going with a
low-cost contractor." Elizabeth Lee, the new acting coordinator for TYC
contract care, acknowledged the agency has no "established process for
collecting information" on how its contractors performed in other
states. The important thing to consider, she said, is what they're doing in
Texas "and what we're doing to monitor the care of our kids."
Correcting contractors -- TYC regularly reviews contract facilities. It
checks program areas, such as staffing and security, at least once a year. It
also uses statistical information, such as rates of confirmed mistreatment
and the number of escapes, to evaluate operators. TYC quality assurance
monitors also make at least two unannounced visits per year. If a facility
has significant problems, it is put on a corrective action plan, which
outlines improvements and deadlines for them. The Coke County youth prison,
for example, was placed on a corrective action plan in February after Robert
Schulze's suicide. The plan required Coke to improve staffing and procedures
in solitary confinement. Records show that Coke was also placed on a
corrective action plan in July 2006 for deficiencies in case management,
which includes inmate monitoring and record keeping. Earlier this month, TYC
monitors visited WINGS for Life in Marion, just outside San Antonio, which
houses female inmates and their babies, to follow up on a corrective action plan
necessitated by deficiencies in staff training and documentation. "If a
facility fails any critical measure, we have to come back and check it,"
said Jim Humphrey, the TYC quality assurance supervisor for WINGS. TYC has
the authority to fine contractors for problems, but it has never done so in
33 years of outsourcing, officials said. "If it comes to that, we would
just stop the contract," said Paula Morelock, who recently retired after
17 years as TYC's contract care coordinator. But it rarely does that. The
News could find only a few instances of TYC not renewing contracts because of
poor performance. TYC is required to retain contractor records for only a few
years, so a full review of the program was not possible. In 2001, TYC
terminated its contract with FIRST Program of Texas in Longview after
repeated problems. One young woman said that when she was at FIRST, it had
chronic staff shortages. "A lot of stuff took place that shouldn't
have," said Michelle, a 22-year-old who asked that only her first name
be used. "There were lots of problems ... like staff having sex with the
youth there and improper restraints and lack of supervision." In 2004,
TYC removed its youth from the Hemphill County Juvenile Facility, then run by
Correctional Services Corp., a former state contractor, because of
"grave concerns for the safety of youth." The move followed a
December 2003 complaint signed by about 30 inmates. Still, an agency review
conducted shortly after the letter was sent gave the facility "above
average" scores on all performance measures. The facility was later
placed on a corrective action plan. A February 2004 update from TYC staff to
Ms. Morelock said: "Although they have not completed all items, the team
does believe that youth are safe and that the program is stable." But
staffing shortages followed, and in June 2004, TYC removed its youth from the
facility. "We feel like we do a lot of good monitoring and do our very
best to ensure that the youth receive quality services," Ms. Morelock said.
When contracts expire, TYC determines whether the facility met the terms of
its agreement. The contractor completes a renewal packet, and then youth
commission officials visit the facility to determine whether to extend the
contract for another two years. More often than not, Ms. Morelock said,
contracts are renewed. Critics say that TYC needs to change its policy and
open the process to outside bidders each time a contract comes up for
renewal. A question of oversight -- TYC already has come under fire for lax
employment guidelines that allowed contractors to hire convicted felons or
even sex offenders. A Texas state auditor report in March urged TYC to ban
contractors from hiring employees with convictions and to require background
checks of applicants. Even with background checks, some workers with criminal
records have slipped through. A registered sex offender employed by the
GEO-run Coke County Juvenile Justice Center was fired in March. Ms. Morelock
said the facility told TYC that it ran a background check on the worker, but
his criminal records did not turn up. GEO said the correctional officer's
prior record was not uncovered because juvenile records in Texas are sealed.
[See dallasnews.com for further GEO comment.] The Texas Juvenile Probation
Commission, which licenses county facilities, found the Garza County Regional
Juvenile Center in Post out of compliance last year because it failed to do
criminal background checks on employees before they were hired. In a unique
arrangement, TYC contracts with the county, which in turn hired a private
operator, Colorado-based Cornerstone Programs, to run the Garza facility. TYC
relied on the county to vet the contractor's background, Ms. Morelock said. A
Garza County official said he did not know what, if any, backgrounding of
Cornerstone had been done. It's impossible to know whether other employees of
private contract facilities have criminal records because, unlike workers at
state-run facilities, their names are not public information. "The fact
that [these] facilities are private simply adds one more layer of opaqueness
to the process," said Ms. Deitch, the UT adjunct professor. A few of the
TYC legislative reforms will carry over to private operators. Their guards'
training hours must match that of TYC employees, their younger inmates must
be separated from older ones, and contractors must now conduct fingerprint
background checks on all employees and volunteers in contact with youth.
"Some of the contractors were already doing that [fingerprinting], but
just as a safeguard we're putting it in the contract that they all have to do
it now," said the TYC's Ms. Lee. TYC officials say the most valuable
part of the agency's monitoring is staff visits to facilities. "They're
looking at grievances, they're talking to kids, they're talking to staff and
they're reviewing incident reports," Ms. Lee said. In general, though,
TYC relies heavily on its contractors to police themselves. Contractors are
required to forward inmate abuse allegations, although agency monitors have
raised concerns that not all make it to TYC. Contractors also must report
serious incidents to local law enforcement, but TYC reviews found facilities
that failed to do so. Critics of privatized juvenile care think more state
oversight is necessary. "Child welfare and juvenile justice systems have
both a legal and moral obligation to protect kids from harm, which means they
have a responsibility to exercise due diligence when it comes to placing
youths in certain types of facilities," said Dr. Ronald Davidson, a university
psychologist frequently hired by the Illinois Department of Children and
Family Services to review juvenile care. "Whether we look at this
situation in terms of public policy or simple morality, the question we have
to ask is whether our society ought to be in the business of funding gulags
for children."
July
29, 2007 The Dallas Morning News
The Coke County Juvenile Justice Center, run by the GEO Group Inc., is Texas'
largest private juvenile prison and has had the highest rate of alleged abuse
among TYC's contractors over the last seven years. The Florida-based GEO has
renewed, extended or renegotiated its contract with the Texas Youth
Commission at least seven times since it first won the contract to run the
Coke facility in June 1994. During that time, at least two other states have
closed their GEO-run juvenile facilities because of inadequate care of
inmates and abuse allegations. The U.S. Justice Department sued the company
in 2000, when it was known as Wackenhut Corrections Corp., alleging that
juveniles at the company's Louisiana facility were subjected to excessive
abuse and neglect. Wackenhut agreed to a settlement that provided for
sweeping changes to Louisiana's juvenile justice system and required the
company to move all juveniles from its facility. The former security chief
pleaded guilty in 2001 to beating a 17-year-old handcuffed inmate with a mop
handle. In October 2005, Michigan closed the state's private youth prison run
by GEO after an advocacy group sued the prison over inadequate inmate care.
Budget shortfalls also played into the prison's closure. Tom Masseau,
director of government and media relations for Michigan Protection and
Advocacy Service Inc., said his watchdog group found juvenile inmates who
needed special education but were not receiving it and inmates who were not
receiving appropriate mental health care. The prison also managed problem
juveniles by putting them in solitary confinement, he said. Mr. Masseau said
his group tried to work with GEO and the state before filing a lawsuit, but
the problems remained unsolved and inmates faced reprisals. "The youth
would report back that they were retaliated against for meeting with
us," Mr. Masseau said. "We said enough is enough." The group's
lawsuit against the state is pending, but GEO was dropped as a defendant
because it closed the facility and left the state. GEO sued the state for
alleged wrongful termination of the lease agreement, which is also pending.
TYC accolades -- In 1999, TYC named GEO's Coke County operation its
"contract facility of the year." The same year, former female
inmates filed several federal civil rights lawsuits alleging they were
sexually abused by Coke employees. (TYC had moved all girls from the facility
a year earlier.) The lawsuits – which eventually resulted in confidential
settlements – were filed four years after TYC confirmed allegations that some
staff members coerced girls into performing sexual acts or dancing naked,
according to a court document and a report by Michele Deitch, a prison privatization
expert at the University of Texas, and others. "Given GEO's track record
generally and the general record of these for-profit private prison
companies, I have serious concerns about them running any correctional
institutions ... especially when such egregious wrongdoing was going
on," Scott Medlock, an attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said.
The Coke County facility routinely hired unqualified workers, said Isela
Gutierrez, juvenile justice initiative director at the Texas Criminal Justice
Coalition. Former Coke County guard John Christman, who now lives in New
York, said he witnessed that problem firsthand. He worked there for nearly a
year and said he initially loved it. But he eventually grew frustrated with
the company's poor hiring standards and staff shortages. The company met its
guard-to-inmate ratios by making employees work extra shifts, he said.
"I was working five, six days a week, 12-hour days, overtime," Mr.
Christman said. "It's hard to get people to go into that line of work."
He quit his post but returned about 18 months later, in 2001, after he heard
that working conditions had improved. Unfortunately, he said, not much had
changed and he left shortly thereafter. TYC again named Coke County contract
facility of the year in 2005. And, during the past seven years, TYC
quality-assurance monitors have awarded it mostly good scores on planned and
unplanned inspections there. But some recent problems were reported: During
an unscheduled visit in April, a TYC monitor discovered that a staff member
had falsified an accusation against an inmate. The young man was put in
solitary confinement on April 16. Two days later – on the morning of the
unannounced visit – his paperwork already noted that he'd committed an
infraction that would extend his stay in solitary confinement. "This was
alarming because it was only 9:30 a.m. and the incident had not occurred
yet," the monitor reported. The TYC monitor notified the warden, who
released the inmate from solitary and told the security director "that
writing incident reports prior to the incident was not allowed," the
report said. Suicide inquiry -- TYC's investigation into Robert Schulze's
suicide offers a bleak picture of the facility. "Robert's cries for help
– to be assigned to a dorm where he felt safe or to be transferred to
Gainesville State School – were never adequately addressed," a February
2007 report noted. A guard promptly turned in Robert's note in which he
threatened to harm himself unless his dorm assignment was changed. Robert
then asked to go to solitary confinement because he felt unsafe, but he was
not put on suicide watch. He stayed in solitary confinement for nine days,
refusing to return to his dorm because of safety concerns. His case manager
made only one documented visit with him during that period. He was not given
prescribed medication during his time at Coke and lost 23 pounds in two
months. No one checked his food intake. None of that was brought to the
doctor's attention, and a medical review was never conducted, the TYC
investigation revealed. The nursing staff also "failed to discover three
original prescriptions for antidepressants and a mood stabilizer that had
been prescribed by a consulting psychiatrist ... on July 28," TYC later
reported. Eight days before Robert hanged himself on Sept. 28, 2006, "he
filed a TYC complaint form stating that he makes self-referrals to ...
[solitary confinement] to get away from harm and people who threaten
him," TYC said in its report. It's not clear anyone saw the complaint
before his death. "The form got lost in a stack of mail on the TYC staff
member's desk," the investigative report said. TYC's investigation found
that Coke County's solitary cell unit had only one staffer on the floor – in
violation of the required two guards – at the time of the hanging. The one
guard on duty failed to make contact with each inmate every 10 minutes, as
required. For more than an hour, no one checked on the despondent inmate.
After Robert's dinner tray arrived, it sat for 28 minutes before the guard
took it to his cell and discovered him unresponsive. The guard was
disciplined with training and five days of unpaid suspension. TYC put the
facility on a corrective action plan, which required it to improve the
deficiencies that contributed to Robert's death. GEO spokesman Pablo Paez
said the company strives to provide high-quality service and conducts
thorough reviews after any serious incident to determine "what
corrective actions, if any, can be taken." An attorney for the family of
the 19-year-old said they had no comment.
March
13, 2007 KTRK
Two inmates discovered missing from a West Texas youth prison overnight
were captured Monday in Eagle Pass after a woman saw them in a convenience
store and thought they looked suspicious, authorities said. Coke County
Sheriff Rick Styles said the woman thought the two were illegal immigrants
and called the Maverick County Sheriff's Office, which arrested them. Styles
said he expected the two to be returned to Bronte in a few days. He said the
two allegedly stole a pickup in Bronte and left it in Eagle Pass. Two other
inmates at the Texas Youth Commission's Coke County Juvenile Justice Center
were found hiding in the attic after staff were told that a vent had fallen
out of the ceiling, said TYC spokesman Jim Hurley. Another inmate said
insulation had fallen on his face. Investigators searched both inside and
outside the facility. No breach had been found in the perimeter fence, he
said. The 17- and-18-year-old missing inmates, both Hispanic males, were not
imprisoned for violent crimes, Hurley said. The facility in Bronte drew
attention last week after a convicted sex offender was fired from his post as
a correctional officer. David Andrew Lewis, 23, said he told his employer of
his background when he applied for the job. He was hired in August 2006 by a
private contractor. State officials have said the case demonstrated that
private prison operators don't always check employees' juvenile records.
March
12, 2007 The Monitor
Two detainees of a Texas Youth Commission contract prison in West Texas
are missing. The boys, ages 17 and 18, were both non-violent offenders. One
is serving time in the high-security facility for burglary of a vehicle; the
other for violating conditions of parole, said Jim Hurley, TYC spokesman.
They are missing from the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte,
which is run by GEO Inc. At about 3 a.m. Monday a vent fell from a ceiling
dorm, prompting guards to conduct a bed count, Hurley said. They discovered
four youth were missing, but two were later found, he said. Hurley said TYC
would not release the names or description of the missing youth because they
were not considered to be a danger to the public. It is possible the youth
are still inside the facility because there is so far no indication the
razor-wire fence that surrounds the Coke County center was breached, Hurley
said. Monday’s discovery at the 200-bed facility is another in a long line of
problems at the TYC. The agency that runs the Evins Regional Juvenile Center
in Edinburg was placed governor-appointed management in February among a sex
scandal and wide reports of youth abuse.
March
10, 2007 KRIS TV
A convicted sex offender who was fired this week from his job at a West
Texas youth prison said he told his employer of his background when he
applied for the job. David Andrew Lewis, 23, was fired from the Texas Youth
Commission's Coke County Juvenile Justice Center when state investigators
discovered he was a convicted sex offender. State leaders dispatched law
enforcement officials to all 22 commission facilities and its headquarters
this week to investigate claims of sexual abuse of inmates by employees.
Lewis was fired by the GEO Group, a Florida-based private company that runs
the all-male facility in Bronte, about 30 miles northeast of San Angelo.
Lewis said Thursday that he showed a sex offender registration card to his
prospective employers when he was being interviewed for a job as a
correctional officer in August 2006. "They said to wait for the
background check to go through," Lewis said, adding that he also
presented other paperwork related to his offense. Lewis was 15 when he was
convicted in 1999 of indecency by exposure with a 5-year-old girl, according
to a Texas Department of Public Safety Web site listing sex offenders. He is
required to register annually as a sex offender. Pablo Paez, director of
corporate relations for the GEO Group, said the company conducts background
checks on new hires and re-runs the checks annually. The Texas Department of
Public Safety checks off on the company's employees, he said. "In this
particular case, we conducted a background check through DPS and received
clearance from DPS," Paez said. The Texas Department of Public Safety,
which does not make public the records of juvenile offenders, referred a call
for comment to Gov. Rick Perry's office. Perry spokesman Ted Royer said the
case highlights why the special master and new executive director "are
going to completely rewrite the playbook" for how the agency operates. "Having
sex offenders guard prisoners is totally unacceptable, and if an agency
contract prohibits the hiring of registered sex offenders then that needs to
be enforced," Royer told The Associated Press on Friday. "There
needs to be a clear delineation of consequences if a contractor goes against
those rules." State officials have said Lewis' case demonstrated that
private prison operators don't always check their employees' juvenile
records. Texas Youth Commission spokesman Tim Savoy said the agency's
contracts with the private operators prohibit hiring registered sex
offenders, but the agency doesn't "have any control over who they
hire."
March
7, 2007 San Antonio Express-News
Law enforcement officers who earlier this week moved into the Texas Youth
Commission facilities to protect inmates from sex predators on Wednesday
discovered a registered sex offender working as a correctional officer in a
halfway house for juveniles. The sex offender had been allowed to stay on the
job despite an alert that had been sent months ago to TYC administrators in
Austin. David Andrew Lewis, 23, was discovered by investigators sent to TYC's
22 facilities after reports of sex abuse stunned lawmakers. Lewis was
employed at the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center, a juvenile halfway house
30 miles from San Angelo run by the Geo Group, a private prison company.
TYC's acting executive director, Ed Owens, said a facility staff member had
months ago warned agency officials in Austin of Lewis' sex offender status,
but was rebuffed. The tipster “was told he was a company employee and that
the company needed to deal with their employee,” Owens said, adding that the
incident was yet another illustration of the systemic failures plaguing TYC.
Owens said once he learned of Lewis' background Wednesday, he called the Geo
Group and they suspended him. It was not clear if the Geo Group had learned
months earlier of Lewis' sex offender status. No one in its Florida
headquarters could immediately be reached for comment Wednesday evening.
Owens said that there was no evidence Lewis acted inappropriately with any
juveniles. Lewis was 15 when he was forced to register for 13 sexual
indecency acts against a 5-year-old girl. His case is posted on the Texas
Department of Public Safety web site of registered sex offenders. With that
history, it remained a mystery how Lewis could have been hired to work with
juveniles in the first place. Criminal background checks are required for all
TYC employees and those hired by private contractors to work with TYC
juveniles.
July
27, 2001
Inmate awards were upheld by an appeals court in a case where young inmates
said they were sexually abused by Wackenhut Corrections Corporation
employees. But the inmates' attorney was sanctioned for disclosing the
terms of the confidential agreement. Background: Several girls said
they were sexually and mentally abused by Wackenhut employees at the Coke
County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte, Texas. Wackenhut owns and
operates the facility. The claims were settled in mediation for 1.5
million. Wackenhut was to prepare the settlement papers by Oct. 8, 1999, and
wire transfer the settlement funds to the inmates' attorney by Oct. 15, 1999.
However, Wackenhut failed to do so. The attorney filed a motion to
enforce the settlement agreement, but failed to do so under seal, which
exposed the terms of the settlement agreement and resulted in a newspaper
article about the deal. Wackenhut then moved to set aside the
settlement and sought sanctions against the inmates' counsel. The court
referred the matter to a magistrate judge who found the inmates' counsel had
acted in bad faith. However, he recommended upholding the settlement.
(Corrections Professional)
May
17, 2001
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a district court's decision
to levy a $15,000 fine and imposed a number of sanctions on attorneys
representing nine girls held at the juvenile detention facility in this West
Texas city. During mediation in 1999, the former detainees' attorneys
reached a $1.5 million settlement agreement with Wackenhut Corrections
Corp. The girls had alleged they were sexually, physically, and
mentally abused by employees. In an agreement reached in October 1999,
Wackenhut did not admit liability and said the payment was for "alleged personal
injuries only." Details were confidential and remained under seal
until the detainees' attorneys disclosed the terms when they filed a motion
to enforce the settlement without sealing it, Wackenhut claimed.
Confidentiality was at the heart of the settlement agreement. "The
unsealed motion exposed the terms of the settlement agreement and resulted in
a newspaper article regarding the agreement," Judge Carl E. Stewart
wrote. (AP)
Cold Springs
Correctional Facility (Mansfield Boot Camp)
Fort Worth, Texas
Correctional Services Corporation
October
22, 2005 Sarasota Herald Tribune
Correctional Services Corp. has settled a $38.3 million judgment that held
the company responsible for the death of an 18-year-old inmate at a Texas
boot camp. Terms of the agreement are confidential, but the Sarasota-based
prison manager said Friday it will pay $2.7 million toward the settlement.
The rest will be covered by CSC's liability insurers, which initially balked
at paying the award. The agreement is contingent on the closing of CSC's
previously announced sale to The GEO Group Inc. for $62 million. CSC
shareholders will vote on the sale Nov. 4. If that deal falls through, so
does the settlement. A Texas jury in August 2003 found CSC and a nurse at the
now-closed Mansfield boot camp responsible for the death of Bryan D.
Alexander. Alexander, serving a six-month sentence for a misdemeanor driving
conviction, died in 2001 of a rare penicillin-resistant form of pneumonia.
Trial testimony showed he was treated for a cold and flu even though he had
coughed up blood for five days before his death. His parents sued CSC and
nurse Knyvett Reyes for their loss and anguish. Reyes was convicted of
negligent homicide and was sentenced to four years of community supervision.
She also surrendered her registered nurse's license. The judgment against CSC
and Reyes included $35 million in actual damages, $750,000 in punitive
damages and more than $2.4 million in interest. The settlement will resolve
all claims and lawsuits against CSC and Reyes. It also will end a dispute
between CSC and its liability insurers over who should pay. Boca Raton-based
GEO is paying $62 million in cash, or $6 a share, and assuming $124 million
in liabilities to acquire CSC. It will then sell the Youth Services
International subsidiary to CSC president James Slattery for $3.75 million.
That unit manages programs at 17 centers with 1,300 beds. GEO will acquire
the adult division that owns or operates 15 facilities with 7,500 beds. GEO
manages 41 prisons and jails with 36,000 beds in the United States,
Australia, South Africa and Canada. Shares of CSC were selling for $5.91 on
the Nasdaq at the close of trading Friday, up 1 cent.
October
22, 2005 NEWS8 Austin
The corporate parent of a now-defunct Mansfield detention facility has reached
an out-of-court settlement with the family of a teenager who died while
serving time at its boot camp. Correctional Services Corp. announced the
settlement yesterday with the family of Bryan Alexander. The 18-year-old died
in 2001 while serving a six-month sentence for a drunken-driving arrest.
Alexander's family was awarded nearly $40 million in damages by a Tarrant
County jury in 2003. But the details of Friday's settlement have not been
released. Under the agreement, the boy's family will not file any new suits
or pursue appeals against Tarrant County or its criminal-court judges. The
boy's parents sued the company and camp nurse after he died from
penicillin-resistant pneumonia. Although the teen complained of weakness and
was coughing up blood, the camp had waited several days before taking him to
a hospital. The suit claimed the camp and nurse failed to provide the teen
with adequate and timely medical care.
September
30, 2005 Star-Telegram
U.S. District Court Judge Terry Means on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit
against Tarrant County and its criminal court judges over the death of a
teen-ager who was serving a sentence at the former Mansfield boot camp four
years ago. Means left the door open for attorneys representing the family of
Bryan Alexander to sue the judges in state court. A lawsuit against the
county has been thrown out of state court. Alexander, 18, died in January
2001 while serving a six-month sentence for drunken driving. While at the
camp, he complained of feeling weak and coughing up blood. Days later, he was
taken to John Peter Smith Hospital, where he was immediately put into
intensive care. He died two days later. Tests indicated that he had a rare,
penicillin-resistant form of pneumonia. In the federal lawsuit, Alexander's
family said the county, and the judges individually, should be held liable
because they didn't properly monitor Correctional Services Corp., the company
contracted to run the camp. A year ago, Means denied the judges judicial
immunity, saying they were acting not as judges but as managers of the
facility. But in his ruling Wednesday, Means said public officials do enjoy
immunity from lawsuits for damages providing that their conduct does not
clearly violate an individual's rights.
February
10, 2005 Star Telegram
Several Tarrant County judges sued over a death at the defunct boot camp are
being accused of unethical behavior for considering cases involving the
attorneys who are suing them. Defense attorneys Charlie Smith and Bill Lane
say that state district judges Sharen Wilson and George Gallagher have
decided that they will not automatically transfer those cases to other
courts. Since January 2003, the judges have routinely transferred cases
handled by Smith and Lane to other courts after the attorneys filed a federal
civil rights lawsuit against them and the county. In the federal lawsuit, the
attorneys say that sloppy oversight by the judges allowed an array of
problems to continue at the former Mansfield boot camp, where 18-year-old
inmate Bryan Alexander died. Lane and Smith are among several attorneys
representing the Alexander family. U.S. District Judge Terry Means ruled in
August that the judges can be held liable individually, along with the
county, because they were acting as managers of the facility operated by
Correctional Services Corp. Smith filed a motion to remove Wilson from
hearing a felony theft case on Tuesday. In the filing, he described the
judge's decision to deny a transfer as "clear evidence" of
hostility toward him. Denying Smith's motion "creates a reasonable doubt
as to Judge Sharen Wilson's capacity to act impartially as a judge in
connection with this case," court documents state.
August
27, 2004
Tarrant County's criminal court judges are not protected by judicial immunity
in a civil rights lawsuit stemming from the death of a teen-ager at the
former Mansfield boot camp, a federal judge ruled. U.S. District Court
Judge Terry Means said the judges can be held liable individually, along with
the county, because they were acting not as judges, but as managers of the
facility operated by Correctional Services Corp. The judges helped
establish the budgets and approved the selection of the private prison
operator "in spite of a significant history of operational
deficiencies," attorneys for the teen-ager's family have argued.
"The court concludes that the defendant judges are not entitled to
judicial immunity," Means wrote this week. "It's huge,"
Mark Haney, the family's attorney, said of Means' ruling. "The judges
can be held personally accountable for establishing policies and procedures
... that routinely denied access to medical care to the
detainees." In July, Means denied a claim by Northland Insurance
Co., CSC's insurance carrier, stating that its policies do not cover the judgment
against them. (Star-Telegram)
February 25, 2004
Mid-States Services - the Hurst company in line to take over Tarrant County's
jail food contract if the current company fails to do a better job -- has its
own food-quality problems, a former Mid-States manager told commissioners
Tuesday. Emilio Gonzalez, who until January was director of operations
for Mid-States, said the former jail contractor often took outdated food from
its commissary operations and served it to inmates after removing packaging
that listed the freshness dates. "Vendors need to make a profit,
but it doesn't need to be at the county's expense," Gonzalez told county
commissioners Tuesday during their meeting. Mid-States Chief Executive
John Sammons said the allegations are untrue and blamed them on a competitor
that he declined to name. Sammons said some boxes of outdated food were
found in Mid-States' stocks when the company provided food service to the
jail, but he said those boxes had already been designated for disposal when
jailers told the company to remove them. "This is another
desperate attempt by those who would like to cause Mid- States problems, at a
time when the commissioners are looking at us as a back-up supplier," he
said. Last week, commissioners put current contractor Aramark
Correctional Services on 30 days' notice to improve the quality of food and
service or be removed from the contract. Mid-States, which held the
jail food contract until December, was designated as a backup supplier if
Aramark failed to meet the terms. Sheriff Dee Anderson said Tuesday
that in the week since the commissioners issued the ultimatum, Aramark has
made improvements and inmate complaints are declining. Checks of the
food service have found improved food temperatures and larger portions, he
said. But the company still has a long way to go to be acceptable, he
said. "If I had to make a recommendation today, I'd cancel the
contract," Anderson said. As to Gonzalez's allegations about
Mid-States, Anderson said he would discuss them with commissioners.
"If any of it is true, it's disturbing," he said. Gonzalez
apologized to commissioners for not coming forward sooner, and said that
during contract deliberations last fall he was still employed by Mid-States
and feared retaliation. He said he resigned because of concerns about
Mid-States' operations. Sammons said that Gonzalez left Mid-States on good
terms to take another job and that he was disappointed by the comments.
An Aramark spokeswoman did not return a phone call seeking comment Tuesday
but has said Aramark officials believe they are meeting contractual
obligations. Commissioners did not discuss Gonzalez's comments at the
Tuesday meeting because the issue was not posted as an item for
consideration. After the meeting, however, commissioners questioned the
timing of the comments. "I'm always grateful for people to come
forward, but it's odd that he would come forward at this time," Precinct
1 Commissioner Dionne Bagsby said. Precinct 3 Commissioner Glen Whitley
said he gave no credence to Gonzalez's comments and would vote to bring in
Mid-States if Aramark did not improve its service. "It just amazes
me that this guy shows up to speak against Mid-States a week after we put
Aramark on 30-days' notice," he said. Mid-States was the food
service operator that served meals to inmates in the Tarrant County Jail
until Aramark won a $3.3 million contract over Mid-States, Mid-America and
Canteen Correctional Services. Mid-America -- run by former Mid-States
executive Jack Madera -- operates the jail commissary, which sells toiletries
and snack items to jail inmates. Madera has been indicted along with two
other men on charges that they used a forged document to win a jail
food-service contract in Kaufman County. The indictments stem from an investigation
into whether Madera influenced Dallas County Sheriff Jim Bowles with
thousands of dollars in favors before Bowles picked Madera's company for a
$20 million jail commissary contract. The scope has widened to include
Madera's dealings with other counties, including Tarrant and Denton.
(Lawyer Texas Parole)
February
19, 2004
It would be easy to dismiss inmates' complaints about jail food simply as
whining -- not worthy of serious attention because incarceration is not meant
to be a pleasant experience. But in the case of the Tarrant County Jail
and the meals being served by its newly contracted food service provider,
Aramark Correctional Services, the food being distributed to prisoners not
only does not meet the taste test -- it may actually pose health risks.
Inmates have been complaining about the quality of the food since Aramark
began serving the county's four jail sites in December under a $3.3 million
annual contract. In response to the complaints and boycott of the meals
by some prisoners, county purchasing director Jack Beacham and other county
officials went to inspect the food service operation. Beacham said they
saw 17 pans of soured pinto beans, discovered foods that were being kept at
improper temperatures, and witnessed one employee drop tortillas on the floor
and then place them back on the service line. (Lawyer Texas Parole)
December
3, 2003
Visiting State District Judge Roger Towery has ruled that Sarasota,
Fla.-based Correctional Services Corp. must pay a $38 million judgment that
was awarded earlier this summer to the parents of a young man who died at a
Mansfield, Tex., boot camp in 2001. In August, a jury in Fort Worth's
236th District Court awarded the family of Bryan Alexander $35 million in
actual damages and $5.1 million in punitive damages following an eight-week
trial. Alexander died from a penicillin-resistant form of pneumonia he
contracted while participating in a six-month boot camp program as a
condition of his misdemeanor probation. Evidence in the case showed that
Alexander, who was 18 years old, died after CSC employees ignored his pleas
for medical attention for days. In September, Judge Towery set the
actual damages at $37.4 million, including interest, and reduced the punitive
damages to $750,000. CSC responded by asking the court to reduce or set aside
the entire judgment, arguing that there was "no legally or factually
sufficient evidence to support the jury's findings." CSC President James
Slattery told CSC investors during a recent conference call that the company
expected the court to reduce the $38 million judgment. In his ruling issued
yesterday, the judge denied all of CSC's motions. "We are pleased
that once again the jury's verdict in this case has been upheld," says
attorney Jeff Kobs, a partner in Fort Worth's Kobs & Haney, who
represented the Alexander family along with Fort Worth attorney Bill Lane.
"We are confident that the Courts will continue to deny CSC's repeated
attacks on the jury's decision." As a result of this ruling, CSC
has until Dec. 16, 2003, to file its notice of appeal, and the company must
also post a $25 million bond by Dec. 28, 2003, in order to prevent the
Alexander family from attempting to collect the judgment amount. Interest has
been accruing at a rate of $5,250 per day since the original judgment was
entered in September. In a related federal court action, CSC's
insurance carrier, Northland Insurance Co., is seeking a declaration that its
policies do not cover the $38 million judgment. CSC is arguing that the Northland
policies should cover the judgment amount, and that Northland acted
improperly in failing to settle the claims prior to the jury's verdict.
For more information on the court's ruling, please contact attorney Jeff Kobs
at 817.332.5956, attorney Bill Lane at 817.625.5570, or Bruce Vincent at
214.559.4630 or pager 888.361.8452. (yahoo.com)
October
10, 2003
Day
in and day out, workers sling hash to feed the 3,500 Tarrant County Jail
inmates three hot meals a day. But as
companies line up this month to bid for a multimillion-dollar food-services
contract, the focus has shifted from slinging hash to slinging mud.
Two
of the companies expected to bid on the contract are run by former business
partners turned bitter rivals. Sealed bids are due to the Tarrant County
purchasing department by Oct. 27. The contract, now held by Hurst-based
Mid-States Services, is worth about $4.1 million a year. Among the
companies expected to bid is Dallas-based Mid-America Services, run by Jack
Madera. He has a long history of winning lucrative contracts and maintaining
friendships with elected officials who have a say in whether the company gets
public business. Mid-America will compete for the
contract against Mid-States, which Madera started in 1970 and sold in February
1999. John Sammons, chief executive of Mid-States and one of
the investors who bought the company from Madera, said there is more to the
bid than just a second helping of cafeteria business. "Our
group is committed to running this company with integrity," Sammons
said. "There is a clear-cut delineation between the Mid-States of the
past and the Mid-States of today. "The
kind of customer base we want is the kind who embraces integrity in
government." Business and pleasure
Many
in Texas law enforcement consider Madera a friend, including Tarrant County
Sheriff Dee Anderson, whose office oversees jail operations including the
kitchen. "The relationship began when I was elected,"
Anderson said. "Jack was, at that point, a consultant for Mid-States.
"Both
he and John [Sammons] became friends of mine and supporters."
Sammons
says Madera's ties to law-enforcement officials prompted him to keep Madera
on board as a consultant after Madera sold Mid-States in 1999.
Madera
and Sammons parted ways in March 2002, when Madera started Mid-America after
a three-year non-competition agreement expired with Mid-States.
Madera
looked to his old friends to help his new business and promptly won contracts
in Dallas and Denton counties. There are two types of contracts:
food-services contracts, under which the county pays companies to provide
meals to inmates, and commissary contracts, under which companies sell snacks
and other items to inmates and return a portion of the proceeds to the
county. Sheriffs control jail commissaries, including selection
of the companies that handle the services. Bids are required, and county
proceeds must be used to benefit inmates. A provision
applying only to Tarrant County requires commissioners court approval of
commissary contracts. Some of Madera's contracts have
raised eyebrows. In Dallas, Madera's relationship with Sheriff Jim Bowles has
been criticized since Bowles awarded the commissary contract to Mid-America
in June 2002. One Dallas County official labeled
the contract a "bad business decision," and questions have been
raised about whether Madera exerted undue influence through his friendships.
But no specific allegations of wrongdoing have been voiced publicly.
Madera's
bid in Dallas County gave the sheriff's department about $600,000 a year,
less than what was offered by two other competitors, including Mid-States.
In
Tarrant County, Anderson awarded Madera's Mid-America the contract for
commissary services in April. The company sells aspirin, snacks, soap and
other items from carts, dubbed "banana wagons," that workers wheel
through the jail. Under the commissary contract,
Madera will pay the sheriff's office at least $750,000 a year. As was the
case in Denton and Dallas counties, Madera won the Tarrant County business by
beating out Mid-States, which held the existing contracts.
'No
hidden agenda' Anderson says he is confident that
the bidding will be above board, as he says it was when he awarded
Mid-America the commissary contract. Tarrant
County commissioners are expected to vote on the food-services contract by
Dec. 31. Six companies are expected to submit bids, which will be analyzed by
an evaluation committee. Anderson said the current commissary
contract shows that local officials are committed to hammering out the best
deal possible. "I believe we have the most
lucrative contract for any county in the state," Anderson said. "It
is second to none." Anderson said he has lunched
regularly and dined occasionally with Madera and has dined with Sammons,
played golf at his country club and seen a Dallas Stars game from a luxury
box, all at Sammons' expense. "I don't do anything in
secret," Anderson said. "There is no hidden agenda.
"Because
we are clients, we have a relationship with those people," he said.
"Certainly, nothing improper has taken place." Sammons
also said there is nothing improper about his relationship with Anderson.
"Building
relationships is part of doing business in the public and the private
sector," Sammons said. "It is hard to develop trust."
Madera
would not comment to the Star-Telegram except to say he intends to bid
on the jail food-services contract and that he denies any inappropriate
relationships with Tarrant County officials. "There
is nothing inappropriate going on in Dallas, either," Madera said.
Commissioner
J.D. Johnson, who represents Precinct 4, in the northwest part of the county,
said his 15- to 20-year friendship with Madera has not influenced county
business. "I've always tried to vote for
what I thought was the best deal, and it's what I'll do this time,"
Johnson said. Sammons, however, said he'll watch
the bidding closely to ensure that he's treated fairly. He won't be
alone. Patrick Turner, regional sales director for Aramark
Corp., which also expects to bid on the contract, said: "On a level
playing field, we have always been able to compete. But that's always been
the question, whether it has always been a level playing field."
(Star-Telegram)
September
18, 2003
Visiting State District Judge Roger Towery has signed a $38.3 million
judgment against Sarasota, Fla.-based Correctional Services Corp. in a
lawsuit over the death of an 18-year-old man who died at a Mansfield boot
camp in 2001. The judgment, entered yesterday in Tarrant County's 236th
District Court, includes $37.4 million in actual damages plus interest and
$750,000 in punitive damages. In August, a Fort Worth jury awarded $35
million in actual damages and $5.1 million in punitive damages to the family
of Bryan Alexander. The punitive damages were reduced in the judgment under
Texas punitive damage caps. According to the lawsuit, Alexander died on
Jan. 9, 2001, from a penicillin-resistant form of pneumonia while
participating in a six-month boot camp program as a condition of his
misdemeanor probation. Alexander chose the boot camp over jail time. He died
after his pleas for medical attention were ignored for days. "This
judgment sends a clear signal that the original verdict in this case was
sound," says Jeff Kobs, a partner in Fort Worth's Kobs & Haney, who
represented the Alexander family along with Fort Worth attorney Bill
Lane. During trial, Kobs and Lane argued that Alexander's medical
condition should have triggered a response from the boot camp nurse or other
employees of CSC. Evidence in the case showed that Alexander experienced
difficulty breathing and began coughing up blood at least five days before
his death. CSC eventually transferred Alexander to a local hospital, but he
died less than 36 hours after being admitted. "Bryan's was a senseless
death that should never have happened," Lane says. "The Alexander
family hopes this judgment will send a clear message to CSC and other
for-profit correctional companies, and that no other families are forced to
suffer a similar ordeal." Under Texas law, CSC has 30 days to
appeal the judgment, ask for a new trial, or pay the $38.3 million judgment.
If CSC appeals the judgment, state law would delay the payment of the
judgment if CSC posts a $25 million bond. For more information on the
judgment in this case, please contact attorney Jeff Kobs at 817.332.5956,
attorney Bill Lane at 817.625.5570, or Bruce Vincent at 214.559.4630 or pager
888.361.8452. (Yahoo Finance)
September
6, 2003
A state judge in Montague County is set to hear arguments today to finalize
$40.1 million in damages that a jury awarded last month to the parents of an
Arlington man who died while at the former Mansfield boot camp. Correctional
Services Corp. and its nurse Knyvett Reyes were found responsible for the
Jan. 9, 2001, death of Bryan Alexander. The 18-year-old probationer died of a
rare lung infection after his complaints of feeling weak and coughing up
blood went ignored for days. A Tarrant County jury decided that the
Florida-based company, which contracted to run the camp, and its nurse should
pay $35 million for Alexander's death, his suffering and his parents' loss.
The jury then added $5.1 million in punitive damages, with CSC to pay most of
the judgment. Attorneys for CSC and Reyes are expected to appeal the verdict.
CSC Chief Executive James Slattery said his attorneys intend to "request
that the court set aside the jury's verdict." "Mr. Alexander died
from an extremely rare form of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia, which is not
normally contracted outside of a hospital setting," he said in a
statement last week. "Even the plaintiffs' experts testified that this
condition would have been extremely difficult to diagnose." Plaintiffs'
attorneys say CSC's position shows an "ongoing unwillingness to take responsibility"
for Alexander's death. "The defendants said they plan to fight us tooth
and nail," said Mark Haney, one of seven attorneys representing
Alexander's parents, Rickey Alexander and Judy Schumpert. "They want to
try and disregard the verdict that addressed their bad behavior," he
said. "It is a slap in the face to the Alexander family and the jury's
verdict." CSC's Fort Worth attorney, Vic Anderson, declined to comment
on the case. Reyes' attorney, Michael Wallach, could not be reached to
comment. CSC has $35 million in insurance to cover the jury award in
Alexander's death. But the company's insurer has sued, saying it is not
obligated to pay because Reyes was convicted last year of negligent homicide.
That conviction is being appealed. Under Texas law, punitive damages in the
Alexander case are limited to $750,000 for CSC and $100,000 for Reyes. The
jury had set punitive damages at $5 million to be paid by CSC and $100,000
from Reyes. (Star-Telegram)
September
2, 2003
Jail operator Correctional Services Corp. on Friday said a Texas jury awarded
plaintiffs $5.1 million in punitive damages in a wrongful death suit against
the company and a former employee, but recovery is limited to $850,000 under
Texas law. The company said its primary liability insurance carrier has
recently taken the not uncommon step of disclaiming coverage, but it believes
the carrier has no legitimate basis for the decision and has retained counsel
to enforce its rights under the policies. (Yahoo Finance)
August
29, 2003
With no prior criminal record, the 18-year-old Arlington man hoped that the
former Mansfield boot camp would set him straight after a drunken-driving
arrest. He chose the regimented, low-security corrections facility over
jail time. But a rare, penicillin-resistant form of pneumonia killed
Bryan Alexander on Jan. 9, 2001, while he served his six-month sentence. His
pleas for medical attention had been ignored for days. "He wanted
to get some discipline at the camp and a chance to get his GED. It turned out
to be a death sentence for a DWI," said Charlie Smith, who represented
the teen-ager in the criminal matter and his family in a civil lawsuit.
On Thursday, a Tarrant County jury added $5.1 million in punitive damages to
its award Wednesday of $35 million in actual damages for Alexander's death,
his suffering and his parents' mental anguish and loss of their son.
Jurors blamed the camp's nurse, Knyvett Reyes, and Florida-based Correctional
Services Corp., which contracted to run the 370-bed facility. CSC must
pay $26 million of the judgment, Reyes $14.1 million. Reyes' attorney,
Michael Wallach, and CSC's attorney, Vic Anderson, declined to comment.
The lawsuit brought by Alexander's parents, Rickey Alexander and Judy
Schumpert, said Reyes and CSC failed to provide Alexander with adequate and
timely medical care. He had complained of feeling weak and coughing up
blood days before he was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.
Alexander was immediately placed in intensive care but died two days
later. The boot camp and residential drug-treatment programs at the
Mansfield facility were closed six months after Alexander's death. CSC had
been paid $2.9 million a year by the state to run the facility. On
Thursday, attorneys for the Alexander family asked the jury of five women and
seven men to further punish CSC and Reyes to send a message to other
correction facilities and nurses. "You did listen to Bryan's pleas
for help. Unfortunately for Bryan, you are 2 1/2 years too late," Bill
Lane, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, told the jury in closing arguments
Thursday in the punitive-damage stage of the trial. "But you are not too
late to send a message to this private corporation that we will not accept
the lowest bidder or that the bottom line is worth more than a human
life." Attorneys for the defendants argued that their clients were
unaware of the seriousness of Alexander's illness. Reyes testified that she
treated Alexander for a cold, flu and strep throat based on her evaluation of
his symptoms. Fort Worth accountant L. Andrew McCartney said CSC is
worth more than $50.8 million, based on recent financial reports filed with
the Securities and Exchange Commission. CSC has about $25 million in
insurance coverage that could be used to cover the judgment, said Anderson,
CSC's attorney. "If the company is closed down, there are going to
be a lot of people out of jobs," he said. Reyes' attorney,
Wallach, said: "I think we all know Knyvett Reyes is not a corporation.
I would ask that you punish her no further." (Fort Worth
Star-Telegram)
August
28, 2003
A
former nurse and a Florida-based private corrections company that operated
the defunct Mansfield boot camp were responsible for the death of an
18-year-old inmate, a Tarrant County jury decided Wednesday.
The
jury of five women and seven men ordered the nurse and company to pay $35
million for the death of Bryan Alexander, his suffering, and his parents'
mental anguish and loss of companionship. Alexander
died of a rare penicillin-resistant form of pneumonia at John Peter Smith
Hospital in Fort Worth, two days after being transported from the camp for
probationers. Arlington lawyer Charlie Smith, who
represented Alexander in his criminal matter and the Alexander family in the
wrongful-death lawsuit, said he was not surprised by the jury's verdict.
"This
case was more like a homicide case than a wrongful-death lawsuit because of
the way this young man died," said Smith, one of seven attorneys
representing the Alexander family. "Bryan's family was hopeful that this
jury would speak loud about the conduct of these defendants so it will not
happen to another child in the same circumstances as Bryan Alexander."
The
lawsuit asserted that Correctional Services Corp., and its nurse at the camp,
Knyvett Reyes of Arlington, did not provide Alexander with adequate and
timely medical care. Alexander had complained of feeling weak and was
coughing up blood days before he was taken to JPS Hospital.
But
Reyes testified during the seven-week trial that, based on her evaluation of
his symptoms, she treated Alexander for a cold, flu and strep throat.
Witnesses testified that Reyes thought the inmate was faking his illness.
Reyes'
attorney, Michael Wallach, declined to comment after the jury's verdict.
Correctional Services Corp.'s attorney, Vic Anderson, also declined to
comment. Attorneys for Alexander's parents, Rickey Alexander and
Judy Schumpert, said Reyes' skepticism cost Alexander his life. He was
serving a sentence at the facility for a drunken-driving conviction and had
no prior criminal record, according to testimony. Correctional
Services Corp., which was paid about $2.9 million a year to run the camp,
must pay 60 percent of the $35 million judgment, while Reyes was ordered to
pay 40 percent. The jury also decided that Reyes and
Correctional Services Corp. acted with malice in ignoring Alexander's pleas
for help, which means the defendants must pay punitive damages. Closing
arguments are scheduled for today to determine punitive damages.
Fort
Worth accountant L. Andrew McCartney said Correctional Services Corp. is
worth more than $50.8 million, based on recent financial reports filed with
the Securities and Exchange Commission. "They
are currently making a profit," he testified. Reyes'
financial condition was not brought up. Plaintiffs'
attorneys are seeking $40 million in punitive damages for the Alexander
family. Correctional Services Corp. has about $25 million in
insurance coverage that could be used to cover the lawsuit judgment, said
Anderson, the company's attorney. "In
this case, the plaintiffs are asking the jury to punish the company. If the
jury punishes the company, they are probably going to be punishing the
stockholders of this company," Anderson said. (Fort Worth
Star-Telegram)
August
28, 2003
A former nurse and a Florida-based private corrections company that operated
a defunct Mansfield boot camp were responsible for the death of an
18-year-old inmate, a Tarrant County jury decided Wednesday. The jury
of five women and seven men ordered the nurse and company to pay $35 million
for the death of Bryan Alexander, his suffering, and his parents' mental
anguish and future loss of companionship. Alexander died of a rare
penicillin-resistant form of pneumonia at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort
Worth, two days after being transported from the camp for probationers.
Arlington lawyer Charlie Smith, who represented Alexander in his criminal
case and the Alexander family in the wrongful-death lawsuit, said he was not
surprised by the jury's verdict. "This case was more like a
homicide case than a wrongful-death lawsuit because of the way this young man
died," said Smith, one of seven attorneys representing the Alexander
family. "Bryan's family was hopeful that this jury would speak loud
about the conduct of these defendants so it will not happen to another child
in the same circumstances as Bryan Alexander." The lawsuit
asserted that Correctional Services Corp. and its nurse at the camp, Knyvett
Reyes, failed to provide Alexander with adequate and timely medical care.
Alexander had complained of weakness and was coughing up blood days before he
was taken to JPS Hospital. But Reyes testified during the seven-week
trial that, based on her evaluation of his symptoms, she treated Alexander
for a cold, flu and strep throat. Witnesses testified that Reyes thought the
inmate was faking his illness. Attorneys for Alexander's parents,
Rickey Alexander and Judy Schumpert, said Reyes' skepticism cost Alexander
his life. He was serving a sentence at the facility for a drunken-driving
conviction and had no prior criminal record, according to testimony.
Correctional Services Corp., which was paid about $2.9 million a year to run
the camp, must pay 60 percent of the $35 million judgment; Reyes was ordered
to pay 40 percent. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
August
27, 2003
Correctional Services Corporation today announced that a Tarrant County,
Texas jury has returned a $35 million verdict against the Company and its
former employee in the wrongful death suit by the parents and estate of Bryan
Alexander. Mr. Alexander died of a rare penicillin-resistant form of
pneumonia while incarcerated at the Tarrant County Community Correctional
Facility, which was operated by the Company at the time. The jury will now be
asked to consider whether punitive damages should also be awarded against the
Company and/or its former employee. (Yahoo Finance)
August
27, 2003
A Tarrant County jury is expected to continue deliberations today in the
wrongful-death lawsuit in the case of an Arlington teen-ager who died while
serving a sentence at the former Mansfield boot camp. Bryan Alexander,
18, died of pneumonia at John Peter Smith Hospital on Jan. 9, 2001 -- days
after he complained of feeling weak and coughing up blood. He had a rare
penicillin-resistant infection, hospital tests later revealed.
Attorneys for his parents, Rickey Alexander and Judy Schumpert, said
Florida-based Correctional Services Corp., the private company that operated
the boot camp, and its nurse, Knyvett Reyes, ignored Bryan Alexander's pleas
for medical attention and could have saved his life. The attorneys are
asking for at least $75 million for Alexander's death, his suffering and his
parents' mental anguish. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
August
26, 2003
A
Tarrant County jury began deliberations Monday in the wrongful-death lawsuit
in the case of an Arlington man who died while serving a drunken-driving
sentence at the former Mansfield boot camp. Bryan
Alexander, 18, died of pneumonia at John Peter Smith Hospital on Jan. 9, 2001
-- days after he complained of feeling weak and coughing up blood. He had a
rare penicillin-resistant infection, hospital tests later revealed.
Attorneys
for his parents -- Rickey Alexander and Judy Schumpert -- said the
Florida-based private company that operated the boot camp and its nurse,
Knyvett Reyes, ignored his pleas for medical attention and could have saved
his life. "They don't believe they did
anything wrong," said Jeff Kobs, one of seven attorneys representing the
Alexander family. "No one has come to this courtroom to say they were
sorry or regret what they did. I want you to tell these people they are
responsible and what happened was wrong." Alexander's
parents are suing Reyes and Correctional Services Corp., which contracted to
run the 370-bed facility for probationers and drug treatment. Plaintiffs'
attorneys suggested an award of $75 million for Alexander's death, his
suffering and his parents' mental anguish. A jury of
five women and seven men listened to nearly eight hours of closing arguments
Monday in the trial that began July 7. They are expected to resume
deliberations this morning. The defendants' attorneys argued
that Alexander was provided with adequate medical care and that he was the
only one to blame for his death because he failed to provide the camp's nurse
with enough information about his illness. "It
wasn't going to make any difference on the ultimate outcome if he had been
seen by a doctor on Jan. 5," Reyes' attorney, Michael Wallach, said.
"Alexander never proved he was coughing up blood until Jan. 7. He had
every opportunity to bring nurse Reyes the proof." Attorney
Vic Anderson, who represents CSC, said the plaintiffs' witnesses were not
credible because they were mostly former inmates at the boot camp, and he
frequently called them "criminals." Anderson
also said that Alexander showed signs of having a cold or the flu but that he
was not seriously ill until he was transported to JPS. "We
believe nurse Reyes did not think there was an extreme risk involved with
Alexander," Anderson said. "She was treating him for strep
throat." Reyes was convicted of negligent
homicide last year in Alexander's death and sentenced to four years'
probation. But attorneys for the Alexander family could not present her
conviction to jurors because the case is under appeal. The
county's 19 criminal court judges closed the boot camp in July 2001 amid an
array of problems at the facility. Attorneys for the Alexander family are
also suing the judges who oversaw the facility in 2000 and 2001 and the
probation department. Reyes surrendered her nursing
license in 2001 during a state nursing board investigation.
CSC
still has two contracts with Texas. The publicly traded company is paid about
$7 million to run a halfway house in Fort Worth and an intermediate-sanction
facility in Houston, state prison spokesman Larry Todd said.
Alexander's
attorneys said a judgment in the lawsuit is important to prevent similar
incidents at other facilities operated by CSC. "We're
talking about a for-profit corrections company that houses our youths. They
do it for the money. And it's the bottom line they are concerned about, not
about responsibility," said Bill Lane, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys.
"It is wrong what happened to Bryan Alexander, and they should pay for
what happened." (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
July
21, 2003
A Texas Rangers' investigation into the death of an inmate at the former Mansfield
boot camp determined that the 18-year-old probationer had to take cold and
flu pills for days before he was allowed to visit a nurse. Attorneys blamed a
nurse's skepticism and poor staffing by a Florida-based private company that
ran a Mansfield boot camp for the death of an inmate who had been serving a
drunken-driving sentence at the facility. The attorneys, who represent
the parents of Bryan Alexander, made the accusations Thursday during opening
statements of a wrongful death trial. Alexander, 18, of Arlington died Jan.
9, 2001, two days after being transferred to a Fort Worth hospital. He had a
form of pneumonia that was resistant to penicillin. Plaintiffs' attorneys
contend the camp's nurse and Correctional Services Corp., which contracted to
run the camp for the county's judges and probation department, failed to
provide Alexander with timely and adequate medical care. "They
watched him die," Charlie Smith said in opening statements. He is one of
seven attorneys representing Alexander's parents, Rickey Alexander and Judy
Schumpert. Visiting State District Judge Roger Towery is presiding over
the trial, and a five-woman, seven-man jury will decide the case. The
plaintiffs' attorneys contend Bryan Alexander tried to get medical attention
as early as Dec. 31 but was not seen until Jan. 5. Alexander had been given
over-the-counter medication to treat a cold or flu. Alexander's parents
are suing CSC and the camp's former nurse, Knyvett Reyes, who was hired by
the company. Reyes was convicted of negligent homicide last year in
Alexander's death. Attorneys on both sides are awaiting clarification from
the 2nd Court of Appeals in Fort Worth on whether that conviction is final or
under appeal. Vic Anderson, an attorney for CSC, said Reyes acted appropriately
in treating what she believed was the flu or strep throat and could not have
known the severity of Alexander's illness. "We do not deny the
fact that Mr. Alexander was ill and began feeling bad sometime in late
December or early January," Anderson said in opening statements.
"But a lot of people at the facility were feeling bad," he
said. "There was an outbreak of flu. It was not an unusual thing
for someone at the camp to say they are sick to get out of work or to get a trip
to the hospital." Alexander died two days after being taken to
John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth on Jan. 7, 2001. "Just because
there is a death doesn't necessarily mean there is someone at fault,"
Anderson said. Texas Rangers Sgt. Alvin Alexis testified that the boot
camp had a policy of requiring probationers at the 370-bed Mansfield facility
to take over-the-counter drugs for three days before they could request a
visit to the camp's nurse. Alexis said Alexander complained of coughing
up blood but had to take cold and flu pills for three days and then tried for
another three days to visit the camp's nurse. Alexis based his conclusions on
CSC records and interviews with CSC employees and boot camp inmates.
Reyes' attorney, Michael Wallach, told jurors they should question the
reliability of inmates' statements, even Alexander's. "You will
have to determine whether Bryan Alexander was a reliable historian of his own
health problems," he said. The civil lawsuit, which initially
sought more than $700 million in damages, is expected to last more than a
month, court officials said. Attorneys for Alexander's parents are not
disclosing how much in damages they'll seek at the conclusion of the
trial. (Fort Worth Star Telegram)
July 14, 2003
Jury selection begins today in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the
parents of an 18-year-old Arlington man who died after becoming ill at a
former Mansfield facility for probationers. While serving a sentence
for drunken driving, Bryan Alexander developed a rare lung infection and died
Jan. 9, 2001, two days after being transferred to a Fort Worth
hospital. Alexander's parents, Rickey Alexander and Judy Schumpert, are
suing Correctional Services Corp., the Florida-based private contractor that
operated the camp, and its former nurse, Knyvett Reyes, who was convicted in
Alexander's death last year. The lawsuit, which initially sought $755
million, contends that the camp and its employees ignored warning signs of
Alexander's failing health. Attorneys for Correctional Services and Reyes
did not return phone calls Friday. The lawsuit may help prevent other
inmates' medical concerns from being ignored, attorneys for Alexander's
parents say. Last year, Reyes, the camp's former nurse, was sentenced
to two years in jail, but a probationary sentence was imposed in lieu of jail
time. She was also ordered to pay $10,939.74 in restitution. The attorneys
for the state and for Reyes negotiated the sentence. Reyes' attorney,
Jack Strickland, is trying to appeal the conviction. But the special
prosecutor in the case is fighting the request, meaning that Reyes'
conviction can be used as evidence in the civil case, attorneys say.
Plaintiff attorneys said they will focus on Reyes' actions in Alexander's
death and how the private contractor limited inmates' access to medical
attention. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office ruled that
Alexander died of pneumonia caused by an antibiotic-resistant infection.
Doctors at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth could not detect and treat
the infection in time to save his life. Six months after Alexander's
death, the county's 19 criminal-court judges voted to close the boot camp and
residential drug-treatment programs at the 370-bed facility. The judges also
voted to end the county's $2.9 million annual contract with Correctional
Services Corp. (Star-Telegram)
January
22, 2003
A former Mansfield boot camp nurse
convicted of negligent homicide in the 2001 death of an inmate is appealing
and asking for a new trial. Knyvett
Reyes, 36, was sentenced in August to four years of community supervision for
the death of boot camp probationer Bryan Alexander, 18, of Arlington. Reyes
struck a deal with prosecutors to avoid serving two years in state jail. The judge who presided over the non-jury
trial in June found that Reyes failed to provide timely and adequate medical
care to the teen-ager, who died of a rare lung infection that was resistant
to antibiotics. Alexander's parents
are suing Reyes, the boot camp's doctor and a Florida-based private
contractor that ran the facility. The suit contends that Alexander's pleas
for medical help were ignored and his death could have been prevented. The civil case is scheduled to begin July 7
in Judge Tom Lowe's 236th District Court. (Star_Telegram)
December
31, 2002
Attorneys for parents of an 18-year old who died after falling ill at a
Mansfield boot camp filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Tarrant County
and its 19 judges who managed the correctional center. The lawsuit
contends that the judges who supervised the Tarrant County Community
Correctional Facility failed to ensure that its staff provided proper medical
care for Bryan Alexander, 18, of Arlington. The boot camp's former
nurse, Knyvett Reyes, was sentenced in August to four years of community supervision.
She was convicted of negligent homicide in Alexander's death for failing to
provide the teen-ager with timely medical care. A $755 million wrongful
death lawsuit filed by Alexander's family is pending. (Star-Telegram)
August
31, 2002
FORT WORTH - Former Mansfield boot camp nurse Knyvett Reyes was sentenced
Friday to four years community supervision for negligent homicide and ordered
to pay restitution to Bryan Alexander's family. Alexander, an 18-year-old
probationer at the boot camp, died in 2001 of a lung infection that led to
pneumonia after leaving her care. During her trial, the prosecution accused
Reyes of failing to provide adequate and timely attention. Reyes was
sentenced to two years in jail, but the probationary sentence was imposed in
lieu of jail time. Reyes was also ordered to pay $10,939.74 in restitution.
The attorneys for the state and Reyes negotiated the sentence. Alexander, who
was in the boot camp because of a drunken-driving conviction, died after
being taken from the camp to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth. Reyes
is also barred from performing any nursing duties involving direct patient
care during her probation. She is working as a hospital clerk. Barring an
appeal, criminal proceedings are now concluded. But family members have filed
a $755 million wrongful death civil lawsuit. The family two weeks ago moved
to add Tarrant County's 19 criminal judge to the suit. (Star-telegram)
June
29, 2002
A nurse accused in the death of a
probationer at the former Mansfield boot camp was convicted Friday of
negligent homicide. Knyvett Reyes, 36, of Arlington, faces up to two years in
state jail in the death of 18-year-old Bryan Alexander, a probationer at the
camp. "It's kind of difficult to feel sorry for nurse Reyes because she
didn't show any empathy for Bryan," the teen's father, Rickey Alexander,
said outside the courtroom. "The important thing for us was we didn't
want her in a position where she could do the same thing to some other
person." "Bryan Alexander died as a result of being ignored,"
special prosecutor Bill Turner said during closing arguments. A pending $755
million wrongful death lawsuit in Alexander's death kept the courtroom packed
throughout Reyes' two-week trial. Alexander's parents are suing Florida-based
Correctional Services Corp., the private company that ran the 370-bed
Mansfield facility for probationers. (The Star-Telegram)
June
28, 2002
A former boot camp nurse thought an
inmate who died after complaining of coughing up blood had a cold or strep
throat, she testified Thursday. Knyvett Reyes, 36, of Arlington, is being
tried on charges of manslaughter and negligent homicide in the death of Bryan
Alexander, a probationer at the Mansfield camp. Prosecutors contend Reyes
failed to provide Alexander with adequate and timely medical attention.
Witnesses for the prosecution have said Reyes was skeptical of inmates'
illnesses, and that she did not provide physicians with enough information to
detect Alexander's infection. During Reyes' cross-examination, special
prosecutor Bill Turner accused her of altering Alexander's medical records,
ignoring his complaints and failing to take some vital signs that could have
helped doctors save the teen-ager's life. Turner accused Reyes of creating
records after Alexander died to help in her defense. Original boot camp
records and inmate's files have not been located, he said. (The
Star-Telegram)
June
25, 2002
A Colorado prison warden testified
Monday that a Mansfield boot camp nurse could not have known an inmate under
her care had a fatal illness based on his written request for medical
treatment. The nurse, Knyvett Jane Reyes, is on trial on negligent homicide
and manslaughter charges in the death of 18-year-old Bryan Alexander, a
probationer at the camp who medical examiners determined died of a form of
pneumonia. Prosecutors have argued that Reyes did not thoroughly examine
Alexander. They contended she should have taken several vital signs, such as
his blood pressure and heart rate, which would have revealed a rare infection
that eventually caused his death Jan. 9. An official with the state nurse
licensing agency testified last week that Reyes should have sent Alexander to
a doctor Jan. 5. Alexander was taken to the hospital Jan. 7 and died two days
later. Special prosecutor Lindsey Roberts said Alexander's weight loss -
about 25 pounds during his two months at the camp - and claims that he was
coughing up blood should have been red flags. Roberts said Alexander was 6
feet tall and weighed 150 pounds when he died. (The Star-Telegram)
September 27, 2001
The boy knew rage. A troublemaking, dope-smoking misfit, "Brad" was
in and out of trouble with the law, and more in than out. He ran away from
home, stayed out all night, stole. Help came in the form of confinement to a
juvenile "boot camp" run by Correctional Services Corp., a private
company that manages two Dallas County juvenile facilities. Sent to CSC's
program for emotionally disturbed youths in Southern Dallas, Brad's condition
quickly deteriorated. Privately, the boy's group counselor told his
grandmother, "I am not qualified. I do not have the education. He needs
more than I can give him." Those words, from one of CSC's own employees,
might be used to sum up the company's long and troubled history of running
juvenile and other jail facilities here and nationwide with what one critic
calls a "Costco" approach to juvenile treatment. It is a track
record that includes chilling episodes of sexual abuse, gross mismanagement
and, in one Tarrant County case, the death of an 18-year-old. In the past
decade, in New York, Florida and Texas, local authorities and the federal
government have canceled contracts with CSC, following a host of complaints
from former CSC inmates and their families. One top Texas government official
in the juvenile justice system, who declined to be named, says CSC has a
two-pronged pitch when it sells its services. First, it promises much lower
costs. The Texas Youth Commission, for instance, budgets $129 per day per
juvenile at its facilities, compared with the $80 or $90 a day CSC charges.
In other instances, CSC pledges to help counties make money. At CSC boot
camps in North Texas, drill instructors are hired at $7.46 an hour. Their
training consists of observing other instructors for a week, before being put
to work. "There were a whole lot of people hired to do jobs they didn't
know how to do," says one educator who taught at the facility, speaking
on the condition that she not be identified. She worked for another company
hired by the county to provide schooling at the CSC facility but quit after
six months because she believed she and her staff, who went for weeks without
offices or phones, were ill-equipped to handle their responsibilities. One
fresh-out-of-college education major, she recalls, was handed the
responsibility of developing a special education program. After the July 1999
attack on his grandmother, Brad was taken to the Dallas County juvenile
detention center. A month later, state District Judge Hal Gaither committed
him to the CSC boot camp. Initially, his grandmother welcomed the
development. She believed the help she had sought had finally arrived. But
even behind bars he continued to misbehave and spent countless hours,
sometimes shackled and handcuffed, seated on a concrete bench in a small
confinement room that reeked of urine. Brad, like many of his peers, did not
meet with an individual counselor, family counselor or psychiatrist for
months. When he did see a doctor, the juvenile simply told the psychiatrist
to halt his prescribed drugs, and the physician agreed, according to records.
The lack of promised counseling wasn't unique to Brad's case. Attorney Craig
Sargent represented a mentally retarded client sent to CSC's unit for
emotionally disturbed kids. His client, he says, was also denied the family
counseling he had been promised. At a hearing to determine whether the boy
should be sent to a Texas Youth Commission facility, Sargent grilled a CSC
drill instructor and program director Brown. The instructor testified that
despite working with the youth every day, she had not realized he was
mentally handicapped. "That would be important to know when you're
addressing someone as far as their mental capacity and their ability to
follow your directive, if they have any defect. Would you agree with
me?" Sargent asked. "Yes, sir," the employee replied. For four
months, CSC had been receiving $82 a day to treat the boy, Sargent notes.
"It pissed me off as a taxpayer," he recalls. In the late '90s, the
company ran into similar problems in Florida. Dade County officials
terminated contracts when they discovered CSC had deliberately kept
delinquents beyond their release dates to pocket extra money. The local
school district paid the company to teach kids in its custody; CSC was
accused of collecting money for days when it provided no schooling.
"They are a completely greedy company. They have a Costco approach to
meaningful intervention," says Marie Osborne, an assistant public
defender in Dade County who went to court to get 11 of her indigent clients
removed from a CSC facility. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice
conducted a study of the facility and found a lack of training, inadequate
background checks on employees and inadequate food service. Employees had
even helped stage fights between 13- and 14-year-olds while their peers
watched and referred to these bloody scrabbles as "The Main Event"
in memos, according to CSC employees' testimonies. The lawsuits against CSC
are mounting to the point analysts say that they are threatening the
corporate bottom line. Once a Wall Street darling, CSC has fallen on hard
times. (Dallas Observer)
July 13, 2001
Five former Mansfield boot camp inmates filed a civil lawsuit Thursday,
alleging that they were sexually harassed or given inadequate medical care
while housed there. Two female plaintiffs allege that a male guard
fondled them and repeatedly made sexually suggestive comments. Three
former male inmates allege that they suffered long-term physical problems
after failing to receive prompt and adequate medical attention.
Arlington attorney Howard Rosenstein, who filed the suit Thursday,
represented three female former boot camp inmates who won a $2.8 million
award in a sexual harassment suit against Correctional Services Corp. in
March. "Again, we find ourselves in the situation where, due to
the absence of enforcement of a security policy at CSC, instructors and
guards were allowed to isolate, torment and sexually abuse these women,"
Mr. Rosenstein said. The suit is the latest in a series of legal
battles facing the company, which operates more than a dozen facilities in
Texas and runs facilities in 18 states. A $ 755 million lawsuit
alleging inadequate medical care was filed by the parents of Bryan Alexander,
who died Jan. 9 from pneumonia while an inmate at the boot camp. The
company also faces a civil lawsuit by a former operations manager who alleges
that he was improperly fired for reporting staffing shortages. The
company has repeatedly denied the allegations in those cases. (The Dallas
Morning News)
June
21, 2001
A panel of judges voted unanimously Wednesday to close the Mansfield boot
camp and residential drug treatment facility July 6 and reopen it as a day
treatment program for probationers. The Board of Criminal Judges, with 11
of its 19 members in attendance, decided to move up the closure date from
Aug. 31. A contract with Florida-based Correctional Services Corp. to
operate the 370-bed facility ends Aug. 31, but the company has agreed to end
its obligations sooner. The judges voted this year not to renew the
contract with Correctional Services Corp. The company came under
scrutiny after some female inmates were sexually assaulted by employees and
because of questions about the quality of health care for inmates.
Probationer Bryan Alexander, 18, of Arlington died of pneumonia Jan. 9, two
days after being transported to a Fort Worth hospital. Alexander's
parents have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the nurse who treated
him, the company and others. (The Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
May
19, 2001
Two Tarrant County judges pulled about a dozen probationers from
drug-rehabilitation programs at the Mansfield boot camp facility Thursday
after reports that a guard had consensual sex with an inmate. Boot camp
administrator Randy Tate declined to discuss details of the allegations,
other than saying that the reports are being investigated and that the guard
has been suspended. State District Judges Jamie Cummings and Sharen
Wilson removed probationers from the substance-abuse treatment program at the
facility Thursday after officials notified the county's probation department
of the reports. (Arlington Morning News)
May
17, 2001
A privately operated prison that was the subject of a Texas Rangers
investigation over prisoners' treatment will now be shuttered. The
370-bed Tarrant Community Corrections Facility will close in less than three
months due to a $2.8 million budget shortfall. Earlier this year, the
judges voted to not renew a contract with Florida-based Correctional Services
Corp. to operate the facility. The company, which has run the center
since 1992, has been criticized because of escapes, sexual assaults by
employees and questions about the health care inmates have received.
Earlier this month, a Tarrant County grand jury indicted a nurse who provided
medical treatment for a boot camp probationer until two days before he died
of pneumonia. (AP)
May
4, 2001
Rick Alexander, hat clutched in hand, sat for nearly 50 minutes as a lawyer
defended the woman the Arlington resident is convinced helped kill his
18-year-old son. Mr. Alexander listened intently as Fort Worth attorney
Jack V. Strickland lambasted the Tarrant County grand jury's indictment on
charges of manslaughter and negligent homicide against Knyvett Jane Reyes, a
nurse at the Mansfield boot camp where Bryan Alexander was an inmate.
" I don't think that Nurse Reyes is a victim," Mr. Alexander said
in a hallway at the Tarrant County Justice Center. "Bryan told me
he filled out three requests, not to see the doctor, but to go to the
hospital. But he said, ' She's real mean and she doesn't like me. ' He
told me that himself." Bryan Alexander died Jan. 9 at John Peter
Smith Hospital in Fort Worth. He was sentenced to the camp for assault
and drunken driving. The teen filed a written request for medical
attention Jan. 4. Camp officials contend that he was seen by Ms. Reyes
the next day and given antibiotics, but the teen was required to continue a
workout regimen through Jan. 6. James Slattery, chief executive officer
of Sarasota, Fla.-based Correctional Services Corp., was out of town Thursday
and was unavailable for comment on the pending court case. (Arlington
Morning Star)
May
4, 2001
A 35-year-old nurse at the Mansfield boot camp was indicted Thursday on
charges of manslaughter and negligent homicide in connection with the death
of an 18-year-old inmate. The indictment alleges that Knyvett Jane
Reyes recklessly and negligently caused the death of Bryan Alexander of
Arlington by failing to adequately assess his condition, report his illness
and provide adequate care at the Tarrant County Community Correctional
Facility. The two-page indictment states that Ms. Reyes failed to
adequately assess and evaluate Mr. Alexander's medical status, failed to
accurately report his status to the boot camp's attending physician, and
failed to stabilize Mr. Alexander's medical condition and prevent
complications. The indictment also says Ms. Reyes did not order bed
rest, and did not prohibit strenuous physical exertion or transfer Mr.
Alexander to the hospital in a timely manner. Florida-based
Correctional Services Corp. has operated the Mansfield facility since
1992. The boot camp is part of the Tarrant County Community
Correctional Facility. (Arlington Morning News)
May
4, 2001
The parents of a Mansfield boot camp inmate, who died of pneumonia days after
complaining of being ill, filed a $755 million wrongful death lawsuit Friday
against the company that runs the camp and others. Bryan Alexander, 18,
of Arlington, died Jan. 9, two days after being transferred from the camp to
Fort Worth's John Peter Smith Hospital. The lawsuit contends the camp
and its employees ignored signs of Alexander's "falling health" and
were grossly negligent in providing medical treatment. Defendants in
the lawsuit are Correctional Services Corp., a private, Florida-based company
that runs the camp; CSC attorney Tony Schaffer; the Tarrant County Community
and Corrections Department; CSC nurse Knyvett Reyes; and Dr. Samuel Lee, who was
employed by the company. Reyes was indicated Thursday on a charge of
manslaughter and negligent homicide in Alexander's death. An Austin
administration law judge, who suspended Reyes' nursing license in March,
wrote that Alexander "would most likely have been" cured if his
illness was diagnosed earlier and treated with other antibiotics. In
February, three former inmates were awarded $2.8 million by a Tarrant County
judge for sexual harassment the women suffered at the facility.
(Star-Telegram)
April
20, 2001
Members of Tarrant County's judiciary have voted to stop sending probationers
to the Mansfield boot camp out of concerns that there won't be enough money
to keep the camp open long enough for the next platoon to graduate.
Under the contract with Florida-based Correctional Services Corp., the county
pays $21.94 a day per bed, regardless of whether the beds are occupied. This
arrangement will continue until the contract expires Sept. 1. The
judges voted in February to manage the facility after the private
contractor's contract expires in September. Allegations of sexual
harassment by guards and the death of a probationer in January have plagued
the boot camp. (The Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
April
6, 2001
A Tarrant County grand jury will decide whether to indict officials at the
Mansfield boot camp in connection with the death of a former inmate, a
special prosecutor said Thursday. Grand jurors will hear evidence April
25 from witnesses and the Texas Ranger's investigation into the death of
18-year-old Bryan Alexander of Arlington, who was an inmate at the boot camp,
also known as the Tarrant County Community Correctional Facility. Mr.
Smith has notified Correctional Services Corp., which has run the boot camp
since it opened in1992, that the Alexander family may file a civil
lawsuit. A Correctional Services Corp., official said Thursday that a
grand jury was the proper venue for consideration of the investigation.
The Texas State Board of Nurses Examiners on March 2 indefinitely suspended the
license of Knyvett Jane Reyes, the boot camp nurse who provided medical care
to the teenager. Two other inmates have alleged that they received
inadequate medical care at the camp, charges facility officials have
denied. The Board of Criminal Court Judges voted Feb. 21 to assume
management of the 370-bed facility when Correctional Services' operating
contract ends Aug. 31. On March 5, a Tarrant County judge awarded $2.8
million in damages to three female former inmates who sued Correctional
Services Corp. and a former drill instructor for sexual harassment.
(The Dallas Morning News)
March
21, 2001
A Tarrant County criminal justice task force has recommended that the
Mansfield boot camp program be discontinued and its beds used for housing
probation violators. If approved, the program would occupy the 120 beds
currently used for the boot camp. (Dallas Morning News, March 21, 2001)
March
6, 2001
Bryan Alexander's medical treatment while incarcerated at the Mansfield boot
camp was so poor that one official compared it to "modern day
torture," and the nurse supervising him has her license temporarily
suspended. Knyvett Jane Reyes' nursing license by the Texas State Board of
Nurse Examiners was suspended Feb. 13, according to documents released Monday
by State Sen. Chris Harris' office. Mr. Alexander died Jan. 9 at John Peter
Smith Hospital of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia caused by a staphylococcus
inflection. Charles Smith, attorney for Rick Alexander, Bryan Alexander's
father, said the nurse's suspension validates his client's claims. "This
is what we've been saying all along, that medical service was
substandard," he said. On Jan. 3, Mr. Alexander first notified medical
staff through a locked drop box that he was not feeling well. Inmates at the
boot camp submit sick forms into a locked box. In the case of Mr. Alexander,
his form was not read until Jan. 4.Documents show Mr. Alexander was not
assesses by Ms. Reyes until Jan.5, two days after he filled out a report
detailing his complaints of flu-like symptoms. "I caught the flu or
something from somebody. My whole body is sore. It hurts real bad when I
cough," Mr. Alexander wrote on Jan. 3. "My nose gets closed up to
where I can't even breathe and the pills I've been taking are not working.
Mr. Reyes, who had been on Christmas vacation, returned to work Jan. 3.
According to the drill instructor's testimony, Ms. Reyes was aware of the
ailing teen's symptoms Jan. 4. On Jan. 5, he filled out another form.
According to registered nurse carol Dobrich, an independent expert hired by
the board to review the case, the treatment of Mr. Alexander, who died at
John Peter Smith Hospital on Jan. 9, amounted to "modern day
torture." "By 2 p.m. on January 5th, once she knew Bryan Alexander
had as temperature of 101, and a red, sore throat, respondent knew he had an
infection," according to Ms. Dobrich's testimony, outline in the order
suspending the license. "And her failure to have him seen by a doctor or
send him immediately to the emergency room was an inappropriate nursing
response. (Arlington Morning News)
March
1, 2001
Three women who allege they were sexually harassed while inmates at the
Mansfield boot camp asked a state judge Wednesday for up to $4 million in
damages. "If this court does not dress down and discipline this attitude
every women, everyone else, is subject to the same consideration these women
got," Brice Cottongame, the attorney representing the three women, said
in closing arguments. But the attorney for Correctional Services Corp., the
Florida-based company that operates the boot camp, said employees, not the
company, are at fault. the civil trail's final day included testimony from a
Correctional Services executive, who refuted earlier testimony from a state
senator. On Wednesday, Mr. Rau suggested that the senator misinterpreted a
comment he made. "I did not make any statement like that," Mr. Rau
said. "There was point in the conversation where I said I would like to
get all the facts and hear both sides of the story. "The senator said, "What
could the other side of the story be?' which is when the statement was made.
That is the other side of the story." "We stand of Senator Harris'
credibility," Mr. Cottongame said. "Sen. Harris has no ax to grind,
no interest in this lawsuit." (Arlington Morning News)
February
27, 2001
In the latter dated Jan. 30, 2000 - 11 days after Kari Echels Chattha
graduated from the boot camp - she wrote to Joseph Fonville telling him she
missed him and she was worried about him. She used the term of endearment
"honey." Tony Schaffer, an attorney representing Correctional
Services Corp., which runs the boot camp, said Mrs. Chattha 's letter proves
she was involved romantically with Mr. Fonville. Mrs. Chattha, 19, and two
other plaintiffs, Karen fowler, 21, and Annawaynette Creek, 33 allege in
their suit they were fondled and sexually harassed by boot camp workers
during their incarceration at the Mansfield boot camp over a seven-month
period in 1999. Ms. Fowler and Ms. Creek also are suing former boot camp
maintenance worker Michael Zahn. Fred Bagely, a former vice president of CSC,
testified in a videotaped deposition that sexual harassment was a problem at
the Mansfield Facility. he initially learned of the allegations made by Mrs.
Chattha, Ms. Fowler and Ms. Creek in 1999. he said. (Arlington Morning News)
February
26, 2001
The county's 19 criminal court judges voted unanimously last week to stop
using a private contractor at the Tarrant County Community Corrections
Facility, which houses the boot camp and three substance abuse programs. Three
former female inmates are suing Florida-based Correctional Services Corp.,
alleging sexual abuse at the 370-bed facility. The company's contract expires
Sept. 1. The lawsuit's allegations are among recent criticisms of the
facility. Accusations of sexual misconduct by male guards against female
inmates have plagued the camp since it opened in 1992. The facility has also
endured accusations of the staff shortages and questions of proper medical
care. Bryan Alexander, 18, a boot camp inmate, died of pneumonia Jan. 9.
Relatives allege he didn't receive timely medical care. "I don't think
any of us want to see CSC or any private company run this camp any
longer," Judge Gallagher said last week. State Sen. Chris Harris,
R-Arlington, who testified against Correctional Services Corp. on Friday in
civil trail, said the company's problems may be a result of paying many of
its employees near the minimum wage. Last year, 50 of 77 employees at the
facility were paid less than $17,000 per year, according to company records.
"They are in business of making money," Harris said. "As
result, they are out there cutting corners." Attorneys for the
plaintiffs have alleged that a corporate culture exists at the company. On
Friday, Harris testified that a company executive vice president told him in
a telephone conversation that the women at the boot camp "got what they
wanted." He said the company "seemed to have no concern about what
happened to the women." According to the company's contract, a female inmate
cannot be alone with a male guard unless a female guard is present. Testimony
during the first three days suggested that staff shortages prevented the
company from following its policy of female inmate supervision, which is part
of its contract with the county's probation department. "They are
allowing employees to work 16-hour shifts, and sometimes more than
that," Harris said outside the court after his testimony Friday.
"It obviously came down to the corporate bottom line."
(Star-Telegram)
February
23 , 2001
The private company that operates the Mansfield boot camp filed false reports
about staffing hours to Tarrant County officials, the facility's former
manager testified Thursday. John Renfroe, a former U.S. Army lieutenant
colonel who worked for the Florida-based Correctional Services Corp. between
June 1994 and June 2000, testified that he had reported the practice to his
supervisors since 1995. "The data that had been in the monthly reports
indicated that CSC as meeting or exceeding contract hour requirements,"
said Mr. Renfroe, a witness in a civil trail in which three women are suing
the company because of sexual harassment at the facility. "If you did
the math, what was being reported included extraneous, inappropriate
figures." (Arlington Morning News)
February
22, 2001
Tarrant County criminal judges agreed Wednesday to assume management of
the Mansfield boot camp when a contract with Correctional Services Corp. ends
in August. the 19-member Board of Criminal Judges cited a $2.5 million budget
shortfall in its decision not to renew the private company's contract. The
facility could close by Sept. 1 if the legislature does not approve
additional funding, the judges said. Recent controversies - including the
death of an inmate, the hospitalization of two others and allegations of
sexual exploitation of female inmates - were factors in the decision.
State Sen. Chris Harris, R-Fort Worth, who has strongly criticized the boot
camp's operation, praised the judges' decision and said he will ask other
state agencies funding. "I think the judges are the ones who are
accountable on that since they're the ones with the oversight," Mr.
Harris said. "I think this is smartest thin they can do." (Dallas
Morning News)
February
22, 2001
The private company that runs the Mansfield Boot Camp was negligent in
allowing two former workers to sexually harass women at the facility. an
attorney for the three former inmates said in court Wednesday. An attorney
for Florida-based Correctional Services corp. apologized for the incidents
and defended the company's record of quality management. Ms. Fowler and Ms.
Creek allege former maintenance worker Michael Zahn sexually harassed and
exploited them during their several month stays in 1999 at the boot camp.
Mrs. Chattha alleges Joseph Fonville forced her to participate in improper
sexual activity during her 1999 stay. In July, Mr. Zahn received two years'
probation after he pleaded guilty to two counts of official oppression in
connection with both incidents. "The attitude of this corporate defendant
will outrage you." (Arlington Morning News)
February
22, 2001
As compliance officer at the Mansfield boot camp, John Renfore spent six
years faulting the private contractor that runs the facility, citing staff
shortages and a failure to protect female inmates from sexual abuse. That
testimony Thursday before 141st District Court Judge Paul Enlow bolstered the
case of the three former female inmates who are suing Florida-based
Correctional Services Corp., which runs 370-bed facility for probationers. The
women assaults contend CSC employees sexually abused then while they were
serving sentences at the Tarrant County Community Corrections facility in
Mansfield. On Thursday, Renfore said he outlined staffing shortages and
inadequate supervision of female inmates in numerous memos that he sent to
CSC officials and his bosses with Tarrant County Community Corrections
Department. those complaints began in 1995 and continued until the probation
department fired him in June, he said. Fort Worth lawyer W. Brice Cottongame,
who is representing the women, said the incidents were caused by a corporate
culture in CSC that does not protect female inmates and ignores their
complaints of abuse. Sherry Johnson, who worked as a drill instructor at the
camp last year, said grievances filed by inmates are often thrown away or
shredded by CSC supervisors. She also said CSC employees retaliate against
inmates who file grievances. "They would read them out loud and laugh,
then throw them in the trash," she said. "They would be disregarded
for misspelling a CSC employee's name." (Star-Telegram)
February
07, 2001
The former operations manager of a Mansfield boot camp filed a lawsuit
Tuesday charging he was unjustly fired after pointing out deficiencies at the
camp. Mr. Renfore says his relationship with Correctional Services and Ms.
Calaway soured 1999 after he began filing critical reports with boot camp
administrators. The reports said that because of staff shortages, the company
was not keeping the facility properly cleaned and maintained, and not
adequately supervising its staff and did not have enough drill staff on duty
to properly supervise probationers.
(Arlington Morning News).
January
23, 2001
The Texas Rangers agreed Wednesday to act on a local judge's request for an independent
investigation into the death of an 18-yeat old former Mansfield inmate. Mr.
Harris, who called for wholesale changes at the boot camp five months ago in
the wake of the alleged sexual abuse of three former inmates. since the Mr.
Alexander's death, various judges have removes more the 50 of the camp's 120
inmates. (Arlington Morning News)
December
14, 2000
A former employee of the private company that operates a North Texas
correctional facility is denying a lawsuit's claims that female inmates were
sexually harassed. Zahn, in deposition released this week, said his behavior
was limited to peeping through an attic vent while one of the women performed
unsolicited sexual acts. (Arlington Morning News)
October
2, 2000
Three teenagers ran from security officers and scaled a seven foot fence in a
recreation yard at the minimum-security center for non-violent offenders.
(Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Oct.6, 2000)
January
16, 2000
Accusations that neglect caused the death of an inmate at a Mansfield
boot camp last week may slam the door on a million-dollar deal for Tarrant
County to lease its long-shuttered Cold Springs Correctional Facility,
officials said Tuesday. The contract to operate the 384-bed Cold Springs
facility for state inmates. After months of negotiations and some last minute
changes, the contract, signed by CSC officials, was received by county
officials Tuesday. But all five members of Commissioners Court and the
sheriff now say they won't approve it unless the investigation into the death
last week of 18-year old Bryan D. Alexander -- whose family says boot
officials failed to get him proper medical care for pneumonia -- shows that
CSC was not at fault. County officials' concerns about contracting with CSC
for new prisoners were heightened last week when several district judges
began pulling offenders out of the facility after Alexander died. The boot
camp has gone through a year of turmoil, including escapes and allegations of
drill instructors sexually assaulting female inmates, and has struggled with
staffing. Similar issues plagued the facility in the mid-1990's, said James
Slattery. Commissioners Dionne Bagsby and Marti Vanravenswaay voted against
the CSC contract last year, saying they were concerned about problems at the
boot camp. (Star-Telegram)
Colorado County
Juvenile Facility
Eagle Lake, Texas
Correctional Services Corporation
February 7, 2006 The Victoria Advocate
Colorado County officials are expected to decide today if the county will
close the Eagle Lake Juvenile Detention Facility Boot Camp. The decision will
be made during a special commissioners court meeting at 9 a.m. The only item
on the agenda is to consider authorizing County Judge Al Jamison to close
operation of the boot camp. The county has been operating the facility since
Sept. 1 after the previous operator, Florida-based Correction Services
Corporation, notified the county it would end its contract on Aug. 31. The
court conducted a six-month review, Jamison said in a Monday phone interview.
"We're losing money on the facility and I would like to shut it down and
quit the bleeding."
September
5, 2002
A juvenile sent to a military-style correctional boot camp in Eagle Lake died
Saturday from what officials there said was a "clear case of
suicide." Police in Eagle Lake were contacted after the young man's
death and are conducting an investigation, MacIntyre said. They could not be
reached for comment Sunday. The Colorado County facility, operated by the
Sarasota, Fla.-based Youth Services International, is part of a growing trend
of private correctional centers. (The Houston Chronicle)
Community House Arrest Program
Wichita County
September 20, 2003
Since
the Community House Arrest Program started six months ago in Wichita County,
the program has led to a hotbed of controversy, confusion and hard feelings. But, for better
or worse, CHAP is flat-lining this month. The program,
designed to monitor people charged with non-violent crimes with electronic
ankle bracelets until they are sentenced or charges are dropped, is expected
to shut down by Oct. 1, program administrators said Thursday.
"Although
the commissioners, several judges and many in the Sheriff's Department are
behind the concept of the house arrest and its potential benefits, there can
be no such program without a concerted effort from the staff of the District
Attorney's Office," (Times Record News)
Cornell
Companies
(bought
by GEO Group)
Houston, Texas
How
The Recession Hurts Private Prisons Nancy Cook, Newsweek June 30, 2010
October 25, 2011 AP
The management company that formerly ran a Rhode Island prison is suing the
facility's governing body, saying it is owed more than $671,000, according to
a complaint filed in federal court. In a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S.
District Court in Providence, Cornell Corrections of Rhode Island, Inc. says
the corporation running the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central
Falls still owes money it agreed to pay the firm in 2008. The prison is run
by the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation, a quasi-public agency.
Cornell Corrections operated Wyatt from its opening in 1993 to July 31, 2007,
when the corporation took over, according to a 2009 report on the facility.
Cornell Corrections says it reached a deal in 2008 with the corporation over
the amount of money it was owed under an earlier agreement. The lawsuit says
Wyatt's governing board still hasn't paid. The suit seeks $671,808, plus
interest, costs and attorneys' fees. The corporation stopped making full
payments to Cornell Corrections in 2006, according to a report released last
month by former R.I. Auditor General Ernest A. Almonte. As of August 2007,
the corporation owed Cornell Corrections more than $3.9 million, Almonte's
report found. The 776-bed facility houses medium- and maximum-security
federal detainees awaiting trial or transfer to federal Bureau of Prisons
facilities. It lost a contract to house federal immigration detainees after
one died in its custody in 2008. The jail has been beset by financial
problems in recent years, having lost $6.2 million and taken on $3.5 million
in additional debt from 2007 to 2009, Almonte's report said. The city of
Central Falls once banked on revenue from the prison, but hasn't been paid in
three years. The city filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. Attorneys for
Cornell Corrections and the corporation did not immediately return messages
on Tuesday.
September
1, 2010 Smart Money
Owners of municipal bonds issued to pay for jails might not get to pass
Go--and could have trouble collecting interest payments as well. These tax
free bonds don't have a monopoly on defaults, but they're well represented
among failures and troubled issues among the more speculative classes of
municipal bonds. Data from Municipal Market Advisors reveals a slew of
tax-free bonds issued to fund construction of privately run prisons and
detention facilities in states from Texas to Rhode Island to Montana. The
most recent example is Littlefield, a West Texas town of about 6,500 people.
Located between the New Mexico border and Buddy Holly's hometown of Lubbock,
Littlefield had to dip into reserves to cover payments for about $1.2 in
bonds and other debt used to finance the Bill Clayton Detention Center. The
bonds were issued in 2000, but the expected revenue stream evaporated when,
after a prisoner suicide in 2008, the 310-bed private prison lost its
contract to house out-of-state inmates. In 2009, the Geo Group (GEO),
formerly known as Wackenhut Security, ended its operating agreement with the
detention center, leaving it unoccupied. In April, Fitch Ratings, which in
2009 lowered the bonds to BB from BBB, affirmed a negative rating outlook.
Littlefield city manager Danny Davis says the city is scrambling to avoid
default on the $780,000 worth of annual payments and plans to cut police and
fire service while dramatically raising property taxes when the new fiscal
year begins Oct. 1. The property could be sold or could be taken over by the state,
though neither option is certain. "It's going to be difficult," he
says. "In the meantime, we're just trying to keep our heads above water
until we get to a solution." Bob Libal is the Texas campaign coordinator
for Grassroots Leadership, a lobbying group which opposes for-profit prisons,
and the editor of the blog Texas Prison Bid'ness. He says many small towns
agree to build "speculative prisons" to be run by private
contractors using municipal bond financing but that many of these projects in
a post-Sept. 11 boom have had trouble. Libal criticizes the development
groups that get paid up front for building detention centers thus saddling
the bond-issuers (usually special public facilities corporations created
solely for those projects) with risky debt. "They go after a lot of
towns without a lot of sophistication and resources to do the due
diligence," Libal says. "If they let the bonds go under, it's very
difficult for them to issue any more debt." Matt Fabian, director of
research at Municipal Market Advisors, cites similar bond woes in Central
Falls, R.I.; Hardin, Mont.; and Baker County, Fla., where about $105 million
in total debt has run into trouble because the prison projects haven't worked
out as expected. "The incarceration rates drives speculation," he
says. "There's an idea that you can profit from this prison trend."
Investors in these increasingly-insecure jail bonds have certainly had to
assume more risk, even though they get higher yields. The $99 million Central
Falls Detention Facility bond issue of 2005 entered technical default in 2009
when it drew on its reserves to make payments. The bonds, issued at par with
a yield of 7.25%, last traded at the end of 2009 at 85.3 cents to the dollar,
with a yield of 8.69%. Municipal revenue bonds issued in 2002 that funded the
West Alabama Youth Services detention facility defaulted in 2005. The bonds
last traded in February at 9 cents to the dollar with a yield of 73.6%.
Fabian says some of the biggest private prison busts are unlikely to have simple
resolutions. A shopping center is easy to repurpose; a detention center is
not. "It's hard to restructure," he says. "Even the land
underneath a prison isn't worth as much as it was." Even with a
resurgent effort by the private prison industry to use their facilities to
detain illegal immigrants and an attempt by the U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency to overhaul detention procedures, problems persist. The
Baker Correctional Development Corporation, created to finance a correctional
facility and immigration detention center west of Jacksonville, Fla., dipped
into reserves for its August payment to holders of bonds issued in 2008. With
those bonds trading last at 71.25 cents to the dollar with a yield of 20.73%,
investors looking to lock up their money should probably seek less risky
types of municipal bonds.
August
17, 2010 Market Watch
The GEO Group, Inc. (GEO 22.20, -0.17, -0.76%) ("GEO") announced
today the final results of the elections made by former stockholders of
Cornell Companies, Inc. (NYSE: CRN) ("Cornell") as to the form of
merger consideration they wish to receive in connection with the acquisition
of Cornell by GEO. GEO closed the acquisition on August 12, 2010, after
Cornell stockholders approved the transaction at a special meeting and GEO
shareholders approved the issuance of shares of GEO common stock issuable as
merger consideration at a special meeting.
August
12, 2010 AP
Private prison operator Geo Group Inc. on Thursday disclosed preliminary
results of a vote by shareholders of Cornell Companies Inc. on that company's
proposed sale to Geo Group. In all, holders of some 15.2 million shares of
Cornell common stock voted on Wednesday on how they would like to receive
their payout once the company is sold. Holders of about 54.5 percent of the
shares elected to receive Geo common stock; 21.5 percent want cash. Another
24 percent didn't make a valid election, Geo Group said. Under the terms of
the deal, Cornell shareholders had two options: Receive 1.3 shares of Geo
common stock for each Cornell share held, or cash equal to the market value
of one Geo share plus $6 or the fair market value of 1.3 shares of Geo common
stock, whichever is greater.
July
27, 2010 Charlton County Herald
For years Charlton County Schools got well over $1 million annually in state
funds to make up for the county's low tax base. Those dollars have fallen
dramatically this year, however to just $27,000. Superintendent Steve McQueen
believes local system funding has changed because of errors in the county tax
digest. Because of the drop, the Charlton County Board of Education voted
unanimously last week to appeal the digest to the state auditor’s office.
“Ultimately, what we’re trying to do is get the equalization board to
exercise their discretion and adjust our funding,” explained BOE Attorney Kelly Brooks. “When the state
auditor’s office receives our appeal, they will notify the state department
of education to hold off on the final determination of our funding for 2011.”
The lawyer says this will buy the school system 45 more days, time enough the
school board hopes, for the Charlton County Tax Assessor’s office to come up
with an accurate tax digest. “There have been substantial post-levy
reductions in the digest through timber tax appeals and Cornell’s appeal [on
the D. Ray James Prison valuation],” said Brooks. “Call me skeptical but for
six years in a row the county’s certified digest has meant nothing.” Last
year for example, Charlton County’s certified digest was $332 million but the
county, school board and cities never collected taxes on that amount. After
the state approved the digest, but before payments started coming in, the
digest dropped by $16.5 million because of the prison appeal. That one
reduction amounted to a loss in property tax revenues to the school system
last year of $252,000.
June
22, 2010 DOJ Press Release
ROBERT B. SURLES, 64, of Chicago, Illinois, was sentenced today by United
States District Judge Clarence Cooper to federal prison on charges of
conspiracy and wire fraud for his part in a scheme to defraud the operator of
a California corrections facility of almost $13 million. United States
Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, “This defendant was part of an elaborate
fraud scheme that ironically involved the construction of a prison. He will
now experience how business is conducted inside a real prison.” SURLES was
sentenced to 10 years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised
release, and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $5,417,500. SURLES
was found guilty of one count of conspiracy and 15 counts of wire fraud by a
federal jury at the conclusion of a two-week trial on February 19, 2010.
SURLES’ co-defendants, EDGAR G. BEAUDREAULT, JR. and HOWARD A. SPERLING, were
sentenced to federal prison terms on April 29, 2010, following their pleas of
guilty. Both cooperated with the government and testified in SURLES’ trial.
BEAUDREAULT is currently serving a prison sentence of three years, one month.
SPERLING is currently serving a prison sentence of five years, 10 months.
According to United States Attorney Yates, the charges and other information
presented in court: From August 2003 through January 2004, BEAUDREAULT,
SPERLING and SURLES conspired to defraud Cornell Corrections of California,
Inc., a private company that operates corrections facilities for various
governmental units. In June 2003, Cornell Corrections contracted to have a
corrections facility built in Canon City, Colorado for $13 million. The $13
million purchase price was to be held in an escrow account until the facility
was completed. In August 2003, the defendants induced Cornell Corrections to
transfer its $13 million to an account in Atlanta, which they controlled, by
falsely representing to Cornell that the account was an escrow account that
was administered by a reputable bank. Upon receipt of Cornell Corrections’
$13 million, the defendants wire transferred the majority of Cornell’s $13
million to other accounts, to be used for their own purposes. Under the terms
of their contract, the defendants were also to obtain a construction loan on
behalf of “Western Comfort, Inc.” the general contractor who began
construction of the facility. No loan was secured, making Western Comfort
another victim of this scheme. This case was investigated by special agents
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys
Bernita B. Malloy and David E. McClernan prosecuted the case.
June
2, 2010 Yahoo Business Wire
The GEO Group (NYSE: GEO - News) and Cornell Companies (NYSE: CRN - News)
announced today that the waiting-period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust
Improvements Act of 1976 with respect to the previously announced proposed
merger of GEO and Cornell Companies (NYSE:CRN - News) has expired as of 11:59
pm on Tuesday, June 1, 2010, effectively clearing the transaction by the
United States Federal Trade Commission and the United States Department of
Justice Antitrust Division. The closing of the transaction remains subject to
GEO and Cornell stockholder approval, and other customary conditions to
closing. GEO and Cornell continue to expect that the transaction will close
in the third quarter of 2010.
April
29, 2010 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An Alpharetta man was sentenced Thursday to three years and five months in
prison for bilking a Colorado corrections facility project out of nearly $13
million. Edgar J. Beaudreault Jr. pleaded guilty in December to charges of
conspiracy to commit wire fraud. In 2003, Beaudreault, 61, and San Diego
co-defendant Howard Sperling tricked Cornell Corrections of California Inc.
into transferring $13 million into an Atlanta account that was supposed to be
an escrow account for the purchase price of a Canon City, Colo., facility
under construction, court authorities said. Rather than having the escrow
administered by a reputable bank, Beaudreault and Sperling wired the money to
other accounts for their own personal use. Under the same contract, the two
men and another defendant also were supposed to obtain a construction loan on
behalf of the general contractor on the project, but didn’t. “These
defendants were part of an elaborate fraud scheme that ironically involved
the construction of a prison,” U.S. attorney Sally Quillian Yates said. “They
will now experience how business is conducted inside a real prison.” In
addition to the federal prison sentence, Beaudreault is required to serve
three years on supervised release and pay $5.4 million in restitution.
April
29, 2010 PR Log
An investor in CRN shares filed a lawsuit in Texas State Court on behalf
of current investors in Cornell Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CRN) alleging breaches
of fiduciary duty by the Cornell board of directors for selling Cornell
Companies too cheaply to The GEO Group. If you currently hold shares of
Cornell Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CRN), you have certain options and you should
contact the Shareholders Foundation, Inc by email at
mail@shareholdersfoundation.com or call +1 (858) 779 – 1554. Cornell
Companies, Inc., located in Houston, Texas, is a provider of correctional,
detention, educational, rehabilitation and treatment services outsourced by
federal, state, county and local government agencies for adults and
juveniles. On April 19, 2010, Cornell Companies (NYSE:CRN) and the GEO Group
(NYSE:GEO) announced a merger agreement pursuant to which The GEO Group will
acquire Cornell Companies for stock and/or cash at an estimated enterprise
value of $685 million based on the closing prices of both companies' stocks
on April 16, 2010, including the assumption of approximately $300 million in
Cornell debt, excluding cash. Under the terms of the definitive agreement,
stockholders of Cornell will a value of approximately $24.96 per Cornell
(CRN) share. According to Cornell Companies the Boards of Directors have
approved the merger agreement and the offer represents a 35 percent premium
over the closing price of Cornell's stock (CRN) on April 16, 2010. Shares of
Cornell Companies, Inc. (CRN) traded after the takeover announcement at
$24.74 per share, and at $18.62 per share the trading day before the news.
CRN shares were down from its 52weekHigh of $25.13 per share, and from $27.71
per share in 2008. At least one analyst set a price target for Cornell stock
at $29.00 per share. On April 27, 2010, an investor filed a lawsuit against
members of the board of directors, Cornell Companies Inc and The Geo Group
over breaches of fiduciary duty arising out of the attempt to sell Cornell
Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CRN) to the GEO Group. According to the complaint the
plaintiff alleges, among other things, that the proposed acquisition is
intended to take advantage of Cornell’s temporarily low current valuation and
that the agreement contains certain provisions, like the $12million
termination fee and “no shop” provision that unduly benefit GEO Group by
making an alternative transaction either prohibitively expensive or otherwise
impossible.
April
24, 2010 Grits For Breakfast
Texas Prison Bidness brings word that the Geo Group gobbled up yet another
competitor, adding to its already enormous debt load and making it the second
largest private prison company on the planet, behind Corrections Corporation
of America. Reported the Financial Times: The Geo Group offered about $385m
for Cornell Companies in a mixture of cash and stock, valuing the company at
about $24.96 a share. The company will also take on about $300m of Cornell
debt. The Geo Group's most recent 10K statement is really quite an amazing
read, for anyone interested, particularly the lengthy section on risk
factors, where the possibility is raised that a quarter-billion dollars in
unsecured bonds issued privately last fall might be considered a
"fraudulent conveyance" if the company defaults and a bankruptcy
judge ever takes a close look at the deal. Facing a mountain of debt, mostly
from acquiring competitors, this appears to be a pretty critical year for the
Geo Group, with contracts up for renewal on almost one in five beds they
operate. According to the 10-K: "As of January 3, 2010, eleven of our
facility management contracts representing 10,407 beds are scheduled to expire
on or before December 31, 2010, unless renewed by the customer at its sole
option. These contracts represented 19.3% of our consolidated revenues for
the fiscal year ended January 3, 2010." Other risks identified in Geo's
10-K include: •Our significant level of indebtedness could adversely affect
our financial condition and prevent us from fulfilling our debt service
obligations. •A decrease in occupancy levels could cause a decrease in
revenues and profitability. •State budgetary constraints may have a material
adverse impact on us. •Public resistance to privatization of correctional and
detention facilities could result in our inability to obtain new contracts or
the loss of existing contracts, which could have a material adverse effect on
our business, financial condition and results of operations. •Adverse
publicity may negatively impact our ability to retain existing contracts and
obtain new contracts. •We may face community opposition to facility location,
which may adversely affect our ability to obtain new contracts. •We may not
be able to obtain or maintain the insurance levels required by our government
contracts.
April
19, 2010 Palm Beach Post
Private prison operator The GEO Group Inc. (NYSE: GEO, $18.91) has agreed to
buy rival Cornell Cos. in a deal worth about $685 million, including the
assumption of about $300 million of Cornell's debt. The merger is a move to
expand to meet increasing demand for private correctional facilities and
services, the companies said in a release.
February
26, 2010 AP
Cornell Cos. Inc.'s sales and profit will decline if the state of Arizona
removes inmates from the company's Oklahoma prison, an analyst said as he
downgraded the prison operator's shares. First Analysis Securities analyst
Todd Van Fleet downgraded the Houston company to "equal weight"
from "overweight." The January budget proposals from Arizona's
governor and legislature would phase out the use of private out-of-state
beds. Arizona is struggling to close budget shortfalls. Van Fleet said there
was less than a 25 percent chance that Cornell would be able to persuade
legislators to keep Arizona inmates in the company's Oklahoma prison. The
loss of the Arizona prisoners which could cut into Cornell's annual earnings
by 35 cents to 45 cents per share. Van Fleet cut his estimate for 2010 profit
to $1.09 per share from $1.69 per share, and his 2010 sales estimate to $398
million from $440.6 million. On Wednesday, when it released fourth-quarter
earnings, Cornell predicted it would make $1.31 to $1.41 per share in 2010.
The guidance assumed that Cornell would continue to keep all its Arizona
inmates for the rest of the year. The contract for the Arizona prisoners ends
in mid-September, Van Fleet said. Cornell shares slipped 13 cents to $18.61
in midday trading. They have dropped about 25 percent since Arizona proposed
its budget in mid-January.
February
23, 2010 Pueblo Chieftain
A Chicago man who pocketed $605,000 in construction funds during the building
of a youth treatment facility here was convicted Friday of conspiracy and
wire fraud. A federal jury in Atlanta found Robert B. Surles, 64, guilty of
conspiracy and 15 counts of wire fraud in connection with a scheme to steal
nearly $13 million from Cornell Co., which built the Southern Peaks Regional
Treatment Center in 2003. From Aug. 2003 to Jan. 2004, Surles, along with
Edgar Beaudreault, 60, of Georgia, and Howard Sperling, 45, of San Diego,
conspired to defraud Cornell of construction funds. Surles was to obtain a
$12 million construction loan, but he and his co-defendants never obtained
financing for the project and instead led the contractor to believe they had.
The trio falsely represented that the funds were in an escrow account, but
instead the money was transferred to other accounts. Although some money was
used to get the construction started, the majority of funds was taken by the
trio for personal purposes. The evidence at trial showed Surles took $605,000
of the funds, according to Patrick Crosby, public affairs officer for the
United States Attorney's office in Atlanta. "This defendant fraudulently
induced a company to transfer approximately $13 million into an ‘escrow
account’ that turned out to be nothing but a piggy bank for the defendant and
his co-conspirators," said Sally Quillian Yates, acting U.S. Attorney in
Atlanta. "A federal jury was not fooled by the story he told when he
testified and convicted him on conspiracy and multiple counts of fraud."
Both Beaudreault and Sperling pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire
fraud and testified against Surles. All three are awaiting sentencing for the
crime and Surles is slated to be sentenced April 27.
January
22, 2010 Times-Union
The Charlton County Commission, the county school system and Folkston are all
hastily adjusting their budgets after a single successful appeal of a
property assessment. Commissioners are expected to approve an "error and
relief" agreement in February to reduce the assessed value of privately
owned D. Ray James Prison from $97 million to $55 million. The successful
appeal by Cornell Companies, owners and operators of the prison, will cost
the city, county and school system at least $730,000 in anticipated tax
revenue. County Manager Steve Nance said Cornell appealed the assessed value
of the prison after it nearly doubled in 2009. Two new structures - an
addition that will house 700 inmates this year and another facility for 300
prisoners from both Charlton County and the U.S. Marshals Service - were on
the tax rolls for the first time this year, likely leading to the increase in
value, Nance said. During the appeal, Cornell officials didn't dispute the
accuracy of the appraisal of the facility. Instead, they argued it would be
impossible to sell the sprawling prison complex for what the company invested
because the structures are for very specialized purposes - to securely house
inmates. They also claimed the original part of the prison, more than a
decade old, had depreciated in value, Nance said. "They contended the
value did not equal the cost," he said. The property appraiser who
determined the appraised value never visited the prison until after Cornell
filed an appeal, Nance said. Instead, the appraiser determined the value from
manuals, he said. "She did not actually tour the facility until the
appeal was made," he said. "After the tour, she agreed the value
was too high. It was a lot more austere than she thought." Despite the
hardship losing an estimated $334,000 in anticipated tax revenue, Nance said
county officials have no plans to contest the ruling by the Board of
Assessors. "It would be difficult for us to appeal our own
valuation," he said. Also, there is no appeal process unless the
complaint is taken to the Board of Equalization by the property owner, Nance
said. "Is there any recourse [for Folkston and the school
district]?" Nance asked. "I don't think they have the right to
challenge this." Now, the already cash-strapped county will maintain a
"continuous evaluation process" to cut spending to make up for the
shortfall, Nance said. Folkston City Manager Pender Lloyd said the appeal
will cost his city at least $108,000 in anticipated tax revenue - nearly a 5
percent cut to the city's $2.4 million budget. "We knew Cornell was
probably going to appeal," Lloyd said. "We certainly had no idea it
[the prison's value] would drop by $42 million." Lloyd criticized the
timing, saying one appeal should not have so much impact to local
governments. An appeal of the magnitude of Cornell's should have been
resolved before the county digest was completed to give local governments an
accurate estimate of how much revenue would be generated in taxes. The city
will delay some projects planned this year, including construction of a new
park, he said. Travel to conferences and training is also canceled, unless it
is required by law, Lloyd said. "We have some revenues built up, so we
can handle it," he said. "We're all affected and we've got to work
through this thing. We've got to deal with it."
May
20, 2009 Yahoo.com
Cornell Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CRN) today announced that it has been
informed by the Georgia Department of Corrections that the Department will
not start using the Company's recently completed expansion at its D. Ray
James Prison in Georgia. The Company's previous guidance, included in the
first quarter earnings release, provided a base case that assumed that the
700-bed expansion at D. Ray James Prison would begin to ramp at the beginning
of the third quarter of 2009, and an alternate case that, if the expansion
was to remain empty for all of 2009, earnings for the full year would be
reduced by up to approximately $0.08 per share. Today's updated guidance
assumes that the expansion will remain empty for the remainder of the year.
As a result, the Company now expects earnings per share for the full year of
$1.62 to $1.70. The Company also reaffirmed the earnings guidance range for
the second quarter of $0.42 to $0.46 per share.
February
2, 2009 Ledger-Enquirer
A California man pleaded guilty Monday to taking part in a plot to
defraud a prison construction firm out of almost $13 million. Howard A.
Sperling, 44, of San Diego entered the plea to a charge of conspiracy to
commit wire fraud. Sperling could receive up to 20 years in prison when
sentenced April 30 by U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper. Sperling and two
others conspired to defraud Cornell Corrections of California Inc., which
operates 71 private corrections facilities in 15 states, federal prosecutors
said. In 2003, Cornell was hired to build a prison in Canon City, Colo., and
the $13 million purchase price was to be placed in escrow until completion.
Cornell was induced to transfer the money to an Atlanta account controlled by
co-defendant Edgar J. Beaudreault that was supposed to be administered by a
reputable bank. Prosecutors say most of the money was transferred to other
accounts, and Sperling withdrew $365,000 in cash, transferred $400,000 to
personal and family members' accounts, paid $215,000 to banks and credit card
companies, $85,000 to a Harrah's Casino and $60,000 for a Mercedes Benz.
Beaudreault, 60, of Alpharetta, Ga., pleaded guilty Dec. 17 to conspiracy to
commit wire fraud. Charges against the third defendant, Robert B. Surles of
Canon City, are pending. A motion hearing is set for later this week.
December
17, 2008 AP
A Georgia businessman has admitted taking part in a scheme to defraud a
California construction company of nearly $13 million. Edgar J. Beaudreault
of Alpharetta pleaded guilty Wednesday in Atlanta to conspiracy to commit
wire fraud. Federal prosecutors say Beaudreault, 60, and two others conspired
to defraud Cornell Corrections of California Inc., which operates private
corrections facilities. In 2003, Cornell was hired to build a prison in Canon
City, Colo., and the $13 million purchase price was to be placed in escrow
until completion. Cornell was induced to transfer the money to an Atlanta
account, and most of it was then diverted to other accounts. Beaudreault
could receive up to 20 years in prison and be fined $250,000 at sentencing
March 18.
August
26, 2008 Atlanta Business Chronicle
An Alpharetta, Ga., man is among a group indicted Tuesday on charges of fraud
related to a prison-building contract in Colorado. Edgar J. Beaudreault Jr.,
60, of Alpharetta, Howard A. Sperling, 43, of San Diego, and Robert B.
Surles, 62, of Canon City, Colo., were indicted by a federal grand jury on
multiple charges. The indictment alleges from August 2003 through January
2004, the men concocted a scheme to defraud Cornell Corrections of California
Inc., a private company based in Ventura that operates corrections facilities
for governmental units. In June 2003, Cornell Corrections contracted to have
a corrections facility built in Canon City, Colo., for $13 million. The money
was to be held in an escrow account until the facility was completed. But in
August 2003, the men allegedly got Cornell Corrections to transfer the $13
million to an account in Atlanta controlled by Beaudreault, and allegedly
told Cornell the account was an escrow account administered by a reputable
bank. After the transfer was made into the Atlanta account, the indictment
claims the men then transferred the $13 million to other accounts to be used
for their own purposes. The indictment charges 20 counts of wire fraud and
one count of conspiracy. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in
prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each count.
July
15, 2008 The Daily Cougar
As Sen. Barack Obama wages his presidential campaign across the United
States with political gusto, he's attracted names such as Vice President Al
Gore and Sen. John Edwards. University of Houston Associate Professor of Law
Tony Chase has also temporarily shifted his duties as a professor to become a
member of the National Finance Committee of Obama's campaign. "I've
known (Obama) for quite some time, and I was one of the people he asked
whether if he should run," Chase said. "Because of that, this is
very personal, and I genuinely believe he is best for this country."
Aside from teaching, Chase is chairman and CEO of ChaseCom L.P. and Chase
Radio Partners. He is also chairman and co-founder, together with SBC
Communications Inc., of The Telecom Opportunity Institute, an organization
that provides technical literacy training at no cost to at-risk communities.
He serves as a director of Leap Wireless International Inc. and Cornell
Companies Inc., and is chairman of the Houston Zoo Development Board. He is a
member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves as a director of the
United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast and Houston Parks. Chase began teaching
communications law and contracts at the UH Law Center in 1990 and received
the Edith Baker Faculty Award in 1994. On July 8, he stepped down as the
director of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank to dedicate more time to the
campaign. "I can't pick out a certain experience, but teaching graduate
law and undergraduate classes has been particularly helpful in preparing me,
because students are the future and full of ideas that in turn help me think
about today's issues," Chase said. "My experience at the University
helps me by being part of the excitement and interest among young and
potential voters." As for his motives, he believes that the nation, in
its current state, needs Obama as president. "I've known Barack and
Michelle for a long time, and based on that, I believe he is a transcendent
political figure," Chase said. "I know him well and his integrity
and how he responds to pressure, but also how he will be an excellent
leader." As the member of the National Finance Committee for the
campaign, he helps make decisions on how the campaign will utilize its funds
and how the fundraising will be run. He also performs special projects such
as arranging meetings with constituents and senior advisors. "The
experience I gain from the campaign will only help the way I try to bring
practical experience to the classroom, and this is actually quite relevant to
what I teach at the University," Chase said. Chase will return to teach
in the fall and resume his usual duties for his organizations. "I will
still do what I can to accommodate my teaching responsibilities and campaign
duties and continue to voice my support for Barack Obama," Chase said.
January
23, 2007 Market Watch
Cornell Companies, Inc. announced that, at a special meeting of its
shareholders held earlier today, a proposal to merge with the Veritas Capital
Fund III, L.P., was rejected. As a result of this vote by shareholders,
Cornell will continue to operate as a stand-alone publicly-traded entity.
Although the company has not yet announced the timing of its fourth quarter
earnings conference call, management intends to use such forum to provide
further commentary on the transaction, as well as to discuss any changes to
the previously-released 2007 guidance that was made public as a result of the
transaction process.
January
19, 2007 AP
Alpine Associates, a Cornell Cos. (CRN) shareholder, plans to vote
against Cornell's plan to be acquired by Veritas Capital Fund for $18.25 a
share. Alpine and related entities own 631,700 shares, representing a 4.49%
stake. Thursday, shares of private-prison operator Cornell closed at $18.90,
up 16 cents. Alpine said "the current transaction does not fairly value
Cornell's shares." Other shareholders have expressed opposition to the
deal.
October
9, 2006 Market Watch
Cornell Companies, Inc. (CRN : news, chart, profile ) announced today the
execution of a definitive merger agreement with Veritas Capital, under which
Veritas will acquire Cornell in a transaction valued at approximately $518.6
million, including the assumption or repayment of approximately $273.6
million in debt. Under the terms of the agreement, Cornell stockholders will
receive $18.25 in cash for each share of common stock they hold. The
Company's Board of Directors has unanimously approved the agreement and will
recommend that Cornell's stockholders approve the merger. James E. Hyman,
Cornell's chairman and chief executive officer, said, "The Board of
Directors has completed a comprehensive review of the strategic alternatives
available to the Company, the result of which we are pleased to announce
today. The Board endorses this transaction and believes it to be in the best
interest of Cornell's shareholders. Veritas Capital is a private equity
investment firm headquartered in New York. Founded in 1992 by Robert B.
McKeon, Veritas invests primarily in companies specializing in outsourcing
services to the government, primarily in the areas of defense and aerospace,
security and infrastructure. Veritas' portfolio of companies includes, or has
included, DynCorp International, Integrated Defense Technologies, Vertex
Aerospace, McNeil Technologies, The Wornick Company, and TRAK Communications,
among others. Veritas is dedicated to providing the highest level of critical
services and equipment to the defense and federal sectors around the world.
For more information, please visit www.veritascapital.com.
September
29, 2006 New York Times
Pirate Capital, a $1.7 billion fund based in Norwalk, Conn., lost half
its investment team this week, according to a letter from the founder and
portfolio manager, Thomas Hudson. In addition, Pirate, an “activist” fund
that pressures management to increase shareholder value, is being
investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission on suspicion of
failing to alert the commission when it was selling stock, according to one
person briefed on the inquiry. Mr. Hudson’s letter, dated Sept. 28 and on
stationery with a pirate ship logo, said that Pirate would close to new
investors Sunday, to focus on delivering returns rather than collecting more
money. “I’ve decided to return the firm to its roots,” Mr. Hudson wrote. “The
goal is to focus on returns and not the size of the assets we manage.” Pirate
Capital has had a difficult year: its flagship Jolly Roger Fund is up only
3.3 percent, while its activist fund is up 2.86 percent, according to
materials sent to investors. Those returns are well below the average
activist fund. Hedge Fund Research in Chicago tracks the returns of 44 funds
that operate solely activist strategies; through August those funds have
returned 10.39 percent. An S.E.C. spokesman, John Nester, declined to
comment. Isa Bolotin, head of investor relations at Pirate Capital, did not
return calls seeking comment. Pirate is known for its unusually brash tactics
and unabashed style. A New York magazine cover article reported that Zachary
George, 27, an analyst with the firm and former competitive snowboarder, told
the chief executive of the Cornell Companies, a prison operator, that “You
work for us,” and that Mr. George and Pirate wanted Cornell sold and the
chief executive sacked. “Next year we’re going to be here, and you won’t,”
Mr. George told the chief executive, according to the article. Mr. Hudson
said two investment professionals, including Mr. George, resigned on Monday.
On Wednesday, Carl Klein, a portfolio manager, resigned, and Mr. Hudson asked
two more analysts to leave. Five people, including Mr. Hudson, remain. The
S.E.C. is investigating whether Pirate was late in reporting to the
commission material changes in its holdings. Investors with at least a 5
percent stake must report any changes to those holdings.
September
1, 2006 Alaska Report
The FBI served four more search warrants today in its investigation of
the relationship between lawmakers and oilfield services company VECO
Corporation, an Anchorage-based oil field services and construction company
whose executives are major contributors to political campaigns. Bill Allen,
owner of VECO, and his firm, were involved in a renovation of Alaska Senator
Ted Stevens' chalet in Girdwood in the recent past. The Associated Press is
reporting that the search warrants seek "from the period of October 2005
to the present, any and all documents concerning, reflecting or relating to
proposed legislation in the state of Alaska involving either the creation of
a natural gas pipeline or the petroleum production tax." An Anchorage
FBI spokesman says that about two dozen search warrants have been executed so
far, including three today in Anchorage and one in Willow. No arrests have
been made as of yet. AlaskaReport has learned that a staffer in one of the
offices raided has been providing information to federal authorities. In an
interview with KTUU-TV in Anchorage, Wev Shea, a former U.S. attorney for
Alaska says he knows who created the climate that he alleges allowed
corruption to flourish. "The Republican Party is going to rue the day in
this state for allowing Randy Ruedrich (chairman of the Republican Party of
Alaska) to remain as a chair. He's bringing this party down and it's
bad." KTUU also interviewed Rep. Eric Croft. He says he saw this coming
two years ago, during a legislative committee meeting concerning VECO’s pitch
for a sole-source contract award for a private prison. "I said at the
time, in 2004, on the Whittier proposal, someone's going to jail over this
'cause I could see how corrupt the process was," said Croft,
D-Anchorage.
August
31, 2006 Anchorage Daily News
Federal agents swarmed legislative offices around the state Thursday,
executing search warrants in a coordinated series of raids that appeared to
target the longstanding relationship between the oil-field service company
Veco and leading lawmakers. Above Anchorage’s 4th Avenue, FBI agents spent
most of the afternoon behind the closed doors and drawn blinds of the
fifth-floor offices of Senate President Ben Stevens and Senate Rules
Committee Chairman John Cowdery, both Anchorage Republicans. Through slits in
the blinds, one agent in Stevens’ office, wearing rubber gloves, could be
seen packing away evidence in a container. In Juneau, tourists and residents
were greeted with the extraordinary sight of FBI agents hauling out files
form the Alaska State Capitol after searching offices there. After the FBI
searched his Wasilla office and questioned him, Rep. Vic Kohring, R-Wasilla,
the chairman of the House Special Committee on Oil & Gas, said the
investigation was focused on Veco. Other legislative offices known to have
been searched Thursday included those of Reps. Pete Kott of Eagle River and
Bruce Weyhrauch of Juneau, and Sen. Donny Olson of Nome. Kott, a former House
speaker, and Weyhrauch are Republicans. Olson is the only Democrat in the
group. FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez said federal agents executed about 20
search warrants Thursday, not all in legislative offices. The warrants were
executed in Anchorage, Juneau, Wasilla, Eagle River and Girdwood, he said.
Ray Metcalfe, a former legislator and the founder of the independent
Republican Moderate Party, said he has been trying to get the authorities
interested in what he described as the “corrupt” relationship between Veco
and the Republican-lead legislature, principally Ben Stevens. “I put all the
stuff in front of federal prosecutors a year and a half ago,” Metcalfe said
Thursday, clearly relishing the turn of events. “I laid hundreds of pages of
detailed information alleging bribery, and I distributed it to federal
authorities, I distributed it to the U.S. Attorney’s office, I distributed it
to the (state attorney general’s) Office of Special Prosecutions, and we held
a demonstration in front of the attorney general’s office that hardly anyone
showed up for.” Metcalfe attempted to initiate a recall campaign against
Stevens, but his effort was rejected by Lt. Gov. Loren Leman on legal
grounds. After first announcing he’d run for re-election in November, Stevens
changed his mind in June and opted to retire.Tamara Cook, a lawyer who heads
the nonpartisan legal services division of the Legislature, said Thursday
evening that she reviewed a couple of the search warrants at the request of
legislators or aides upon whom they were served. The search warrants allowed
the FBI to search computers and office files including financial records, she
said. The warrants named Veco Corp., she said, but could not say whether Veco
was a target or whether the investigation concerned oil taxes, its failed
push to build a private prison in Alaska or something else.
August
28, 2006 Yahoo.com
Cornell Companies, Inc. (NYSE:CRN - News) announced today that Mark S. Croft,
the General Counsel and Secretary of the Company, resigned on Saturday,
August 26, 2006, to attend to personal matters unrelated to his role as an
officer of the Company. Patrick N. Perrin, Senior Vice President and Chief
Administrative Officer, has been appointed to the office of Secretary of the
Company to succeed Mr. Croft.
June
5, 2006 Houston Business Journal
Cornell Companies Inc. on Monday afternoon said it has retained a
financial advisor to assist the Houston operator of prisons in analyzing ways
"to maximize shareholder value." The announcement, which came in a
brief news release distributed Monday after the regular session of the stock
market closed, essentially puts Cornell (NYSE: CRN - News) on the block as a
candidate to be acquired. Beyond making the brief statement about hiring a
financial advisor, Cornell in the Monday release said the prison operator
does not intend to make further announcements on the matter until the
NYSE-listed company "has made definitive decisions on its future
strategic direction." No assurance can be given that any transaction
will be pursued," according to the Cornell press release.
February
10, 2006 Yahoo
Cornell Companies, Inc. announced today the settlement of a securities
class action lawsuit. In re Cornell Companies, Inc. Securities Litigation was
originally filed by certain Cornell stockholders in March 2002 on behalf of
all purchasers of Cornell's common stock from March 6, 2001 to March 5, 2002.
The Company has agreed to settle this class action lawsuit for $7.0 million
to avoid further protracted and expensive litigation. The settlement amount
will be funded through the Company's directors' and officers' liability
insurance and will have no impact on the Company's financial position,
results of operations or cash flows. Under the terms of the settlement,
Cornell has not admitted to any wrongdoing.
September
29, 2005 Baltimore Sun
Two Maryland judges said yesterday that the Ehrlich administration's decision
to close the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School without a clear plan to replace it
is jeopardizing the welfare of youths and putting public safety at risk.
Baltimore County Circuit Judge Kathleen Cox and Anne Arundel Circuit Judge
Pamela North told legislators that with Hickey preparing to close, there are
not enough places to send tough young offenders who need to be removed from
their homes to protect their safety and the community. The department said
some Maryland youths will be sent to programs in Texas, Iowa, Indiana,
Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Ohio with rates ranging from $47,450 to $116,800
per child per year. The list includes three facilities run by a for-profit
Texas-based company that, according to published reports, was forced to close
one of its centers amid complaints of abuse. Under pressure from Pennsylvania
authorities, a company operating as Cornell Abraxas closed its New Morgan
Academy near Reading in 2002 after about a dozen children were sexually
assaulted by adults over the span of less than two years, according to the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The same company runs programs that the Department
of Juveniles Services plans to use in Shelby, Ohio; Marienville, Pa.; and
South Mountain, Pa., according to a list provided to legislators yesterday.
Another facility on the list has had a more recent, but less severe, incident
of violence. The Summit Academy reform school in Herman, Pa., has said that
four workers were fired in July over a June 18 incident in which a
17-year-old male student suffered cuts to his face and ear.
September
29, 2005 Star-Telegram
In a move denounced as a political witchhunt, Rep. Tom DeLay was indicted
Wednesday with two associates on a felony charge of conspiring to circumvent
Texas' prohibition of corporate campaign donations to secure the Republican
takeover of the Texas House in 2002. Shortly after Travis County District
Attorney Ronnie Earle announced the indictment, the Republican congressman
from Sugar Land resigned his powerful majority leader post in Washington, at
least temporarily. DeLay, 58, is accused of conspiring with two associates to
convert $190,000 in donations from several corporations into campaign
contributions on behalf of seven Republican candidates who were involved in
what many had believed would be close contests for seats in the Texas House.
September
28, 2005 Bloomberg
U.S. Representative Tom DeLay, the No. 2 Republican in the House, was
indicted by a Texas grand jury for criminal conspiracy in connection with
illegal corporate political donations, prompting him to give up his
leadership post. Two former campaign aides, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis,
were also charged with conspiracy by the state grand jury in Travis County,
according to the single-count indictment. The charge stems from an
investigation into alleged use of illegal corporate contributions by DeLay's
political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, in the 2002
races for the state House of Representatives. The four-page indictment
charges that DeLay conspired with Ellis and Colyandro to use donations from
companies including Williams Companies Inc. and Sears, Roebuck and Co., now
Sears Holdings Corp., to help finance the election campaigns of seven members
of the Texas House in 2002. Under Texas law, corporations aren't permitted to
donate to candidates. Other companies named, but like Williams and Sears, not
charged in the indictment were Diversified Collections Services Inc., Cornell
Companies Inc., Bacardi U.S.A. Inc. and Questerra Corp.
September
22, 2005 Texas Lawyer
A private corrections company seeks to hold Locke Liddell & Sapp liable
for more than $5 million that's allegedly missing from an account set up for
a land deal. Houston-based Cornell Companies Inc. sued Locke Liddell and
David Montgomery, a partner in the firm, alleging malpractice, among other
things. The company filed Cornell Companies Inc. v. Locke Liddell & Sapp,
et al. on Aug. 26 in Houston's 333rd District Court. In its petition, Cornell
alleges that the defendants "dropped the ball" by failing to ensure
that a proper escrow account was set up in 2003 to hold the company's funds.
Those funds were intended to be used to buy land in Colorado on which to
develop a regional correctional rehabilitation center. As alleged in the
petition, the defendants gave Cornell the "green light" to wire
almost $13 million into an account that was purported to be an escrow
account. "There was no escrow agent; there was no escrow account,"
alleges Scott Hershman, one of the attorneys representing Cornell. The suit
against Locke Liddell is related to a suit that a Cornell subsidiary filed
last year in the Superior Court of Fulton County in Atlanta. Cornell alleged
in its second amended complaint in Cornell Corrections of California Inc. v.
Longboat Global Advisors, et al. that attorney Edgar J. Beaudreault of
Roswell, Ga., a defendant in the suit, handled the construction loan
transaction on behalf of Longboat, which was providing financing for the
corrections facility project. Cornell Corrections alleged in the Georgia
complaint that Beaudreault, who is also Longboat's vice president and
managing director, arranged for the escrow account but it turned out to be a
regular bank account. Cornell Corrections further alleged in the complaint
that, although the company wired the funds to Bank of America in August 2003,
it didn't learn until November of that year that the bank was not holding
money in escrow and that a withdrawal never authorized by Cornell Corrections
had been made. Hershman, a partner in Lackey Hershman in Dallas, says he
doesn't expect Cornell Corrections will be able to collect the damages
awarded in the Georgia case, because he thinks the money is gone. Michael
Shaunessy, an Austin, Texas, attorney who represents plaintiffs in legal
malpractice cases but is not involved in Cornell's suit against Locke
Liddell, says the fact that a company hires lawyers to handle this type of
transaction doesn't eliminate the company's responsibility to exercise due
diligence in the matter. Shaunessy, a
partner in Shaunessy & Burnett, says he expects Locke Liddell and
Montgomery to raise a causation defense, arguing that those who took the
money out of the account caused Cornell's loss. Cornell can argue that, if
the defendants had set up the account so that the money couldn't be moved
without the company's authorization, Cornell would not have suffered the
loss, he says.
September
13, 2005 American-Statesman
A Travis County grand jury today added new felony charges against two
officials with Texans for a Republican Majority who first were indicted last
fall. The grand jury re-indicted political consultants John Colyandro and Jim
Ellis on first-degree felony charges that the two laundered a $190,000
corporate check into campaign donations during the 2002 elections. It added
lesser felony charges of unlawfully making a contribution to a political
party and criminal conspiracy involving the $190,000 transaction. Just weeks
before the 2002 election, Colyandro, who was executive director of the
political committee created by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar
Land, sent a blank check to his counterpart, Ellis, in Washington.
September
9, 2005 Houston Chronicle
A Travis County
grand jury indicted a business organization and a political
committee founded by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on Thursday on felony
charges of violating election laws by using corporate money to influence
state elections. The indictments accuse the DeLay-founded Texans for a
Republican Majority Political Action Committee of two counts of illegally
soliciting corporate money for political campaigns. The indictment of TRMPAC
is significant because it reflects on DeLay's role in overseeing the
committee. DeLay served on its board of advisers and helped raise some of the
corporate money at the core of the controversy. Texas
election law prohibits the use of corporate or labor-union money
to influence races for elective office. TRMPAC could face a fine of up to
$40,000, but the committee filed articles of dissolution with the Texas
Ethics Commission in July. Earle said the dissolution does not matter because
TRMPAC's management or board of advisers can be held liable for its criminal
conduct.
August
9, 2005 Houston Chronicle
A state district judge refused Tuesday to dismiss charges of money laundering
and accepting illegal political contributions against two associates of U.S.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land. Judge Bob Perkins denied
arguments from John Colyandro and Jim Ellis that the charges were based on an
unconstitutionally vague law and that the indictments were improperly worded.
Lawyers for Colyandro, who worked for DeLay's fundraising committee Texans
for a Republican Majority, and Jim Ellis, who worked for Americans for a
Republican Majority, have said they will appeal, likely delaying any trial
for at least several months. The charges stem from the 2002 Texas legislative
elections. The money-laundering charges are based on $190,000 in corporate
money that was sent to the Republican National State Elections Committee.
June
3, 2005 Houston Business Journal
Insurgent shareholder Pirate Capital LLC has captured the board of
Cornell Cos. Inc. Pirate gained control of the Houston-based prison operator
last month after setting sail on a proxy fight that originated a year
earlier. Toting a treasure trove of Cornell common shares -- a 14.8 percent
stake as of mid-May -- the Connecticut-based investment firm emerged with the
right to put seven directors on Cornell's nine-member board. Cornell controls
the remaining two seats on the board, which increased from seven to nine members
as part of a new agreement with Pirate. "It appeared that (Cornell) had
been heading for a distracting and costly proxy battle," notes Scott
Schneeberger, a stock analyst at Lehman Brothers. Cornell also got Pirate to
concede that the investment firm will not pursue a transaction to take the
publicly traded Houston company private for at least the next two years. At
the same time, Cornell Chairman James Hyman will no longer steer the board of
directors after the end of this month. Despite 20 years of experience in
operations, finance, process management, mergers and acquisitions, Hyman's
name is conspicuously missing from the slate of nominees for the new board.
July 13, 2005 Houston Chronicle
A state district judge declined Tuesday to dismiss charges of accepting
illegal political contributions against an associate of U.S. House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay. Lawyers for John
Colyandro, who worked for DeLay's fund-raising committee Texans for a
Republican Majority, had claimed that the indictment against him was based on
an unconstitutionally vague law. Judge Bob Perkins also declined to
dismiss a charge of money laundering against Colyandro, although that issue
remains technically alive. The charges stem from the 2002 Texas
legislative elections. The money-laundering
charges are related to $190,000 in corporate money sent to the Republican
National State Elections Committee.
The committee then gave the same amount to seven Texas House
candidates.
March
11, 2005 The Deal
True to its swashbuckling name, hedge fund Pirate Capital LLC is preparing to
make a run at struggling Cornell Cos., a prison and juvenile-facilities
operator. Since last year, Houston-based Cornell has been under pressure from
Thomas R. Hudson Jr., portfolio manager at the 2-year-old Norwalk Conn.-based
hedge fund, to seek a buyer. After a series of missteps by Cornell, Pirate's
Jolly Roger Fund LP launched a proxy contest on Feb. 24 to take over all
seven seats on Cornell's board at an annual meeting expected in June.
"You can just see the shots being fired across the bow of Cornell,"
says Sheryl Skolnick, an analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners LLC in New York.
Skolnick says a strategic acquirer would pay roughly $20.50 a share for the
assets — $270 million in equity plus $112 million in debt. Cornell traded
early last week at around $14.40 a share. Anton Hie, an analyst with
Jefferies & Co. in Nashville, says a strategic acquirer would value
Cornell at $16 to $18 a share, and would cut costs by eliminating overhead
and other administrative expenses. A financial buyer could break up the
company and sell various facilities "in pieces," Hie says.
Skolnick, whose firm does not do work for Cornell, cites Nashville-based
Correction Corp. of America and Geo Group Inc. of Boca Raton, Fla., the two
largest private providers of adult-prison management services in the U.S., as
likely buyers. Hie, whose firm does not own Cornell stock, says CCA and Geo
might be more interested in Cornell's adult facilities, but he would not
estimate a valuation on these assets. Privately held Management and Training
Corp. of Centerville, Utah, could also be interested, Skolnick says. She and
other analysts say the other major player in the industry, Sarasota,
Fla.-based Corrections Services Corp., is smaller than Cornell and unlikely
to make a bid. "These publicly traded companies are interested in
growing, and acquiring Cornell would help them improve their bottom
line," says a corrections consultant. Officials for CCA and Geo did not
return calls seeking comment. Cornell posted a loss of $897,000 for the third
quarter of fiscal 2004, the latest results available, compared with a profit
of $1.4 million a year earlier, even as sales rose to $74.7 million from
$68.6 million. The company has made some internal changes. In January it
hired James Hyman to replace outgoing CEO Harry Phillips. Skolnick says Hyman
has some real estate experience but "may not know what he's gotten
himself into." Pirate Capital, which has a 14.8% Cornell stake, has yet
to offer an opinion of Hyman. As part of a broad strategy to learn
shareholder concerns, Hyman has met with numerous investors, including
activist hedge fund managers, since he took over in January. He has also
huddled with Pirate officials several times in the past month, and says he
plans to do so again. "It's part of an ongoing process," Hyman
says. "I asked [investors] to be very frank and tell me as straight as
they can how they view Cornell." He says Cornell would consider any
offer, but that the company is not seeking a buyer. Cornell also recently
replaced director Marcus Watts with Isabella Cunningham, a communications
professor at the University of Texas. That move, says a shareholder, suggests
"creeping compliance" with Pirate's wishes. Shareholders had
repeatedly asked the board to replace Watts, a partner at law firm Locke
Liddell & Sapp LLP, who they argued lacked sufficient independence. Locke
Liddell & Sapp has a business relationship with Cornell. Cunningham,
considered independent, developed a criminal-justice program at St. Edward's
University in Austin, Texas. Skolnick says Hyman will have his work cut out
for him. He acknowledges that Cornell has made some major mistakes lately.
For example, it leased an abandoned jail in Bernalillo County, N.M., and
announced in spring 2003 that the facility would house roughly 1,000 inmates
by the end of that year and generate $25 million in annual revenue. But after
lease problems and poor planning, Skolnick says, the facility held only 300
inmates by the end of 2004 and brought in significantly less revenue than
promised. Cornell's acquisition of an abandoned training school in
Plankinton, S.D., was another botched purchase. The company turned the school
into a juvenile-detention center with an investment of $200,000. For the program
to be profitable, Cornell needed the state to pay $175 a day per inmate. But
the state agreed to pay only $125. After three months, Cornell closed the
operation. "What this points out is how Cornell generally does not
complete the necessary due diligence before going out and opening
facilities," Skolnick says. "They do a terrible job of completing
projects and ramping up occupancy in their facilities." On Feb. 1
Cornell announced plans to buy San Diego-based Correctional Systems Inc. for
$10 million, an acquisition Hyman says is complementary. Other shareholders
have risen to Pirate Capital's support. "We believe that the board's
attempt to simultaneously replace the company's CEO and CFO without reaching
out to Pirate Capital, its largest shareholder, represents another example of
poor judgment," says Nelson Obus, president of New York hedge fund
Wynnefield Capital LLC in a January Securities and Exchange Commission
filing. People familiar with Pirate say its nominees have vastly more
experience in corrections-facility management, restructuring and turnarounds
than Cornell's current board. Pirate nominee Richard Crane, a
corrections-project consultant, is a former general counsel to CCA, one of
the companies that might consider acquiring Cornell. Then there's Sally
Walker, president of Encourage Youth Corp., a consulting firm specializing in
programs for juvenile offenders. Pirate is also nominating two people from
within its own ranks: portfolio manager Hudson and investment analyst Zachary
George. Says Skolnick: "Shareholders would be well-served to have a
professional management team that is focused on returns instead of revenue
growth."
March
10, 2005 Dow Jones
Cornell Cos.' (CRN) fourth-quarter loss ballooned as the company took a
number of charges and announced that it will eliminate two layers of
management and close underperforming programs. In a press release Thursday,
the prison operator said that among the jobs eliminated was that of President
and Chief Operating Officer Thomas R. Jenkins. Chief Executive James Hyman
will assume the chief operating officer responsibilities. In a bid to improve
its operations, Cornell said it was trimming its management, cutting Jenkins'
job as well as a number of vice president and director-level positions that "interfered"
between business unit managers and their programs. The shakeup is just the
latest in a slew of management changes at Cornell. Hyman himself was named
chief executive in January. John Nieser, the chief financial officer, was
named in February. Meanwhile, a group of shareholders including Pirate
Capital LLC, which hold about 15% of the company, have called for the entire
board to step down. Apart from changes to its management, Cornell said
Thursday it will close a number of its programs that consumed cash and
managerial talent that could better be spent elsewhere. The programs, set to be shuttered in the first and second
quarters, include the Joz-Arz program in the District of Columbia, the
Residential School in Illinois, which is owned by the company, and behavioral
health programs in Pennsylvania.
November
9, 2004 PRNews
Cornell Companies, a leading
provider of privatized adult and juvenile correctional, treatment and
educational services, announced today that the Company has commenced a search
for a new chief executive officer.
Harry J. Phillips, Jr. will continue to serve as chief executive
officer until a successor is named and, thereafter, will continue as chairman
of the board of directors.
October
22, 2004 AP
Two associates of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay who have been indicted
for alleged campaign finance violations will be allowed to put off answering
a civil lawsuit until their criminal charges have been resolved. State District Judge Joe Hart on Thursday
postponed a civil lawsuit against John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, who were
charged last month with laundering corporate donations during the 2002
elections.
September
22, 2004 AP
The money laundering allegation in a congressional ethics complaint filed
against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay involves the same $190,000 in
political contributions that led to indictments of the Texas congressman's
aides on similar charges. DeLay is accused in an ethics complaint of misusing
the Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee to launder
$190,000 in illegal corporate contributions through the Republican National
Committee for use in Texas legislative races. On Tuesday, a grand jury in
Texas indicted Jim Ellis, a paid consultant to Texans for a Republican
Majority, and John Colyandro, former executive director of the Texas
committee, on money laundering charges involving the same $190,000 check. A
third aide was indicted on separate charges. The indictments allege that on
Sept. 13, 2002, Ellis delivered a check for $190,000 to the Republican
National Committee. The check was signed by Colyandro and made out to the
Republican National State Elections Committee. Accompanying it was a list of
several GOP Texas legislative candidates and the amount of money that each
should get from the RNC, according to the indictment. The indictments said
the $190,000 came from corporate contributions to Texans for A Republican
Majority. Givers included Diversified Collection Services Inc., $50,000;
Sears, Roebuck and Co., $25,000; Williams Companies Inc., $25,000; Cornell
Companies, $10,000, Bacardi USA, $20,000 and Questerra Corp., $25,000, the
indictments said. They did not account for the remaining contributions. The
Republican National State Elections Committee subsequently wrote checks
totaling $190,000 to seven Texas candidates, the indictment alleges. Texas law prohibits the use of corporate money for direct
political purposes.
August 15, 2004
Rarely does the siren of shareholder revolt sound as loudly as it has at
Cornell Cos., a Houston-based operator of adult and juvenile corrections
centers and treatment facilities. During a conference call last week,
investors irate over the company's performance blasted Chairman Harry
Phillips. "Our capital is being wasted here, and our company is being
undermanaged," said Zachary George with Pirate Capital, a Connecticut
hedge fund that owns 7.5 percent of Cornell's shares, making it one of the
company's biggest investors. "We are not going to let you guys destroy
this company. Your time at Cornell is limited." Pirate, which began
buying Cornell shares in May, targets companies it believes are undervalued.
It isn't alone in its displeasure: Thirty-five percent of the company's
investors withheld their votes for directors at the last annual meeting, and
that was without any organized effort. Investors have ample reason to be
ticked off. Net income was almost $8 million in 2000, but the company hasn't
seen a profit like that since. Last year, earnings were less than $4 million.
Profit margins have been halved during the same period. Cornell's market
value has tumbled to $166 million from $228 million in 2001. For Cornell's
management, the hour of reckoning is nigh. Promises of a prosperous future
will no longer quell the discontent. The sirens are sounding, and the message
for management is clear: The future is now. (Houston
Chronicle)
August
14, 2002
Prison builder and operator Cornell Cos. Inc. said on Tuesday its second
quarter profit fell, in part from a one-time charge for a federal prison
contract in Mississippi that it failed to win. The company, which
operates 69 prisons, detention and substance treatment centers across
America, said short-term prospects for new contracts were uncertain as
federal funds were diverted to the new Homeland Security Department.
But Cornell also said it was optimistic about the growth in the future as
prison recidivism rates increase, along with demand from Immigration and
Naturalization Service detention centers. In addition, increasing
budgetary restraints on states should drive demand for prison
privatization. Cornell said unusual items, including about $1 million
in costs of the failed bid for the Southeast Federal Bureau of Prisons
project in Mississippi reduced earnings by 5 cents per share. (Yahoo
Finance)
August
13, 2002
Prison builder and operator Cornell Cos. Inc. on Tuesday said net income fell
in the second quarter, pressured in part by a one-time charge after it failed
to win a federal prison contract. (Yahoo Finance)
June
2, 2002
Cornell Companies Inc. (NYSE:CRN - News) updated today its outlook following
the announcement of results from a recent federal procurement process. The
Company previously submitted a response to a request for proposal from the
Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) for a potential new prison in the Southeast
U.S. The Company did not receive this award. Since these awards require
construction to be completed within 365 days, the Company had successfully
pre-arranged and received bank commitments for a construction and
lease-financing vehicle that would allow it to meet this schedule. As a
result, the Company has elected to expense approximately $530,000 in
after-tax costs in the second quarter, or $0.04 earnings per share,
representing bank commitment fees and related accounting and legal costs.
(Yahoo Finance)
May
31, 2002
Shares of prison builder and operator Cornell Cos. Inc. dropped more than 19
percent in intraday trading on Friday, a day after the Federal Bureau of
Prisons awarded a contract to a Cornell rival, analysts said. The
1,500-bed contract went to Corrections Corp. of America, the No.1 prison
operator, on Thursday. Cornell was the other finalist for the $109
million contract. "It's a disappointment. There's a chance
they could have gotten it," said Jim McDonald, an analyst with First
Analysis. But the chances were slim, he added, because Corrections
Corp. had an empty facility in Georgia, whereas Cornell would have had to
build a new facility. Lehman Brothers downgraded Cornell's stock on
Friday morning to "buy" from "strong buy."
Cornell's troubles may not be over, said Matt Hull, an analyst at Avondale
Partners, who has the stock at an "accumulate" rating. The
prison bureau's move "removes growth from the picture at the federal
level, and state budgets have less money, so you don't see a lot of prison
expansion at the state level," he said. "These stocks sell on
growth, and that's what were missing," Hull said. "Now
there's no near-term catalyst." (Yahoo Finance)
May
1, 2002
At the D. Ray James Prison in
south Georgia, the inmates have been kept behind bars by all types of lawmen:
sheriffs, chiefs of police and more than a few wardens. But never, until now,
have they been kept in jail by a charity. In August, a partnership headed by
Provident Foundation Inc., a not-for-profit group based in Baton Rouge, La.,
bought the prison, a 1,500-man compound on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp.
Corrections experts say they don't know of another example in recent times of
a charity owning a prison. Provident isn't a conventional charity. It is run
by a group of lawyers, investment bankers and financial consultants. Lehman
Bros. Holdings Inc. and other Wall Street titans do its financial work. With
that impressive firepower, Provident is trying to carve a unique niche for
itself in the corrections world, offering off-the-books financing for public
and private prison operators. It has helped the state of North Carolina and
Cornell Cos., a for-profit prison company, buff their financial profiles.
Provident does this by creating special subsidiaries and partnerships that
take advantage of controversial accounting rules and allow its clients to
keep debt off of their balance sheets. As scrutiny of complex accounting
grows in the wake of the Enron Corp. collapse, Provident offers the unusual twist
of a nonprofit playing the off-the-books game. The foundation's major deal
with Cornell sparked an embarrassing restatement of the Houston-based
company's financial figures last month. The company's top official has been
stripped of his titles as chairman and chief executive. In April 2001,
Provident formed a subsidiary, Carolina Corrections LLC, to bid for a
contract to build three 1,000-bed prisons for North Carolina. This
arrangement allows North Carolina to avoid borrowing more money itself at a
time when its budget deficit has grown. But in the long run, renting could
cost the state more than simply building the prisons itself. North Carolina's
nonpartisan fiscal-research division has estimated the 20-year-lease expense
as $370 million. That's $146 million more than the $224 million purchase
price. Early this year, Cornell's stock continued to rise. But on Jan. 31,
its auditor, Andersen, sent a troubling letter to members of the Cornell
board's audit committee. Acting after it had come under fire for its auditing
of Enron, Andersen questioned the purpose of an unusual $3.7 million retainer
Cornell last August had agreed to pay Lehman. The retainer wasn't linked to a
specific assignment but was supposed to pay for work Lehman might do in the
future. Six days after receiving the letter, Cornell announced plans to
review its accounting of the August sale-leaseback. Its stock fell 43% in one
day. (The Wall Street Journal)
April
29, 2002
Cornell has announced that it will establish a memorial to American ideals at
the Shanksville-Stonycreek school, near the Pennsylvania site of the crash of
United Flight 93 on September 11th. (Cornell Companies/Yahoo! Finance)
March
8, 2002
Milberg Weiss, Levy and Levy, P.C., Cauley Geller Bowman and Coates, LLP, and
Schiffrin and Barroway, LLP announced that a class action has been commenced
in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas on
behalf of purchasers of Cornell Companies, Inc. The complaint charges
Cornell and certain of its officers and directors with violations of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The complaint alleges that during the
Class Period, defendants issued favorable but false statements and made false
and misleading statements about the Company's business. (Press Releases
from Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes and Lerach, LLP, Levy and Levy, P.C., Cauley
Geller Bowman and Coates, LLP, and Schiffrin and Barroway, LLP)
April
25, 2002
This isn’t a good time to be CEO of a Houston company audited by Arthur
Andersen. Especially if you are a former Arthur Andersen accountant. And most
especially if you may have to restate your earnings because the “innovative”
off-the-books transaction you arranged six months ago could violate the same
SEC rules that exposed Enron’s partnerships. In August, Steve Logan completed
a deal that he boasted would enable Cornell Cos., the country’s third-largest
builder and operator of prisons, to double the industry’s growth rate. His
deal involves a sale/leaseback transaction, in which facilities are sold to a
bond-issuing special-purpose company, Municipal Corrections Finance, or MCF,
and leased back to Cornell at a favorable rate. “We’ve changed the industry,”
the CEO declared last summer. “This is something that competitors have been
trying to do for a decade. No one else has been able.” On Jan. 31, auditors
alerted Cornell of a possible conflict with SEC rules, which require that the
equity owner of MCF—in this case affiliates of Lehman Brothers—own at least 3
percent of MCF for it to qualify as a separate company. Cornell’s shares fell
43 percent on the news, to $9.96 from $17.48. At issue is $3.65 million
Cornell paid to Lehman Brothers in September. The fee was reported as a
retainer to Lehman Brothers for future financial advisory services. However,
it could also be seen as a belated payment for Lehman Brothers’ role in
setting up MCF, which would reduce Lehman Brothers’ equity below the required
level. Outside ownership was the missing ingredient in Enron’s partnerships.
(The e-Network for CEOs)
March
6, 2002
Prison builder and operator Cornell Cos
Inc. said Wednesday it will restate its earnings for 2000 and for three
quarters of 2001 after reviewing two off-balance-sheet transactions, a move
that will reduce previously reported earnings. Last month Cornell said its
board of directors -- acting on the recommendation of its independent auditor
-- had formed a special committee to review an August off-balance-sheet
transaction in which Cornell sold 11 facilities and then leased them back. It
also said it was reviewing what it called a ``synthetic lease transaction''
which occurred in 2000. The facilities were sold to affiliates of an unnamed
investment bank. Cornell said Wednesday that it has decided to consolidate
the transactions, moving them back onto the company's income statements and
balance sheets. The effect of the restatement will require waivers of certain
covenants under the company's senior credit facility, Cornell added. Based on
discussions with its lenders, Cornell expects to reach agreement to waive
and/or restructure the covenants. (Reuters)
February 11, 2002 Last Wednesday,
Cornell Cos. , a Houston-based prison builder and operator, announced that it
is reviewing its books - or rather, reviewing an off-book transaction that it
entered into during 2001. Not surprisingly, in this post-Enron environment,
the market reacted very negatively. However, from the Sleuth's point of view,
there are several "disconcerting" aspects to all of this: Even
though this "retainer agreement" was reportedly entered into during
the third quarter, the Sleuth was unable to find references to any
"retainer agreement" in CRN's third quarter 10-Q Report, and there
was no evidence that the company had either paid this $3.65 million to Lehman
Brothers or had recognized this debt as a liability. Likewise, this $3.65
million "retainer" does not appear to have been used to pay for any
of the costs of the company's secondary offering, announced on November 27,
2001, for which Lehman Brothers was the lead underwriter. A review of the
Company's filings with the SEC for this offering fails to show that any of
CRN's expenses from this secondary offering were paid out of any
"retainer agreement." And then, the company also announced a
changing of the guard. One of its outside directors would become chairman,
while the now-former chairman would remain president and chief executive of
the company. This press release came only eleven minutes after the
announcement of the investigation. (Securities Sleuth)
February 6, 2002
Prison builder and operator Cornell Wednesday said it was reviewing
accounting issues raised by its auditor related to an off-balance-sheet
transaction, in one of the clearest signs yet that accountants are
increasingly questioning such deals after Enron's collapse. Cornell said its
board of directors had formed a special committee to review an August
transaction in which Cornell sold 11 facilities and then leased them back.
Accounting firm Andersen, under fire for blessing Enron's books, was
Cornell's auditor, according to its most recent quarterly report. Cornell,
which said the review could have material financial consequences, also said
its president and chief executive will no longer be chairman. The news sent
Cornell shares plunging on the New York Stock Exchange, where they lost more
than half their value before recouping some losses. Cornell shares were down
40 percent, or $7.03 to $10.45 on the New York Stock Exchange in late
afternoon trading, making it the largest percentage loser on the NYSE on
Wednesday. Cornell said the facilities were sold to an entity owned by
affiliates of an unnamed investment bank for net proceeds of $173 million.
Cornell is focusing on a $3.65 million non-refundable fee it paid to the
investment bank and whether that fee affected the previously reported
accounting treatment for the transaction, the company said. It also is
looking at whether its financial statements appropriately reflected the
amount paid to the investment bank. The fee was for financial advisory
services concerning future financing vehicles and strategic development.
Depending on the results of the accounting review, the company could be
forced to put the facilities back on its balance sheet as assets and take on
the debt of Municipal Corrections Finance L.P., the entity formed to buy the
facilities, as a liability, Cornell said. Municipal Corrections Finance is a
completely independent entity from Cornell and involves no Cornell employees,
the spokesman said. Cornell, which provides prison, treatment and educational
services to government agencies, also said it had installed an outside
director, Harry Phillips Jr., as its new chairman. Phillips succeeds Steve
Logan, who remains president and chief executive of Cornell. (Reuters)
February 7, 2002
Shares of private prison operator Cornell Cos. fell 43 percent
Wednesday after the company disclosed it is reviewing its accounting of a
real estate deal in August. Also Wednesday, Houston-based Cornell named Harry
Phillips chairman, replacing Steve Logan, who remains president and chief
executive officer. The special committee is reviewing whether the retainer
amount paid by Cornell to the investment bank would reduce the previously
established equity of the investment bank affiliate in Municipal Corrections
Finance. If that happened, Municipal Corrections Finance's assets,
liabilities and operating results would have to be reported as part of
Cornell's financial statements going back to 2001's third quarter. (Houston
Chronicle)
Corplan,
Argyle, Texas
June 9, 2010 Arizona Silver Belt
At two consecutive city council meetings in April, the Globe council
members heard from a group of men representing three corporations: Emerald
Correctional Management, Corplan and Cuny Corporation. These men addressed
the council regarding their desire to put in a bid with the Arizona
Department of Corrections to construct a private, 1,000-bed prison in the
City of Globe. The men presented estimates of economic growth that sounded
almost too good to be true. According to Mike Moore of Emerald Corrections,
“the city could get a monthly revenue check per inmate per month but it would
depend on the monthly per diem that the state pays. It does pay and it’s a
sizable number.” The group of business men went on to say the entire project
would be $60 to $100 million in construction, and the goal would be to hire
local workforce for 70 percent of the construction. They also promised to
help the city with expansion of the sewer infrastructure. The city council
took two hours to reach a decision, but in the end, a 4-2 vote in favor of
supporting Emerald Corrections’ bid to build the prison was approved. A deal
too good to be true? Well, there might be more than meets the eye. Case
Study: Hardin, Mon. In 2004, Mr. James Parkey of Corplan - the same James
Parkey who spoke to the Globe city council - proposed the construction of a
private prison in Hardin, Mon., a small rural city suffering from economic
stalemate. A team of experts spoke to the city officials, selling them hope
of economic prosperity through the private prison business. The 450-bed
prison was supposed to generate 150 secure jobs and at least $100,000 in
annual per-prisoner revenue. The companies involved, Corplan as the
developer, Cuny Corporation as the civil engineer of the project, and Civigenics
as the prison operators, promised to realize the project from start to
finish. To pay for the prison, the city of Hardin would have to conduct a
bond sale. Prior to the construction, Parkey promised the city officials an
economic feasibility study, which was carried out by Howard Geisler, a
consultant specializing in prisons, and who had worked together with Parkey
in a number of other cities. The study presented facts and figures that a
Montana state auditor later described as providing “little methodology” and
lacking “historical data to support anticipated prisoner counts.” The auditor
went on the say the report made “a number of assumptions made related to
financial viability that appear to be unfounded.” The prison was built, and
the three companies involved received their payments and Hardin prepared
itself for its first prisoners. In this case, however, they built it, but no
one came. Hardin became so desperate to get prisoners in their prison, that
they requested taking sex-offenders and later even Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
Since the prison had been built for less high profile inmates, with 24-bed
cells, Hardin’s requests were turned down. Hardin’s detention center never
received the expected prisoners and the city has been in bond default for the
last two years. A post on the detention center’s website reads, “any person
or parties interested in operating or leasing space in the Hardin Detention
Facility should contact...” “Do a lot of research” -- The pain is still
throbbing in Hardin, Mon. After contacting the executive director of economic
development and the mayor, the only comment given was “do a lot of research.”
Hardin, Mon. is one of the most prominent cases, where Corplan and its
partners have left a city with an empty prison. Corplan’s website lists a
number of sample prisons that they have built that are surviving. However, it
does not list Hardin. Neither are a number of other cases, where things ‘went
wrong,’ including facilities in LaSalle County, Texas, Pioche, Nev., Lindsay,
Okla., McLennan County, Texas, Las Cruses, N.M., and St. Luis, Ariz. In
Willacy County, three county commissioners who were working very closely
together with Corplan were indicted on bribery charges. Parkey’s and
Corplan’s actions have caught attention in the media. Dan Rather reported on
a few cases, especially the prison in LaSalle, Texas. Frank Smith, of the
non-profit organization Private Corrections Working Group, has been following
Parkey and Corplan over the years. Smith warned that the economic feasibility
report must be read very closely and to expect that there may be
exaggerations or left out aspects. The economic feasibility study “sells” the
project more than examines it in some cases. When asked why nothing has been
done legally against Corplan, Smith named a number of small factors that may
be reasons why is some cases nothing was done. In Globe’s case, Corplan,
Emerald Corrections, and Cuny Corporation have asked for support for a bid in
response to a request for proposals put out by the Arizona DOC. In Hardin,
the three partner corporations told the city that the prison operator,
Civigenics, would provide the service of having prisoners housed in the
facility. This could be a major difference in the success or failure of the
proposed Globe project. The Arizona DOC will be awarding the contracts for
the prisons by June 30, 2010.
April
28, 2010 San Pedro Valley News-Sun
Allowing a private detention center to operate in Benson is not in the
city's best interest said Michelle Brane, the director of the detention and
asylum program for the Women's Refugee Commission. In fact, Brane said
private prisons like the proposed 200-bed facility are "horrible for
rural communities." Corplan Corrections, a Texas Company, wants to build
a 104,000-square-foot facility to house mostly women and children who are in
the country illegally. The company known for building prisons and detention
centers in the U.S., has promised the city big payouts if they sponsor the
$27 million bonds needed to pay for the prison construction. Representatives
of Corplan, including Toby Michael and James Parkey, have told city officials
and council members that the bond is paid for through federal funding.
Corplan Corrections has already selected a 25-acre parcel that would hold the
facility, that they are calling a "Family Residential Center of the
Southwest," near Benson Municipal Airport. However, Brane said the
promise of federal funding is not a true statement. "I have spoken to
the Department of Homeland Security, and the Immigrations and Customs
Enforcement because if Corplan were to get funding, it would be from
them," she said. "At this point there are not any (request for
proposals); there have been no discussions with the federal government.
Nothing is a sure thing and in fact I would say highly doubtful." City
Manager Glenn Nichols said city staff has moved forward with investigating
whether this would be a good economic move for the city, and it will be
discussed by the City Council during the May 10 regular meeting. Nichols said
the biggest concern remains accountability. "We have seen nothing in
writing from the Department of Corrections that this would definitely be
funded," he said. The second concern is the city's liability if the bond
were to go into default. Corplan Corrections says there is no liability on
the city's part, but Nichols said they are not completely sure. Nonetheless,
the direction the city will take will depend on how the council votes on May
10. Nichols said the council will be presented the information, discuss it
and vote to either move forward with the process or stop it. Corplan
Corrections has painted a picture of great economic promise if Benson moves
ahead with the project. In closed-door meetings with council members, Corplan
has promised a federally funded facility that would house 500 women and
children in the country illegally and would create up to 150 jobs. The city
has also been told they would get an increased revenue stream of $218,000 a
year. Similar facilities have been proposed in New Mexico and Texas, and one
became a failure in Hardin, Mont., where the city signed off on $27 million
in bonds in 2007 for a 200-bed facility. The facility was constructed, but to
this day sits empty with no federal grant funding or per diem fees as
promised by Corplan Corrections. Kim Hammond, mayor of Hardin, has warned
cities like Benson to tread lightly when considering the proposals brought
forth by private companies like Corplan.
April
23, 2010 Texas Observer
State Rep. Eddie Lucio III, a Brownsville Democrat, is following in his
father's footsteps by joining forces with Corplan Corrections, a
scandal-plagued prison development company. Lucio is representing Argyle,
Texas-based Corplan Corrections in its bid to build an immigration family
detention center in Weslaco, a Rio Grande Valley town that is in Rep. Lucio's
district. State Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr., also a Democrat Brownsville,
“consulted” for Corplan in 2003 and 2004. Corplan and its CEO, James Parkey,
specialize in selling desperate communities on risky government-financed
prisons with promises of jobs and economic development. Typically, the
company talks local governments into financing speculative jail facilities
and then leaves the community to figure out how to keep them open. In recent
years, Corplan has been at the center of numerous controversies, including a
bizarre prison-building scheme in Hardin, Montana that involved a private
military force called American Police Force run by an ex-con. The prison cost
the small town $27 million but never housed any prisoners. In one of his
latest gambits, Parkey has approached city officials in several towns across
the U.S. – Benson, Arizona; Las Cruces, New Mexico; and Weslaco, Texas – with
a proposal to build a new detention center for immigrant families. Parkey’s
reputation, however, has caught up with him in Las Cruces and Benson, where
officials have nixed the deal. That’s not the case in Weslaco. Weslaco Mayor
Buddy de la Rosa told me that he was first introduced to Parkey two or so
years ago and the project has been in the works ever since. Corplan, he said,
is handling all the details. The company recently brought Rep. Lucio on as an
attorney for the project. Weslaco is in Lucio’s district. In February, Lucio
and Parkey spoke to the Weslaco City Commission and urged the commissioners
to pass a resolution giving Corplan authorization to file a “grant
application” for the facility, according to minutes from the meeting. (De la
Rosa said he has not seen the application and doesn’t know to whom it will be
submitted.) It might be a lousy deal for the city – if it's a deal at all.
"James Parkey and Corplan are prison developers who get paid when a
prison is built," said Bob Libal, an anti-private prison organizer with
Grassroots Leadership. "It's not necessarily in their interest to make
sure the prison project is successful." The Weslaco project is
particularly fraught with risk, Libal says, because the Obama administration
has all but done away with detaining immigrant families. In August 2009,
federal officials removed immigrant families from the T. Don Hutto
Residential Center, a privately-operated jail near Taylor that attracted
international attention after advocates and detainees reported inhumane
conditions. The Obama administration has also let Bush-era plans to add new
family facilities expire, said Michelle Brane, director of detention and
asylum programs at the Women's Refugee Commission. “To my knowledge – and I
spoke specifically with Immigration and Customs Enforcement about this – they
insist they don’t have any requests for proposal out there or any plans for
building a new family detention facility,” said Brane. “I think they’re being
duped frankly.” Mayor de la Rosa said that he wasn’t aware of the shift in
federal policy but said it may explain why he hasn’t heard from Parkey or
Lucio recently. “They have been remarkably quiet for the past several weeks,”
he said. Representing Corplan appears to be a Lucio family business.
According to Texas Ethics Commission filings, state Sen. Eddie Lucio, also a
Brownsville Democrat, worked as a “consultant” for Corplan in 2003 and 2004
at a time when the company was part of a consortium of private prison
interests seeking to build a 2,000-bed immigrant detention center in
Raymondville, the seat of Willacy County. (I did a feature story on
Raymondville's prison boom in 2006. You can read the whole gruesome story
here.) During that time, Lucio also represented other corporate entities
involved in the bid: prison construction company Hale-Mills, prison operator
Management and Training Corp., and Aguirre, Inc. Here's what I wrote in 2006:
The consortium needed a deal closer and found one in state Sen. Eddie Lucio
Jr. The Brownsville Democrat had worked as a "consultant" for
Corplan and Management & Training in 2003 and 2004, according to records
filed with the Texas Ethics Commission. He had suspended his consulting work
in 2005 in the aftermath of the bribery scandal, but Hale-Mills hired him
this year for the federal detention center project. Lucio says Hale-Mills
paid him "to figure out what kind of impact this will have on the
community, to talk to the general public to see what their feel is."
[Former Willacy County Attorney Juan] Guerra alleges that Lucio made multiple
appearances in Raymondville pressuring the commissioners to select Management
& Training over Corrections Corp. "As far as I'm concerned, had it
not been for Eddie Lucio the commissioners would not have gone and put the
county in a $60 million debt," Guerra says. "In my opinion, in his
position as a senator he let our commissioners, including me, know where he
stood... Once your senator lets you know what he wants, it's hard to go
against [him]." In 2005, Lucio ended his consulting work with Corplan
after two Willacy County commissioners pleaded guilty to accepting cash
bribes in exchange for their votes to award a contract for another
Raymondville prison. Amazingly, no one was ever indicted for supplying the
bribe. Sen. Lucio no longer appears to be working for Corplan, at least
according to personal financial disclosure statements for the last four years
filed with the Ethics Commission. Rep. Lucio’s involvement with Corplan is
not disclosed on his latest disclosure filing. The form was turned in on
February 16th, the same day Lucio appeared at the Weslaco City Commission
meeting. It's not clear why Corplan is not listed as a source of occupational
income. For some, the whole thing stinks. “I think that raises some pretty
serious questions especially when he’s presenting false information to a
local body that’s in his district,” said Libal. “Does it break any law? I
don’t know. Does it seem like a big conflict of interest? Yes.”
Coryell County Jail
Gatesville, Texas
Corplan, CiviGenics
November 13, 2006 Killeen Daily Herald
A Willacy County official has a word of caution for the Coryell County
Commissioners' Court as it considers a private prison vendor as a remedy for
its overcrowded jail facility. "Have your sheriff talk to our sheriff.
He will let you know what kind of problems he is having," said Juan Guerra,
who pulls double duty as both county and district attorney in Willacy County.
Guerra said his county has struggled through criminal investigations that saw
two of its county commissioners convicted, and it is also is in danger of
defaulting on a bond payment because it hasn't received enough federal
prisoners to generate the needed revenue to sustain the facility. Coryell
County Commissioners are expected to open a proposal from Innovative
Government Strategies to construct and operate a jail facility when they meet
in regular session at 10 a.m. Monday in the Coryell County Courthouse.
According to the documents turned in by Innovative Government Strategies, the
proposed project team includes James Parkey, with Corplan Corrections Inc.,
for developer, Hale-Mills for construction company, Municipal Capital Markets
Group for financing, Deborah L. Williams for architecture and engineering and
CiviGenics-Texas Inc. for management and operations. Coryell County Attorney
Brandon Belt previously expressed concern about the proposed operator, saying
that CiviGenics had been at the center of controversy recently. However, it
is not just CiviGenics that has a troubled past. The commissioners'
consideration of the group comes just days after a federal judge sentenced
former Willacy County Commissioner Israel Tamez to six months in jail for his
role in a bribery scandal connected to a $14.5 million prison project to
construct a U.S. Marshals Service jail. On Nov. 9, U.S. District Judge Andrew
Hanen handed down the sentence and also gave Tamez three years' probation and
imposed a $25,000 fine. Tamez and former Commissioner Jose Jimenez, who died
of cancer before being sentenced, pleaded guilty in January 2005 to taking
more than $10,000 in kickbacks, Guerra said. Former Webb County Commissioner
David Cortez also was involved in the scandal and was convicted in March 2005
of funneling the bribes to the Willacy County commissioners in exchange for
their votes to hire a consultant in the prison project, Guerra said. Cortez
is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 20. "My understanding was, as far as
implicating the company, it has not been implicated, but the commissioners
have been convicted," Guerra said. "Our records indicate that when
(Cortez) came before the commissioners when this happened four years ago, he
represented himself as a private consultant for Corplan." In May 2005,
Willacy County, on Guerra's instructions, filed a civil suit against Corplan
and Hale-Mills alleging that the two companies were parties to the bribery.
The suit later was dismissed, Guerra said. Guerra said he could not say
whether a federal investigation was still pending, and U.S. District Court
offices were closed Friday for the federal holiday. Willacy County Sheriff
Larry Spence could not be reached either. Guerra said the lack of competitive
bids when Willacy was building its third federal facility – against his
advice and despite the criminal implications – was not only suspect, but
something that possibly lost Willacy County millions. "No one is
checking to see if you are getting your money's worth," he said.
"Because we don't know if that facility cost $50 million to
construct." In fact, Guerra said according to information he received
from experts, the project, which was for a facility to house Immigration and
Customs Enforcement detainees, could have been done for between $30 and $35
million. "The information that I got, from experts that reviewed the
expenses, says they could not justify the $50 million. They padded the
construction costs by an extra $20 to $15 million," Guerra said.
"What is funny you get commissioners that are indicted for taking
$10,000. I am just wondering who are the real crooks?"
Crystal City
Bobby Ross Group
June 4, 2003
City librarian Annette Lehmann doesn't really mind the FBI agents and Texas
Rangers using her conference room day after day for interviews, but she
wishes they'd check in with her first. "It's during the day when
there is really nothing going on, so it doesn't bother me. I'd just like to
be told," she said. "The Texas Rangers wear guns. That's how
you can tell them apart," she added. A little over a month after
voters here gave the boot to a City Council faction that some accused of
running the city like a totalitarian state, the winds of rumor and reform are
both blowing hard. The Rangers and federal agents are busy trying to
make sense of a $14 million detention centers purchase the old administration
rushed through with great secrecy early this year. They also are following
other money trails at City Hall and at the city's economic development
corporation. The $14 million purchase of a pair of prison facilities from the
Bobby Ross Group in Austin remains the big mystery. "We still
don't know exactly where the money went," Mayor Raul Gomez said of the
mammoth deal. "People are just waiting to find out what happened. It's
like they say, 'I hope they (the investigators) don't find anything, but if
they do, I hope something is done about it,'" he said. Both the
FBI in Del Rio and District Attorney Roberto Serna in Eagle Pass have
declined to discuss their investigations in Crystal City. Sources say that so
far nearly a dozen people have been interviewed and numerous records have
been subpoenaed. The sale was financed by high interest bonds sold without a
referendum through a public facilities corporation, and the closing was at a
title company in Austin. An enigmatic key figure in the detention
centers deal was Mario Hernandez, 64, a former city councilman whose name is
on the bronze dedication plaque on City Hall dated 1963. Hernandez
earned thousands in Crystal City as a consultant to the economic development
corporation for cheese factory and tire recycling deals that have yet to bear
fruit. But when he hit the jackpot on the detention centers deal, he was
working for someone else. Acting as a representative of the Bobby Ross
Group, which sold the detention centers to the city, Hernandez made hundreds
of thousands of dollars when the deal closed. "He was paid
$300,000 when the bonds were sold," said Tim Kurpiewski, a Bobby Ross
vice-president in Austin, who said Hernandez made additional money on the
deal that he would not disclose. After the prison facilities were sold
to the city, Hernandez sought to be hired to a $120,000-a-year city job
overseeing the operating contract with Bobby Ross Group. However, since
the change on the City Council, he has dropped out of view. Contacted
by telephone this weekend, Hernandez declined to be interviewed. Hernandez's
background is of special interest to authorities. In the early 1990s he
served 32 months in federal prison for convictions in a credit card scam in
Wisconsin and for harboring undocumented immigrants in San Antonio. In
that case, authorities accused him of keeping Mexican immigrants locked in a
shed on Rigsby Avenue and releasing them in the daytime to work as
laborers. According to the Bexar County Sheriff's Department, Hernandez
is wanted on an active misdemeanor warrant for theft of service under
$500. Former Crystal City Mayor Frank Moreno, who last fall asked the
FBI to look into the city government's activities, was elected to the council
this spring. He said the outside probes are essential to clear the
air. "The people are glad that finally some type of investigations
are started, and they are definitely glad that both the FBI and the Rangers
are involved," Moreno said. (San Antonio Express-News)
February 25, 2003
The
forced removal of a council member from a City Council meeting has ignited a
political battle over whether Crystal City's government is operating in the
open. At the recent February meeting of the council, member Raul Gomez
began questioning City Manager Eleazar Salinas about city expenditures. Mayor
Jody Cerda told him he was out of order. "I was told by the mayor
I should not be asking those questions, and I said, as a councilman, I have
the right to ask about bills and invoices," Gomez told the San Antonio
Express-News for a story in Monday's edition. Gomez refused to be
silenced. "If someone from the public wants to talk about
something, they need to give 10-day notice to the city manager, and if he
thinks it's fit, he'll put it on the agenda," Gomez told the
Express-News. The newspaper reported that Cerda's critics were worried
by the recent sale of $14 million in bonds to buy two detention centers near
Crystal City from the private company that operates them. It reported the
council approved the deal with the Bobby Ross Group last month with almost no
public comment or release of information. The council also turned away
questions from the public. Gomez and Macias, who opposed the detention
center deal, said they were given no information before the purchase. Even
now, more than a month later, they said they haven't seen complete financial
documentation. The purchase was done through a recently created,
Cerda-led public facilities corporation that sold the high-interest bonds.
Documents examined by the Express-News showed the facilities corporation paid
$9 million for the centers, plus the surrounding 75 acres. The Zavala County
appraiser values the centers at $6 million, the newspaper reported. The
lease-purchase deal included a $1.1 million payment back to Crystal City,
with $300,000 apparently going to the city and $800,000 to the city's
economic development corporation - also led by Cerda, the newspaper
reported. In a separate contract, the Bobby Ross Group will still
operate the centers, with revenue generated by the centers going directly to
pay down the bonds, the newspaper reported. (AP)
Dallas County Jail
Dallas, Texas
Aramark, Keefe, Mid-America
October 11, 2006 The Dallas Morning News
Dallas County commissioners voted Tuesday for the first time to award a
jail commissary contract, ending a tradition in which the sheriff decided who
gets the lucrative deal to sell snacks and other items to more than 7,000
inmates. The roughly $34 million, five-year contract awarded to Keefe
Commissary Network is expected to generate more money for the county than the
existing contract. County officials who didn't like how the former sheriff
handled the awarding of the existing commissary contract moved to get state
law changed last year to allow commissioners to decide the commissary vendor.
The new law allows the sheriff to designate commissioners to decide the
contract. Sheriff Lupe Valdez didn't want to be involved because of past
problems, her spokesman has said. Keefe, a St. Louis company, estimated that
annual revenue to the county based on sales of snacks, pens, toiletries,
playing cards and other items would be about $2.6 million, which is almost
four times what the current contractor provides. That contractor, Mid-America
Services, was given the contract in 2002 by then-Sheriff Jim Bowles, who was
a longtime friend of the owner, Jack Madera. At the time, commissioners
complained that other companies offered better financial terms. Commissioner
Kenneth Mayfield cast the sole vote against the contract award, saying
Aramark offered a better value to the county. He said Aramark offered a
slightly higher commission rate as well as $1 million in upfront money, to be
paid out each year of the contract. But Commissioner John Wiley Price said
Keefe guaranteed the county at least $2 million each year. "The numbers
speak for themselves," he said. Mr. Mayfield also said Keefe did not
disclose to the county its involvement in a federal corruption investigation
in Florida involving a prison contract until after the Justice Department
issued a news release about it in July. The county's request for proposals
required such a disclosure. The former head of the Florida corrections
department and a prison official were charged in July with accepting more
than $130,000 in kickbacks from a Keefe subcontractor over two years in
connection with a 2003 prison-store contract. "There's a lot of smoke
there," Mr. Mayfield said. "I find it incredulous that Keefe did
not know they were under investigation in 2004 and 2005." No knowledge:
Keefe's chief executive wrote in a July 31 letter to purchasing supervisor
Linda Boles that the company had no knowledge of illegal activity related to
the case. In a Sept. 11 letter, U.S. Attorney Paul Perez in Florida wrote
that Keefe and its employees are considered witnesses in the investigation
but that could change. "Nothing in this letter ... shall preclude the
United States from later determining that Keefe or any of its employees are
subjects or targets of this investigation," he wrote. It isn't the only
controversy in which the company has been involved. In 2004, Keefe was found
to have charged sales tax on some items that aren't taxable in Texas in
connection with a Collin County jail commissary contract. As a result, almost
600 inmates were overcharged more than $5,000, records showed. Because of the
error, the Collin County sheriff awarded the contract to a different firm.
October
4, 2006 Dallas Morning News
Dallas County commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved the first
phase of a plan to provide more clinical space inside the jail for inmate
medical and mental health needs. The county's selection committee recommended
that St. Louis-based Keefe Commissary Network be awarded the five-year
contract to sell snacks, toiletries and other items to the more than 7,000
inmates. The company's bid calls for a 40 percent commission on sales or $2
million in guaranteed annual revenue for the county, whichever is greater.
Revenue under the current vendor has averaged about $670,600 a year over the
last three years, according to the county auditor. "It shows what can
come from a very well-run procurement process," Mr. Clemson said. Keefe
disclosed to the county that it currently is under investigation by the U.S.
Department of Justice over kickbacks its subcontractor is accused of paying
to the former head of corrections in Florida in connection with a prison
contract.
December
15, 2003
An investigation into the Dallas County sheriff and his dealings with a jail
vendor has expanded to include three other North Texas counties that have
contracts with the vendor, according to a published report. Court
records obtained by the Dallas Morning News show that the campaign finance
records of Denton County Sheriff Weldon Lucas were recently subpoenaed by
Chris Milner, who is overseeing the probe of Dallas County Sheriff Jim Bowles.
Officials in Tarrant and Nueces counties told the newspaper that Milner had
also subpoenaed jail commissary and election records there. Milner is
investigating whether Bowles improperly awarded the Sheriff Department's
commissary contract to Jack Madera of Mid-America Services based on reports
published by the newspaper in September. Milner, an assistant district
attorney in Collin County, declined the newspaper's request for
comment. Bowles accepted meals and travel expenses worth thousands of
dollars from Madera from 1999 to 2001. In 2002 he awarded Madera the
department's commissary contract even though other vendors offered higher
commissions to the department. The sheriff said he repaid Madera for
all expenses except the meals, but hasn't shown proof of those
reimbursements. Lucas awarded Mid-America Denton County's jail
commissary contract that same year under similar circumstances, the newspaper
reported Thursday. (AP)
September
22, 2003
Dallas County Sheriff Jim Bowles accepted meals, airfare and hotel rooms
worth thousands of dollars from commissary vendor Jack Madera in the two
years before he awarded Madera's company a contract to sell goods in the
jail, The Dallas Morning News reported Sunday. Bowles told the
newspaper that he reimbursed Madera or his companies for any expenses except
lunches. He said he didn't keep copies of checks that would show the
reimbursement. "I don't keep copies of checks anticipating
this," the sheriff said. "No one has ever questioned my integrity
before." Bowles has occasionally acted on behalf of Madera,
accompanying him on visits to solicit business from other sheriffs, according
to interviews. At a fund-raiser for the sheriff last week, Madera
declined to be interviewed. Bowles awarded the five-year contract to
Mid-America Services Inc., Madera's company, in June 2002. The
commissary sells snacks, soft drinks and other products to inmates. The
department receives a portion of the $4 million in projected annual revenue
to pay for some inmate programs and jail costs. Madera's bid was worth
about $600,000 in annual revenue to the sheriff's department. Other
bidders offered a minimum of $1 million, according to county records.
After county commissioners criticized the deal, Bowles said he was friends with
Madera. He later backed off that description and now says they interact only
about business. Between October 1999 and November 2001, Madera paid for
72 meals totaling $3,698 at which Bowles or his top aide, Executive Chief
Deputy Larry Forsyth, often were the only guests, according to financial
records provided by Madera's former company. Madera paid $789 for
airfare and hotels for Bowles to attend the 2000 and 2001 Sheriffs'
Association of Texas conferences in Lubbock and Corpus Christi. Madera also paid
$150 for plane tickets for Bowles' wife to attend the 2001 conference.
Madera's new company advanced the sheriff $1,211 for airfare and registration
for this year's National Sheriffs' Association annual conference in
Nashville, Tenn., an expense the sheriff later reimbursed with campaign
funds. The Morning News obtained Madera's expenses from Mid-States
Services, one of the companies that Bowles passed up to award the commissary
contract to Mid-America. Madera founded Mid-States almost 20 years ago and
sold it in February 1999. John F. Sammons Jr., the chairman and chief
executive officer of Mid-States, said he provided the records because they
show that Bowles is too close to Madera. "Sheriff Bowles has never
accepted one red cent from Jack Madera," said Clayton P. Henry, the
sheriff's campaign consultant. "We consider this to be sour grapes on
the part of John Sammons." Some officials said the sheriff has
occasionally worked on behalf of Madera. In 1999, Bowles and Madera paid a visit
to Travis County Sheriff Margo Frasier. "It was one of those kinds
of deals where Jim was introducing me to Jack and saying Jack wanted to talk
to me about my commissary business," Frasier said. "Jim Bowles was
there for the introduction." (AP)
July
3, 2002
Several Dallas County commissioners accuse Sheriff Jim Bowles of awarding a
$20 million jail commissary contract to a longtime friend over bidders who
offered far better financial terms for the department. A five-year contract
was awarded last month to Mid-America Services Inc., owned by Jack Madera, to
sell pens, toothpaste, chips and other items to about 7,000 inmates at Dallas
County jails. The contract would generate about $4 million a year, with
$600,000 a year going to the Sheriff's Department starting July 15, according
to county officials. But two of the unsuccessful bidders, Swanson Services
Corp. and Mid-States Services Inc., said they offered to give the Sheriff's
Department at least $1.2 million a year. He said Bowles, who has been in
office 17 years, has a long relationship with Madera but showed "no
favoritism whatsoever" in awarding the contract to his friend.
Commissioners contend that Bowles, 73, has declined to turn over bid
documents from the four vendors.
Dallas School
District
Dallas, Texas
Community Education Partners
May 7, 2008 Creative Loafing
Patti Welch was living in Douglasville when she went through a divorce
last year. Atlanta was her chance to start over. Weary of her one-hour,
20-minute commute to the northside law office where she works as a paralegal,
Welch found a duplex in the West End only 20 minutes from her job. But the
move also was about her 15-year-old son, Patrick. He was a smart kid, a B
student entering the 10th grade. But he'd gotten into fights. One took place
just off school grounds and involved several kids, so officials labeled it
"gang-related." That meant Patrick would be sent to Douglas
County's alternative school. Even though she was confident her son wasn't in
a gang, Welch didn't bother to appeal the school district's decision. She
thought an alternative school might help him. And she hoped the 10 days
Patrick spent in jail after his last fight would serve as a wake-up call.
Welch knew her son would be sent to an alternative school when they moved to
Atlanta. But she thought it would be temporary. Instead, officials told her
that because Patrick had a gang-related fight on his record, he'd never be
allowed to enroll in a regular school in Atlanta. She tried to make the best
of it. When told he'd be sent to Forrest Hill Academy, she looked at her son
and forced a smile. "Wow," she said hopefully. "They're
putting you in an academy." Six months later, Patrick became one of
eight student plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil
Liberties Union's Racial Justice Program in New York City. The suit alleges
that Forrest Hill – which is operated by a for-profit company called
Community Education Partners – is little more than a pathway to prison for
Atlanta's unwanted students. "It would be a stretch to even call this a
school," says Reggie Shuford, an attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice
Program in New York. "There is little to no academic instruction, and
its students are treated like criminals. It is nothing more than a warehouse,
largely for poor children of color." The ACLU contends that Forrest Hill
students, 97 percent of whom are African-American, spend most of their days
filling out worksheets, for which they get no feedback. According to state
figures, nine out of 10 students at the school are unable to pass the
standardized state test for math proficiency. The figures also show that
Forrest Hill is the most violent school in Atlanta. "It is a national
disgrace that the Atlanta school system has handed over its constitutional
responsibility to a private, for-profit corporation," says Emily Chiang,
the case's lead lawyer. Forrest Hill wasn't quite the academy that Patti
Welch had hoped for. The idea of putting problem children into an
"alternative school" is a recent phenomenon in the world of education.
Before a federal law that took effect in 1978, public schools had no legal
requirement to provide education to special needs kids. If a child was
violent, or continually disrupted the class, schools could kick him or her
out. When the law took away that option, teachers and school systems faced
the chore of trying to tame disruptive students. The trend of taking those
kids out of regular classrooms and putting them into "alternative"
schools began to take hold. That practice quickly led to allegations that
some systems – under increasing pressure to churn out higher scores on
standardized tests – were simply "warehousing" their undesirable
students, out of sight and out of mind. "Those schools weren't about
education, but just getting through the day," says Eric Freeman,
assistant professor of educational policy studies at Georgia State
University. "Those were the 'expendable kids.' It's no longer acceptable
to have schools where kids are warehoused, but we still have a long way to
go." When it was founded in 1996, Community Education Partners touted
itself as a way to get expendable kids back into the mainstream. From the
start, however, there were indications CEP's considerable political weight
was as responsible for its rise as were its education programs. CEP was
formed in Nashville by four men with heavy Republican connections.CEO Randle
Richardson, was chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party from 1992 to 1995
and oversaw a 1994 electoral sweep in which Bill Frist and Fred Thompson won
Senate seats and Don Sundquist was elected governor. Another co-founder, John
Danielson, would become chief of staff for Education Secretary Rod Paige
under George W. Bush. One of the initial investors, Tom Beasley, had chaired
the Tennessee GOP before Richardson did. Beasley also founded the Corrections
Corporation of America, which runs privatized prisons. Founded in 1984, CCA
has grown to become the sixth-largest prison system in the country – trailing
only the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and four states. But the company also has
faced criticism for understaffing, high turnover and lax security. According
to a 1999 state audit, neglect of medical care and security at CCA facilities
in Georgia amounted to "borderline deliberate indifference." The
two companies – CCA and CEP – have turned out to share some parallels. Both
had business plans that relied on obtaining contracts to operate government
services. Both were started in Nashville by major Republican Party players.
And both went to Texas to make their mark. Texas was a natural entry point
for CEP. In 1995, George W. Bush had become governor, and his administration
was brimming with ideas to reform schools. The bundle of changes would be
touted during Bush's 2000 presidential run as the "Texas Miracle."
In that environment, George Scott, president of a Texas nonprofit education
reform group, helped CEP gain a foothold. "I got pulled into it by the
former superintendent for the Houston school department," Scott says.
"It's a sinister manipulation of reality to say that public education is
meeting its constitutional and moral obligation to these children; we throw
at-risk kids into alternative centers and forget about them. Then along came
a company that said it was going to do something different." Scott says
he first used his political connections to help the company land a contract
to take over the education services at a juvenile detention center. He was
impressed by CEP's pitch that its methods could help problem children get up
to speed academically so they go back to mainstream schools. "You have
kids in the ninth grade who can't do fractions," Scott says. "If a
kid is in the ninth grade but is at the fifth-grade level, giving them an
algebra book is useless. Under this program, we would start them at the level
where they are at, and build from there. CEP promised two years of academic
growth for every year a student was in their school." In 1997, Scott
says, he used his relationship with Paige, then Houston's school
superintendent, to help CEP land its first public school contract. Under the
future education secretary's stewardship, the Houston Independent School
District was becoming a cradle of the so-called Texas Miracle. Paige had put
a system in place that held individual principals accountable for dropout
rates and test scores. Then, the district signed a $17.9 million contract to
turn the education of as many as 2,500 children to CEP. Initially, the
corporation hired Carl Shaw – who was the former chairman of the Texas
Education Agency's assessment committee – to develop an independent test to
grade the progress of the CEP students. "I will never forget the day the
school board approved the CEP contract," Scott says. "Randle
Richardson and I were walking out of the building and I told him that not all
the kids in this are going to make two [years of progress] in one. But that
is going to be your strength. You'll say that you're being held accountable
for the program." Before CEP's contract with Houston took effect,
however, the first test results from the juvenile detention facility came
back. Scott recalls that they showed the students weren't making much
progress – some had even regressed. CEP blamed the test, and fired Shaw.
Richardson disputes that account. He says Scott let his friendship with Shaw
intrude on his judgment and that the scores showed 20 student inmates had
regressed in math but that most had made great progress. His own expert
looked at the test and determined it was flawed, an opinion seconded by the
Texas Education Agency. Whether it was over a principle or a friendship, the
incident left Scott with strong feelings about CEP. He now says the one thing
he's most ashamed of in his professional life is helping the company get into
the Texas schools. The absence of Shaw's test, he says, left the company
devoid of the very thing that had attracted him to the concept in the first
place: accountability. Instead, Scott says, CEP began to cull its political
connections. A sitting Houston school board member was hired as a consultant.
Sandy Kress, who later authored Bush's No Child Left Behind program, was
hired as a lobbyist. And when the company opened the campus of its first
alternative school, in Houston in 1997, former President George H.W. Bush was
at the opening ceremony to offer his endorsement. "They put together a
very powerful, politically juiced operation in Texas," Scott says. CEP
followed its Houston deal with a five-year, $10 million-a-year contract in
Dallas. Then, it moved on to Florida and Philadelphia. And all along it
followed a familiar pattern: It hired well-connected lobbyists to sell the
program and courted elected officials with generous campaign contributions.
CEP claimed it had found the key to educating a student population that was
thought to be beyond help. The schools used a computer-based education
program called PLATO that CEP said enables students to quickly catch up to
their age level in reading and math skills. The company was swept up in the
middle of what became a nationwide education reform movement. Bush campaigned
for the presidency heralding his "Texas Miracle" of low dropout
rates and high test scores. When he was elected, he named Paige to his
Cabinet and pushed through Congress the No Child Left Behind Act, which
instituted high achievement goals for the nation's public schools. But even
as it rode the wave of its association with Bush's education changes, CEP
became a target of criticism. Some parents complained of prison-like
conditions inside CEP schools. Others claimed CEP was, in reality, doing
little more than warehousing problem students. There were official rebukes as
well. An internal evaluation in Dallas found that "the model of
education provided by [CEP] was untenable." "The reliance on
non-certified teachers for the bulk of the student- teacher interaction was
useful for the company to save money, but was not a design in the best
interest of the students," the report went on to say. "Students who
attended Community Education Partners did not do very well
academically." CEP had even refused to provide its budget data to the
school district, the report said, which made it impossible to know just how
it was spending the money it received. In 2002, the Dallas school system
fired CEP. By then, however, the company was developing its relationship with
a new customer: Atlanta. It's unclear exactly how CEP came to acquire a $6.9
million contract to open an alternative school in Atlanta. Richardson says
the school system contacted the company in 2001. Citing the pending ACLU
lawsuit, Atlanta school officials won't even talk about CEP. At the time the
contract was signed, Atlanta officials brushed aside concerns already brewing
in Dallas. They cited a "task force" report that supposedly
recommended the district privatize its alternative schools; when the AJC
requested a copy of that report, however, school officials said they couldn't
find one. It didn't take long for concerns to crop up in Atlanta. In August
2002, CEP opened its alternative school in temporary quarters at the old
Archer High School. Parents of some of the students attended the Rev. Darryl
Winston's southeast Atlanta church. "We were hearing allegations of
mistreatment and a prison environment," says Winston, president of the
Greater American Ministerial Council. "We met with the staff, and they
admitted that 90 percent of what we described had to do with the building.
The Archer High School campus was extremely chaotic. They told us the
building did not give us an accurate picture of what the program was
about." CEP even flew Winston and other community leaders to Houston to
tour their schools there. "We were impressed by what we saw," he
says. The company assured Winston the problem was that the Atlanta school had
yet to find a permanent location. The company prefers a specific design for
its schools. Kids are segregated into male and female classes, and the
classes are isolated inside pods within the building. "In school, kids
get in trouble in the hallway or the cafeteria or going to the
restrooms," says Anthony Edwards, a CEP vice president. "So we control
that. There are restrooms and water fountains in each of the common areas. It
eliminates movement. Kids get in trouble when they're moving." Three
properties had already been identified, but each was scuttled by community
opposition to an alternative school in the neighborhood. CEP asked for
Winston's patience, and he was willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
Meanwhile, the company did what it could to strengthen its political ties in
Atlanta. When school board members faced re-election in 2005, CEP and its
executives gave money in four races. According to Fulton County records,
Randle Richardson made a $250 contribution to Mark Riley, who easily won
re-election. He also contributed $500 to Brenda Muhammad, a former board
member who ran successfully to regain a seat. CEP's chief financial officer,
Phil Baggett, contributed another $250 to Muhammad. CEP was more generous in
two other contests: Richardson and Baggett each made three separate
contributions to incumbent Eric Wilson that totaled $2,000, and newcomer
Yolanda Johnson received a total of $2,500. Although Georgia law requires
candidates to list the occupations and employers of their contributors on
their disclosure forms, none of the school board candidates did that for the
CEP executives. Muhammad says she had no idea Richardson and Baggett were CEP
executives until CL told her. "If they were standing in front of me, I
wouldn't know them," she says. "No campaign contribution will
influence me from making my decisions based on the best interest of the
children of Atlanta." Riley also said he was unaware that Richardson led
CEP. "That's a little embarrassing," he says. "I make a point
of never accepting contributions from vendors. I've even returned checks
before." Six months after the school board began its new term, it
extended CEP's contract to 2009. When school opened in August, Patti Welch
and her son got their first look at Forrest Hill. Welch went through a
90-minute orientation, where the rules of the school were laid out. Patrick
wasn't to bring anything onto campus that was considered contraband. The list
included watches, jewelry, purses, combs, brushes, keys and money in excess
of $5. Paper and pens weren't allowed either; the school would provide
everything that was needed, even tampons for female students. Patrick would
go through a metal detector each morning and be patted down by a security
guard to ensure he didn't have weapons or drugs. Backpacks weren't allowed,
and books couldn't be taken home. In fact, there was no homework for Forrest
Hill students. Patrick went through a weeklong orientation that included
tests on the PLATO computer system to determine where he stood academically.
On his first day, he sent his mother a text message: "This school is so
bad." He found the lessons boring. He complained that the teacher would
simply put an assignment on the board; then the kids would be expected to do
it on their own. Once the students were finished, they were given crossword
puzzles to fill out. "Patrick found it totally uninteresting and totally
unmotivating," Welch says. "He kept sending me text messages, and I
didn't believe him. He started missing days, so I went up there." What
Welch saw alarmed her. The building was new and well-maintained, but the pods
where students were segregated reminded her of a jail. "There's one
steel door to the classroom, no windows. It looked like a mini-prison."
Not long after that, she heard the ACLU wanted to interview parents with
children at Forrest Hill Academy for a potential lawsuit. Welch decided to
talk to the organization. Two years ago, a special education lawyer in
Atlanta called the ACLU and suggested they investigate the CEP school in
Atlanta. "As soon as we began to scratch the surface, we were so
outraged by what we found," says the ACLU's Chiang. "The
standardized test scores are really shocking. No one was passing." State
statistics show the school has made few strides toward improving its
students' academic standing. According to state Department of Education
figures from the 2006-07 school year, 91 percent of CEP's students failed the
state's assessment test in mathematics; 66 percent failed the reading
portion. In its latest contract with Atlanta, CEP agreed to a performance
goal of making measurable progress in 31 categories for the 2005-06 school
year, based primarily on results from the state's Criterion Referenced
Competency tests. Of those categories, six couldn't be measured because there
were too few students enrolled to get a proper study group, and CEP students
showed improvement in 11 from the previous year. But in 13 categories, the
students tested worse. In the final category – ninth grade physical science –
there was no change: 100 percent of the students failed both years.
"They cannot deny their standardized test scores are abysmal,"
Chiang says. Shirley Kilgore, a former Washington High School principal in
Atlanta who now consults for CEP, counters that it's unfair to evaluate the
program based on state tests. "Students in an alternative program are
transient," she says. "We had a girl come in here last week. She's
been here a matter of days, but her score belongs to us. Some of these
students taking the tests have not been with us for any length of time."
Richardson, the company's CEO, points out that almost 90 percent of students
sent to Forrest Hill are at least two grade levels behind in reading and
mathematics: "You wouldn't pass it either, if you're reading at the
fourth grade level and you're taking a ninth grade competency test." The
ACLU claims the heart of the problem is that Forrest Hill cuts corners when
it comes to academics. The teachers don't teach, Chiang says, but instead
hand out worksheets for the students to fill out. She also notes that CEP has
a practice of hiring inexperienced teachers. According to state figures, the
average level of experience of the teaching staff at Forrest Hill is less
than a year. Kilgore, the CEP consultant, argues that few quality teachers
want to work at an alternative school. "They are either committed to
making a difference," she says, "or else a new teacher starting
out." But at least one other alternative school attracts far more senior
teachers: The average level of experience at Fulton County's McClarin
Alternative School is 19 years. The ACLU also alleges that students often are
manhandled by the school's staff, that teachers have even thrown textbooks at
the children in their rooms. CEP denies there is any student mistreatment.
"Inexperienced teachers are a recipe for problems," says GSU's
Freeman. "These kinds of schools are special places and full of a
challenging population of kids." Most of CEP's teachers aren't
instructing in their fields of expertise either. According to state records,
of the 76 total core classes taught at Forrest Hill, only 45 percent are taught
by "highly qualified" teachers – those who have majored in the
subject they teach. The statewide average is 96 percent. "We're very
deeply concerned, especially in an alternative school setting where you need
highly-qualified educators to work with the children," says Georgia
Association of Educators President Jeff Hubbard, whose group has lobbied
against privatizing schools. "We don't think students should be put in a
situation where a company is trying to make a profit off their education."
CEP says it spends $9,300 per student compared with $12,406 per pupil for the
rest of the students in Atlanta's public school system. The company contends
the school saves money because it doesn't have to offer such activities as
sports or music programs that are required in regular school programs. But
Freeman's skeptical. While the savings sound efficient, he stresses that, in
education, you generally get what you pay for: "These kids need a lot;
they're needy kids. You need to spend more money on them than typical schools.
If they are spending less, I'd want to know why it costs less to educate a
student with exceptional needs. Where are they saving money? What are they
subtracting and is it good? Are they saving money by hiring less experienced
teachers who have no training in dealing with these kids?" Freeman is
careful to say he hasn't studied Forrest Hill enough to make an ironclad
assessment. But, he says, "I know people who teach in alternative
schools. It's not an easy environment. It usually requires very special
teachers who can work with those kids. It's a big challenge." The Rev.
Darryl Winston is angry that he sees many of the same issues raised in the
ACLU lawsuit that led him to confront CEP officials four years ago. And his
anger isn't just directed at the company. "We need a statement from
Superintendent Beverly Hall that she takes these allegations seriously and
that the APS is looking into them," he says. "All we got was a
statement from the press person that amounted to kind of 'dismissing' it.
I've been told as recently as last week that the APS position is to wait and
see what comes out in court." What especially frustrates him is that no
one who isn't behind the walls at Forrest Hill can really know what's going
on there. "CEP has denied every one of the charges, but there's no way
to verify that," Winston says. "We need experts. I've called on the
board of education to launch its own investigation and see if the charges are
true. If they can't, they need a task force appointed by the governor to see
what is going on at CEP." As far back as Houston, CEP officials have had
to deal with complaints that the company's performance needed to be evaluated
by independent parties. "We want to be held accountable for attendance
and behavior and academics," insists CEP's Anthony Edwards. "It's
very important to us that we are a standards-based program." CEP claims
students who attended Forrest Hill in the 2006-07 school year were, on
average, performing math and reading on the third-grade level when they
arrived. The school claims that students who were at the school for at least
150 days made remarkable progress: an increase of 3.2 grade levels in reading
and four years in math. Under its Atlanta contract, however, CEP both
administers and grades those tests. There's no independent verification of
the results, but longtime educators say making those kinds of academic
strides in one year is virtually impossible. For a certain percentage of
students who are highly motivated, yes, it can be done; for an entire student
population, unlikely. "Kids with emotional and behavioral problems don't
do well in school," Freeman says. "And kids aren't just going to
snap to and start learning." Chiang says lack of progress on
standardized tests make it clear the PLATO test scores are skewed. Students
have told the ACLU that they take the PLATO tests unsupervised and can ask
each other for the answers they don't know. "CEP claims a pronounced
spike in the test scores, but we believe it is because of PLATO," she
says. "In reality, there's no teaching going on." Edwards downplays
PLATO's results. "We are not judged by these," he says. "It's
just a mechanism, a diagnostic tool. The student is given a grade level of
functionality." But the contract with the Atlanta school system says
that Forrest Hill's success or failure will be measured by a combination of
results from PLATO tests and state standardized tests. In addition, if a
student who attends CEP for at least 120 days doesn't show growth in reading
and mathematics of at least one year on the PLATO system, the contract
mandates that CEP must educate that student at no additional cost to the
school district until he or she has reached that level. Patti Welch says her
son continues to struggle at Forrest Hill, and has missed extended stretches
of school because he doesn't want to be there. But she says his disciplinary
problems now seem to be behind him. She plans to take him out of the
alternative school at the end of the year; she wants to home-school him. But
ACLU lawyers say the federal lawsuit – which names the school system, board
members and CEP as defendants – is about more than just eight kids in one
school. It cuts to the heart of a public school's responsibilities to kids
who are in the margins, and it raises questions about the risks of
privatizing public education. "We see it as a broader national problem,
the trend of privatization of government functions and warehousing kids in a
school-to-prison pipeline," Chiang says. For the students at Forrest
Hill, it's also about not being forgotten by the officials who sent them
there. "The problem is that Atlanta didn't build in an adequate system
for oversight and evaluation," Freeman says. "You want it written
into the contract to have a good program evaluation. It's got to be done by
people who know how to do it, people not connected to the school department
or CEP so there's no conflict of interest." Freeman says there should be
an annual independent review of Forrest Hill. Evaluators would go into the
school, see the teaching methods, and interview students and teachers and the
administrators. "I hope the CEP school is investigated by people who
know what they're doing," he says. "There are good questions to
ask, and they deserve good answers. The school can't answer those question,
they can only provide the information. Somebody else has to be the
evaluator."
Dallas County Judicial Treatment
Center
Milmer, Texas
GEO Group (formerly Cornell)
January
7, 2011 Dallas Observer
Cornell Companies, the private operator of correctional facilities 'cross the
country, has a motto: "People Changing People." A lawsuit filed
this week in Dallas County District Court proposes an alteration:
"People Filming People." At least, so suggest 36 former inmates of
the Dallas County Judicial Treatment Center in Wilmer, a 300-bed facility to
which men and women convicted of drug- and alcohol-related crimes in Dallas
County are sent to get clean and sober rather than spend time behind bars.
Says the suit, in January 2008 Cornell Companies employees began filming the
inmates without their consent. Caught on film were their often intense drug
treatment sessions, scenes from their daily routines and a talent show
called, but of course, Cornell Idol. The suit says the inmates, who were
already uncomfortable about the filming, were told the footage would be
transferred to DVD and shown only to the Drug Court judges who send prisoners
to the treatment center. But the complaint alleges it was "turned into a
publicity and promotional film" -- shown to, among others, Dallas County
Commissioner John Wiley Price and Attitudes & Attire -- and used as a
fund-raising vehicle and "to obtain future contracts for supervision and
operation of other treatment facilities in Texas and locations in other
states." Other patients in the facility also saw the film, says the
suit, and as a result: "The sharing of the film with the patient
population caused considerable embarrassment for the women residents from
taunts and teasing of the male patients." The suit is alleging that
Cornell Companies violated both state and federal privacy statutes, including
those related to keeping confidential records related to those undergoing
drug and alcohol treatment. It also directs the court's intention to a 2002
doc prepared by the U.S. Department of Justice -- Practical Guide for
Applying Federal Confidentiality Laws to Drug Court Operations -- which says
that "the intent of Congress in creating these statutes was to encourage
the rehabilitation of substance abusers who might otherwise be deterred from
entering treatment by concern that their substance abuse would become public
knowledge." The suit is asking for $50,000 per plaintiff. The attorney
-- Charles Paternosto, who's up in Denison -- wants $100,000 for providing
"exemplary work for his clients"; more, if it goes into appeal.
Danville Center for Adolescent Females
Danville, Texas
Cornell
August
8, 2005 Danville News
Texas-based Cornell Abraxas will not renew its contract with the state to
provide youth treatment services at the Danville Center for Adolescent
Females. The company has run the facility since 1998, but has chosen not to
continue its management, citing a lack of infrastructure support.
Dawson State Jail
Dallas, Texas
CCA
May 3, 2013 www.thecrimereport.org
The Corrections Corporation of America, which runs 12
Texas prison facilities, is facing a lawsuit from a publication that says it
is failing to release information related to deaths and health care at the
Dawson State Jail in Dallas, reports the Texas Tribune. The prison is one of several
the legislature is considering for closure because of a declining prison
population. The lawsuit, filed in state court in Austin, seeks to force the
company to comply with an open records request that was filed in March by
Prison Legal News, a monthly magazine based in Vermont that focuses on
prisoner rights. The magazine says it is trying to "enforce its right
under state law to investigate patterns of unconscionable and
unconstitutional conditions in corporate-run jails." "This lawsuit
is about the truth," said Brian McGiverin, a Texas Civil Rights Project
lawyer for Prison Legal News. "They hide the truth because they know the
truth is horrifying." Lawmakers are considering whether to close Dawson
State Jail in the current budget, an effort spearheaded by state Sen. John
Whitmire, along with the American Federation oif State County Municipal
Employees.
May 1, 2013 statesman.com
Two civil-rights advocacy groups
on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in Travis County district court alleging one of
the nation’s largest private prison companies is refusing to make public
details about deaths and injuries in its Texas lockups. The suit filed by the
Prison Legal News, a subsidiary of the nonprofit Human Rights Defense Center,
and the Texas Civil Rights Project state in the suit thatthey requested
information from Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America under the
Texas Public Information Act concerning its Texas contracts, lawsuits filed
over its Texas operations and information about settlements and other legal
filings. According to the suit, the company declined to respond to the
request. Steve Owen, CCA’s senior director of public affairs, said “We will
review the complaint and determine the appropriate course of action.” The
filing of the suit came as the closure of two CCA-run state lockups — the
Dawson State Jail in Dallas and the Mineral Wells Pre-Parole Center — is
being considered by the Texas Legislature. Legislative opponents of the
closures said the suit was timed to push for approval of the closures. In a
press release announcing the filing of the suit, the Texas Civil Rights
Project alleged that by refusing the release the records, CCA is “covering up
the deaths of seven people at the Dawson State Jail while denying hundreds of
women access to medical care. “ CCA has previously denied those claims. In
their lawsuit, the two groups seek a court order requiring CCA to make the
records public. No hearing date has been set.
Mar
12, 2013 dallasnews.com
Just weeks ago the Texas Observer
branded the Jesse R. Dawson State Jail on the banks of the Trinity River near
downtown Dallas as “Texas’ worst state jail,” citing, among other things,
poor conditions and inadequate medical treatment that “in a few cases led to
deaths.” Among them: Autumn Miller’s premature baby, a girl named Gracie born
after just 26 weeks of gestation. Autumn told KTVT-Channel 11 in July that
guards at the privately operated jail, which is owned by Corrections
Corporation of America, refused her cries for medical attention. She says the
guards gave her a menstrual pad and locked her in a cell. She says they told
her she just had to go to the bathroom. As a result, Miller says in a lawsuit
filed Friday in Dallas federal court, on June 14, 2012, “She looked down and
watched, in horror, as she delivered baby Gracie into the toilet.” The infant
lived for four days and died in her mother’s arms. “Within an hour of
Gracie’s death,” says the suit, “CCA employees took Autumn back to Dawson.”
Autumn, who was sent to Dawson State Jail in February 2012 to serve one year
for violating probation on a drug-possession charge, and her attorneys, Paula
Sweeney of Dallas and Suzanne Kaplan of Austin, are claiming negligence and
cruel and unusual punishment in the suit filed last week. The complaint follows
in full below. The suit alleges CCA guards did nothing to help Miller, before
or after she gave birth to her baby; she claims it took guards 15 minutes
just to find the key to get into her cell, and that “several CCA employees
came into the holding cell while Gracie lay there helpless next to her
bleeding mother.” She alleges one guard videotaped the whole ordeal. Finally
at the hospital, says the suit, Autumn — a nonviolent offender — “was still
handcuffed and shackled” when allowed to visit with her baby. “As a result of
Defendants’ deliberate indifference to their serious medical needs, failure
to follow the existing telemedicine policy, failure to adequately supervise
and train its employees to follow the telemedicine policy, and to supervise
and train its officers and agents to act in an emergency,” says the suit,
“Autumn is traumatized and Gracie is dead.” The suit was filed just days
after a coalition of state and national groups issued “Dawson State Jail: The
Case for Closure,” which mentions Gracie’s death while making the case that
the jail’s an unsafe place. State legislators have also begun to push for the
jail’s closure, insisting it just isn’t needed with a dwindling state jail
population. And the city of Dallas wants the jail closed in order to develop
the property along the Trinity River.
February 27, 2013 reporternews.com
If the nation’s largest
correctional officers union gets its way, then the empty multimillion-dollar
Jones County lock up will soon house a little more than 1,000
minimum-security state inmates from the privately run in Jacksboro. Built in 2010, the
$35-million, 1,100- bed capacity prison in Jones County sits empty at the
edge of Anson, a town of 2,422. It was supposed to create nearly 200 jobs
with a $5 million annual boost to the local economy. On Wednesday, the
American Federation of State County Municipal Employees — Texas Correctional
Employees operates under that umbrella — called on state legislators to end three
contracts with the Correctional Corporation of America, citing abuses and
poor management. Along with Lindsey in Jacksboro, two other private prisons
included on the proposed chopping block are Dawson State Jail in Dallas and
Mineral Wells Pre-Parole Transfer Facility. The union’s local 3807 chapter
president, Lance Lowry, said the proposal calls for the Jones County facility
to be run by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and house the Lindsey
inmates starting Sept. 1, should the state opt to not renew the private
contract. Inmates from the other private prisons also will be moved to
state-run facilities. Lowry said about 25 state and national organizations
are calling for the closure of Dawson for “extreme abuses, and other medical
abuses,” accusing Correctional Corporation of America of having a history of
abusive practices. “There were three female inmates that died there and a
baby last year, and all of the incidents were easily preventable” Lowry said.
“What we’re finding is that these private facilities are not paying their
staff the equivalent of what the state pays correctional officers.” U.S.
Department of Labor data indicate the median annual wage for correctional
officers by the state is $38,850. In contrast, officers employed in privately
operated prisons earned a median salary of $28,790. In 2011, the TDCJ
derailed plans to house inmates at Jones County facility when it terminated a
contract with the county. More than 30,000 of the state’s 93,000 county beds
sit empty — both at county jails and at centers built through county-private
partnerships, like Anson, according to the Texas Commission on Jail
Standards. “Jones County will come out better from this deal, than with a
private prison in their community,” Lowry said. “And we don’t want another
(private) facility to open to open up. That’s going to be disastrous like the
other ones.” Lowry said the union notified Jones County officials about the
proposal.
December 4, 2012 Dallas Business Journal by Lance Murray
A Houston lawmaker is proposing
the closure of a privately-run prison in Dallas. State Sen. John Whitmire,
D-Houston, and a union representing prison employees are proposing the
closure of the privately run Dawson State Jail in Dallas and the the Mineral
Wells Pre-Parole Transfer Facility, the Texas Tribune reported. The lawmaker
and the union said the state doesn't need the facilities and closing them
would be a way to save money. Whitmire said the state has an excess of prison
beds because of improved diversion programs and alternatives to imprisonment.
Whitmire said the Dawson State Jail sits on prime land in downtown Dallas,
and local officials would like to have the land for development. Lance Murray
edits and writes for the DBJ's website and can be reached at 214-706-7106
July
10, 2012 CBS 11 News
CBS 11 has learned a baby was prematurely born last month at the Dawson Jail
in downtown Dallas, apparently with no medically trained personnel in
attendance. The baby lived four days. In an exclusive interview with CBS 11,
Doctor Owen Murray, Vice President of Offender Health Services at the
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, said there is no state
requirement to have medically trained personnel at Dawson between 5 p.m. and
5 a.m., which was the period in which Autumn Miller gave birth to her
daughter, Gracie. It was the latest development in a series of stories CBS 11
has been investigating on the medical care provided to inmates at the
privately-run prison facility. In our first report, a severely diabetic woman
died after her family said she became ill in the jail. Her cries for help to
guards went ignored, according to her family. In our next report, a young
woman died of pneumonia after personnel at Dawson failed, according to her
family, to furnish her with the antibiotics she needed. After our second
story aired, Jean Burr contacted CBS 11. Burr is a grandmother with a dozen
grandchildren. She called us the day after her family buried her newest
granddaughter. It was a little girl, with a name that conveyed her brief
life, Gracie. “She was here by the grace of God and gone the same way,” her
grandmother said. Gracie came into the world in an unlikely place: Dawson
State Jail. The facility holds non-violent criminals who commit minor crimes.
Gracie’s mother, Autumn Miller, was convicted of a drug charge, violated her
probation and got a year behind bars. Miller arrived at Dawson in January.
She has three other children and knew what it felt like to be pregnant.
“Three weeks before the baby was born, she had requested a pregnancy test and
pap smear, because she had not had a period since she had been there and she
was feeling unwell. She didn’t know what was wrong, but she was not feeling
right,“ Burr said. Officials at Dawson will not tell CBS 11 News whether they
have any records of Autumn Miller requesting a pregnancy test. Dawson State
Jail is run by a private company called Corrections Corporation of America
(CCA). CCA will not respond to our questions about what occurred inside the
jail on June 14, 2012. But Burr says her daughter tells a chilling story of
what happened during the early morning hours when she began to bleed and
cramp inside the jail and had trouble walking. “They took her down to the
medical unit on a stretcher. When she got there, there was a doctor on the
screen,” Burr said. But Miller told her mother that the doctor, who was
available through a teleconference, never had a chance to see her. “The lady
that was down there in the medical unit in charge told the doctor they did
not need him for this patient and they just turned this off … She was crying,
complaining that she was feeling pressure, pain, bleeding and something was
bad wrong. They needed to do something,” Burr told CBS 11. “One of the guards
in there made the comment that, ‘Oh, it is probably the food, you probably
need to go poo.’ They gave her a menstrual pad, locked her in a holding cell
and closed the door. And then she went in there and pressure was so bad she
went to the toilet…,” Gracie’s grandmother said. What happened next, according
to Burr, has changed all of their lives forever. And, she says, it was
something no one at the jail was prepared to handle at that time. After
Miller went to the bathroom, “the baby came out and went into the toilet and
she started screaming,” Burr said. Tiny Gracie was born premature on June 14
at just 26 weeks. She weighed a little more than a pound. Ambulances rushed
Gracie and Miller to Parkland Hospital where doctors worked against the odds
to save Gracie. Pictures from the hospital show Miller holding her newborn,
snuggled in a pink blanket, near to her chest. Miller, still in handcuffs,
holds the little girl’s hands. By day three, Miller, Burr and other family
members had hope that Gracie had a fighting chance of surviving. But after
four days, doctors told them Gracie was beyond all help. So she made the
decision to let the baby go; Autumn held her while she took her last breath
and heartbeats. And they pronounced her dead at 5:30. “And shortly after 6,
(Autumn) was on her way back to Dawson,” Burr said. Once at the jail, Miller
was placed in solitary confinement for two days, her mother, overwhelmed with
emotions, said. “This is still a woman with the afterbirth and bleeding and
stitches where she’d had a tubal … and they locked her in there for two days
… and then they took her to see a psychiatrist and said, ‘Well, you’ve been
on suicide watch,’ “ Burr said. Burr, grief stricken by the loss of her
granddaughter, contacted CBS 11 after learning that the station had been
investigating the medical care at Dawson, and the circumstances leading up to
the deaths of other inmates at the facility. “I understand that their freedom
and their rights have been taken because they have done things to cause
that….(But) this could have been prevented,” Burr said, as tears welled up in
her eyes. “No baby should be born in a toilet in prison.” Burr tells CBS 11
she believes that if Autumn had been given the pregnancy test that she
requested, things would have turned out differently. “Then three weeks later
they would have known she was having a baby,” Burr said. “She could have been
in a medical unit. She could have had the treatment she should have been
having. And maybe Gracie would still be with us,” the grandmother said.
Fighting back tears and still devastated by the loss of her newest
grandchild, she clings to an album of the pictures the hospital took of them
all together over the four days Gracie lived. “It would have changed the
outcome of what will be with Autumn for the rest of her life to live with.
She’s going to see that baby being born in that toilet – and die — for the
rest of her life … she didn’t deserve that,” Burr said. Miller’s lawyer told
CBS 11 he did not want Miller speaking to us while she is still at Dawson.
She is scheduled to be released in November. Neither CCA nor the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice will answer our specific questions about the
incident that occurred on June 14 or about the deaths of the other inmates.
June
14, 2012 CBS
Ashleigh Shae Parks, 30, died just six weeks before she was scheduled to be
released from Dawson State Jail in downtown Dallas, a low security facility
for people convicted of non-violent crimes. Parks was serving an 18-month
sentence for drug possession. “My little sister lived long enough for my
mother to make it to her bedside,” recalled Keith Grady. Ashleigh Parks’
brother says he didn’t know his sister was sick until the family got a call
saying she had been moved from the jail to the hospital. “As soon as my
mother came in, she died.” Her family says Ashleigh had pneumonia and they
believe her death could have been prevented if she had simply gotten
antibiotics sooner. Their suspicions are based, in part, on letters they
received from inmates at Dawson. “I thought all she needed was medication,
and all my daughter needed was antibiotics,” said Reni Palmer, Parks’ mother.
Parks’ family blames the staff at Dawson State Jail for not recognizing
Ashleigh’s illness sooner. They say they filed a lawsuit but later dropped
it. “The medical personnel in ICU told me there was basically nothing they
could do for her. And these are the people at the hospital (who) told us that
the prison killed my sister,” said Grady. His anger and grief was renewed in
April when he saw a CBS 11 investigation which raised troubling questions
about a lack of medical care at Dawson State Jail. In our previous report,
CBS 11 spoke with the family of Pam Weatherby, an inmate who died while
serving a one year sentence for drug possession. Weatherby’s parents believe
their daughter didn’t receive adequate treatment for her diabetes while in
jail. Anne Roderick, another inmate, said Weatherby was very ill, but no one
moved her from her cell from for medical treatment. Roderick claims the
inmates tried desperately to keep Weatherby alive. “I knew she was going to
die,” said Roderick. “I knew if we didn’t get her out of there, she was going
to die.” Pam Weatherby died on May 12, 2010. Ashley Parks died two years
earlier. After watching our earlier report, Parks’ brother wonders if by
speaking about more, he could have helped prevent Weatherby’s death. “I
wondered if that night if I had done more myself (would) that girl still be
alive,” said Keith Grady. Nearly 20 former inmates have also contacted CBS 11
saying they were afraid to talk when they were at Dawson but now want to
speak out about a lack of medical care. Dawson State Jail is run by
Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison management company based
in Tennessee that has a contract with the State of Texas. CBS 11 obtained internal
CCA documents that show the chief of security reported that the supervisors
did not follow proper procedures by failing to call for help for Pam
Weatherby. He recommended terminating a shift supervisor. But when CCA had to
file an incident report with the State of Texas, the warden wrote “staff
acted in accordance with TDCJ procedure” and concluded that “no training
needs have been identified.”
January
11, 2012 Dallas Morning News
Update: Lancaster police arrested the suspect in a shooting that critically
injured a Dawson State Jail employee Tuesday. Walter Moore, 29, faces a
charge of aggravated assault/family violence in the attack on Shiva Daniels,
the mother of two of his children, Dallas police said. Moore was booked into
the Dallas County Jail shortly after midnight and is being held on $250,000
bail. Daniels remains at Parkland Memorial Hospital in serious condition.
Update/rewrite with victim's name 10 pm: A shooting outside the Dawson State
Jail Tuesday left an employee in critical condition and her attacker on the
loose. Shiva Daniels, 26, was leaving work at the jail about 5 p.m. when the
estranged father of her children walked up to her vehicle and shot her twice
with a shotgun, according to a police report. Hit in the neck and shoulder,
the maintenance technician called 911, spoke the alleged shooter's name twice
and told operators she was going to die. The shooter fled the public parking
lot, which serves the Dallas County courthouse across the street, in the 100
block of West Commerce Street.
May
18, 2011 Dallas Observer
Pamela Weatherby, a 45-year-old Big Spring woman -- and, according to a
federal suit filed Monday in Dallas, an "unstable insulin dependent
diabetic" -- was serving a one-year sentence for drug possession at
Dawson State Jail when she died last July. Now her parents and two sons say
Weatherby would still be alive if not for the treatment she received from
guards and medical staff at Dawson, which is on the Trinity River on W.
Commerce Street. They're suing Corrections Corporation of America, the state
jail's operator and the country's largest private prison outfit, over her
death. Says the suit, which follows after the jump, Weatherby wasn't given
off the regular insulin shots she needed -- she got oral diabetes treatment
instead -- nor was she fed the special low-starch diet Texas requires for
diabetic inmates. The suit recounts Weatherby's two months of diabetic comas
after she was taken off insulin shots, blaming them on "CCA's deliberate
indifference to her serious medical needs." CCA spokesman Mike Machak
tells Unfair Park they hadn't been served yet and only just got a look at the
suit. "However, at this point, it is important to understand that we
take the health of every inmate in our care very seriously," he says.
Lawyers for Weatherby's family didn't respond to messages, but Elisabeth
Holland, a local nurse practitioner who runs Project Matthew, a faith-based
medical program for incarcerated women, says she isn't surprised. "My
opinion is that the health care in Dawson is worse than in a developing
country," she says. "Any of those diseases -- HIV would be another
one -- that require regular medication with regular screening gets
lost." CCA is the only defendant named in the suit. But it also mentions
one Quindlynn Gray, who, the suit alleges, signed off on Weatherby's health
care at Dawson; Gray is listed as an employee of the University of Texas
Medical Branch in Galveston, which provides health care for Texas's
corrections system. (That may not be the case very much longer, especially if
private health care providers convince lawmakers to open the market.) The
suit against CCA offers a blow-by-blow account of Weatherby's diabetic
incidents at Dawson, where, the family alleges, her treatment didn't follow
the course prescribed by the diagnostic intake facility Weatherby came
through first. Within days of her arrival at Dawson, the suit says, Weatherby
was taken off her scheduled insulin shots and given oral Glyburide instead --
ushering in "three consecutive days of diabetic comas," the suit
says. Mistaking the comas for a suicide attempt, the suit says, jail
officials had her transferred to a mental health unit in Gatesville, where
she was put back on insulin shots and stabilized -- only to return to Dawson
after a few days, where she was taken back off insulin and her comas started
up again. At 1 a.m. on June 22, the suit says, guards found Weatherby
unresponsive in her cell again; she was transferred to Parkland, stabilized,
and returned to Dawson the next morning. Weatherby died July 14 after
"yet another diabetic crisis", the suit says; an autopsy blamed
effects from her diabetes. "CCA refused to treat Weatherby, ignored her
complaints, and intentionally treated her incorrectly with wonton disregard
for any serious medical needs," Weatherby's family claims, blaming the
company for "a pattern and practice of failing to implement processes
and procedures" the state requires.
DeWitt County Jail
Cuero, Texas
Keefe (formerly run by Aramark)
May 9, 2006 The Victoria Advocate
Bookkeeping problems in the DeWitt County Jail commissary should be a thing
of the past now that the supplier and office policy have changed, Sheriff
Jode Zavesky told county commissioners Monday. Zavesky said he had signed a
contract earlier this month with Keefe Supply Company to supply and
administer the jail's commissary. "Our last supplier (Aramark) kind of
left us dangling," the sheriff said. "They said we were too small
an operation and they weren't coming back." Commissioner Curtis
Afflerbach asked if the problems with the system that the county auditor
reported at the last court's meeting would be resolved with the new company.
"We hope to reconcile that the best we can prior to this new
contract," Zavesky said. "We've also implemented some changes with
our staff that we hope will keep us from getting into the same
problems."
Dickens County
Correctional Facility
Spur, Texas
GEO Group (formerly run by Bobby Ross Group)
July 15, 2010 News Express
The GEO Group, a Florida firm that contracts with local governments to
run jails, has agreed to pay $2.9 million to settle a class-action lawsuit
alleging indiscriminate strip searches of inmates at six facilities,
including three in Texas. The Frio County Detention Center in Pearsall, the
Dickens County Detention Center in Dickens and the Newton County Correctional
Center in Newton and jails in New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Illinois were
named in the suit, which was litigated in federal court in Pennsylvania. The
suit alleged GEO employed a uniform practice or policy of strip-searching all
pre-trial detainees who entered certain GEO-operated jails, regardless of the
crime or violation for which they were detained, and without making the
legally required determination of whether reasonable suspicion existed to justify
a strip search. Inmates incarcerated at the six jails between Jan. 30, 2006
and Jan. 30, 2008 qualify for a share in the settlement, but they must call
1-877-234-4512, or visit
http://www.multistatestripsearchsettlement.com/index.html.
September
14, 2009 The Olympian
The Idaho Department of Correction and the parents of an inmate who killed
himself in a private prison have reached a settlement ending a federal
lawsuit over the son's death. The agreement, approved Sunday by U.S. District
Judge B. Lynn Winmill, also marks the end of lawsuits the parties had filed
against each other in state court after previous settlement talks fell apart
earlier this year. The case arose after the 2007 death of Scot Noble Payne,
who had been sent to a private Texas prison with hundreds of other inmates to
alleviate overcrowding in Idaho. Payne slashed his own throat, and Idaho
officials who investigated the Dickens County Correctional Facility said the
deplorable conditions at the prison and the physical environment of Noble's
solitary cell could have contributed to his suicide. Payne's mother, Shirley
Noble, and his father, Alberto Payne, sued the Idaho Department of
Correction, saying the department was responsible for the wrongful death of
their son. The parties went into mediation to see if they could reach a
settlement, and in February both sides agreed the parents should be awarded
$100,000 and that the Idaho Department of Correction would not admit fault
for Scot Noble Payne's death. But when the official settlement document was
sent to the parents the following month, they refused to sign. At the time,
Noble's attorney said the Idaho Department of Correction added terms to the
document that hadn't been arbitrated in mediation. The Idaho Department of
Correction then sued the parents in state court, asking a judge to force them
to sign the document, and the parents countersued, contending the state was
breaching the settlement contract. The lawsuits filed in state court have now
been dismissed, along with the federal lawsuit. The terms of the federal
settlement were not released.
May 15, 2009 The
Olympian
The Idaho Department of Correction and the mother of an inmate who killed
himself in a private prison are suing each other after a settlement agreement
over the son's death fell apart. Scot Noble Payne, who had been sent to a
private Texas prison with hundreds of other inmates to alleviate overcrowding
in Idaho prisons, slashed his own throat in 2007. Idaho officials who
investigated the Dickens County Correctional Facility said the conditions
were deplorable and that the physical environment of Noble's solitary cell
could have contributed to his suicide. Payne's mother, Shirley Noble, and his
father, Alberto Payne, filed a tort claim against the Idaho Department of Correction
contending that the department was responsible for the wrongful death of
their son. Correction Department officials and the parents went into
mediation to see if they could reach a settlement, and in February both sides
agreed that the parents should be awarded $100,000 and that the Idaho
Department of Correction would not admit fault in Scot Noble Payne's death.
But the next month, when the official document that would release the Idaho
Department of Correction from liability in the case was delivered to the
parents, they refused to sign. The problem, according to Noble's attorney, is
that the Idaho Department of Correction added additional terms into the
release document that hadn't been arbitrated in mediation. The mediation
agreement lists Shirley Noble, Alberto Payne, the state of Idaho and the
Idaho Department of Correction as parties in the agreement. But the release
also lists the estate of Scot Noble Payne and all of the representatives and
employees of the Idaho Department of Corrections and the state as parties.
That could throw into jeopardy another lawsuit brought by the parents - in
their role as representatives of Scot Noble Payne's estate - against several
employees of the Idaho Department of Correction. After the parents refused to
sign, the Idaho Department of Correction filed a lawsuit against them in Ada
County's 4th District Court, asking a judge to force the parents to sign the
release. The parents countersued, contending the state was breaching the
contract they reached under the settlement agreement by trying to later add
new terms. Idaho Department of Correction officials said they could not
comment on pending litigation. The parents' attorney, Wm. Breck Seiniger,
Jr., said the department made a mistake when it was negotiating and didn't
realize it until it was too late - and now is trying to place the blame, and
the loss, on the parents. "I think the lawsuit is just an attempt to
intimidate the parents, frankly," Seiniger said. "If they thought
the agreement meant something different, that is not our problem." The
parents have also filed a lawsuit against Geo Group Inc., the private company
that ran the Texas prison, in U.S. District Court in Texas. That lawsuit is
still in the discovery stages, Seiniger said.
November
14, 2008 Magic Valley Times-News
Families of two Idaho inmates who apparently killed themselves in lockups
run by private prison company GEO Group Inc., pleaded Thursday with Texas
state senators to bar out-of-state prisoners from the Lone Star State. The
Idaho Department of Correction has housed more than 300 prisoners at GEO-run
Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas, but recently announced
plans to move them to the private North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre,
Okla. The move follows allegations that GEO falsified reports and
short-staffed the Texas facility where Idaho inmate Randall McCullough, 37,
died. Families of Idaho inmates spoke Thursday at a Texas state Senate
hearing in Austin, Texas. The hearing, which dealt with general oversight of
the Texas prison system and did not result in specific action, was webcast
live over the Internet. Among those testifying was lawyer Ronald Rodriguez,
who represents McCullough's family as well as that of Idaho inmate Scott
Noble Payne, 43, who killed himself last year at another GEO-run prison in
Dickens, Texas. "Idaho prisoners need to be in Idaho where they have
access to their court - Where they have access to their families,"
Rodriguez on Thursday told the Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice.
Payne's mother, Shirley Noble, spoke to Texas lawmakers last year and again
on Thursday. "It seems that no lessons were learned," Noble said.
"If changes had been placed - Randall would not have been so desperate
to take his own life, as my son did." Texas Sen. John Whitmire,
D-Houston, chairman of the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, questioned
why the "little" state of Idaho recently decided to pull its
prisoners from Geo-run Bill Clayton. "Should we be following their
lead?" he asked. But a Texas Department of Criminal Justice official
told Whitmire that Texas inmates aren't held at Bill Clayton, and warned
against painting private prisons in Texas with a broad brush. Inmate
McCullough's sister, Laurie Williams, told Texas senators that they should do
a review of all private prisons in their state - including GEO competitor
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Idaho prisoners are to be taken to
CCA-run North Fork in Oklahoma, where another Idaho inmate, David Drashner,
was allegedly murdered in June. IDOC's decision to move prisoners from one
privately run lockup to another out-of-state facility concerns Williams, as
well as Drashner's wife, Pam Drashner, who have said they want Idaho to stop
shipping away its inmates. Idaho doesn't have enough room for all its
prisoners, and sending them out-of-state has been widely unpopular. Williams
also wants to talk to Idaho lawmakers, she said. "We should be
addressing the Idaho Senate," said Williams, after Thursday's hearing in
Texas. "This is Idaho sending its inmates out of state whether it's
Texas that takes them or Oklahoma and that's what we have to have
stopped." GEO made $4.9 million in annual operating revenues off its
contract with Idaho to manage prisoners at Bill Clayton. GEO officials said
shareholders won't lose out from Idaho's withdrawal because of an expanding
contract with the state of Indiana.
November
6, 2008 AP
The Idaho Department of Correction has terminated its contract with
private prison company The GEO Group and will move the roughly 305 Idaho
inmates currently housed at a GEO-run facility in Texas to a private prison
in Oklahoma. Correction Director Brent Reinke notified GEO officials Thursday
in a letter. Reinke said the company's chronic understaffing at the Bill
Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas, put Idaho offenders' safety
at risk. An Idaho Department of Correction audit found that guards routinely
falsified reports to show they were checking on offenders regularly — even
though they were sometimes away from their posts for hours at a time. "I
hope you understand how seriously we're taking not only the report but the
safety of our inmates," Reinke told The Associated Press on Thursday.
"They have an ongoing staffing issue that doesn't appear to be able to
be solved." The contract will end Jan. 5. Reinke said the department
wanted to pull the inmates out immediately, but state attorneys found there
wasn't enough cause to allow the state to break free of the contract without
a 60-day warning period. In the meantime, Reinke said, Idaho correction
officials have been sent to the Texas prison to help with staffing for the
next two months. GEO will be responsible for transferring the inmates to the
North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayer, Okla., which is run by Corrections
Corp. of America. GEO will cover the cost of the move, Reinke said, but Idaho
will have to pay $58 per day per inmate in Oklahoma, compared to $51 per day
at Bill Clayton. Amber Martin, vice president for The GEO Group, of Florida,
said she couldn't comment on the audit or on Idaho's decision to end the
contract. She referred calls to the company spokesman, Pablo Paez, who could
not immediately be reached by the AP. As of Oct. 1, Idaho had nearly 7,300
total inmates. The Bill Clayton audit describes the latest in a series of
problems that Idaho has had with shipping inmates out of state. Overcrowding
at home forced the state to move hundreds of inmates to a prison in Minnesota
in 2005, but space constraints soon uprooted them again, this time to a
GEO-run facility in Newton, Texas. There, guard abuse and prisoner unrest
forced another move to two new GEO facilities: 125 Idaho inmates went to the
Dickens County Correctional Center in Spur, Texas, while 304 went to Bill
Clayton in Littlefield. Conditions at Dickens were left largely unmonitored
by Idaho, at least until inmate Scott Noble Payne committed suicide after
complaining of the filthy conditions there. Idaho investigators looking into
Payne's death detailed the poor conditions and a lack of inmate treatment programs,
and the inmates were moved again. That's when the Idaho Department of
Correction created the Virtual Prisons Program, designed to improve oversight
of Idaho inmates housed in contract beds both in and out of state. The extent
of the Bill Clayton facility understaffing was discovered after Idaho
launched an investigation into the apparent suicide of inmate Randall
McCullough in August. During that investigation, guards at the prison said
they were often pulled away from their regular posts to handle other duties —
including taking out the garbage, refueling vehicles or checking the
perimeter fence — and that it was common practice to fill out the logs as if
the required checks of inmates were being completed as scheduled, said Jim
Loucks, chief investigator for the Idaho Department of Correction. For
instance, Loucks said, correction officers were supposed to check on inmates
in the administrative segregation unit every 30 minutes. But sometimes they
were away from the unit for hours at a time, he said. The investigation into
McCullough's death is not yet complete, department officials said. The audit
also found several other problems at Bill Clayton. The auditor found that
"the facility entrance is a very relaxed checkpoint," prompting
concerns that cell phones, marijuana and other contraband could be smuggled
past security. In addition, the prison averages a 30 percent vacancy rate in
security staff jobs, according to the audit. Though it was still able to meet
the one-staffer-for-every-48-prisoners ratio set out by Texas law, employees
were regularly expected to work long hours of overtime and non-security
staffers sometimes were used to provide security supervision, according to
the audit. "Based on a review of payroll reports, there are significant
concerns with security staff working excessive amounts of overtime for long
periods of time," the auditors wrote. "This can lead to compromised
facility security practices and increased safety issues." When the audit
was done, there were 29 security staff vacancies, according to the report.
That meant each security staff person who was eligible for overtime worked an
average of 21 hours of overtime a week. That extra expense was borne by GEO,
not by Idaho taxpayers, said Idaho Department of Correction spokesman Jeff
Ray. The state's contract with GEO also required that at least half of the
eligible inmates be given jobs with at least 50 hours of work a month.
According to the facility's inmate payroll report, only 35 out of 371
offenders were without jobs. But closer inspection showed that the prison
often had several inmates assigned to the same job. In one instance, nine
inmates were assigned to clean showers in one unit of the prison — which only
had nine shower stalls. So although each was responsible for cleaning just
one shower stall, the nine inmates were all claiming 7- and 8-hour work days,
five days a week. GEO is responsible for covering the cost of those wages,
Ray said. "While the contract percentage requirement is met, the
facility cannot demonstrate the actual hours claimed by offenders are spent
in a meaningful, skill-learning job activity," the auditors wrote.
Auditors also found that too few inmates were enrolled in high school diploma
equivalency and work force readiness classes.
September
21, 2008 Times-News
Pam Drashner visited her husband every weekend in prison, until she was
turned away one day because he wasn't there. He had been quietly transferred
from Boise to a private prison in Sayre, Okla. She never saw him again. In July,
she went to the Post Office to pick up his ashes, mailed home in a box. He
died of a traumatic brain injury in Oklahoma, allegedly assaulted by another
inmate. David Drashner was one of hundreds of male inmates Idaho authorities
have sent to private prisons in other states. About 10 percent of Idaho's
inmates are now out-of-state. The Department of Correction say they want to
bring them all home, they simply have no place to put them. Drashner, who was
convicted of repeat drunken driving, is one of three Idaho inmates who have
died in the custody of private lockups in other states since March 2007, and
was the first this year. On Aug. 18, Twin Falls native Randall McCullough,
37, apparently killed himself at the Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield,
Texas. McCullough, serving time for robbery, was found dead in his cell. IDOC
officials say he left a note, though autopsy results are pending. His family
says he shouldn't have been in Texas at all. "Idaho should step up to
the plate and bring their prisoners home," said his sister, Laurie
Williams. Out of Idaho -- Idaho has so many prisoners scattered around the
country that the IDOC last year developed the Virtual Prison Program,
assigning 12 officers to monitor the distant prisons. In 2007 Idaho sent 429
inmates to Texas and Oklahoma. This year; more than 700 - and by one estimate
it could soon hit 1,000. But officials say they don't know exactly how many
inmates may hit the road in coming months. The number may actually fall due
to an unexpected drop in total prisoner head-count, a turnabout attributed to
a drop in sentencings, increased paroles and better success rates for
probationers. The state will also have about 1,300 more beds in Idaho, thanks
to additions at existing prisons. State officials say bringing inmates back
is a priority. "If there was any way to not have inmates out-of-state it
would be far, far better," said IDOC Director Brent Reinke, a former
Twin Falls County commissioner, noting higher costs to the state and inconvenience
to inmate families. Still, there's no end in sight for virtual prisons, which
have few fans in state government. "I do think sending inmates
out-of-state is counter-productive," said Rep. Nicole LeFavour, D-Boise,
a member of the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee. LeFavour
favors treatment facilities over prisons. "We try to make it (sending
inmates out-of-state) a last resort, but I don't think we're doing
enough." Even lawmakers who favor buying more cells would like to avoid
virtual lockups. "It's more productive to be in-state," said Sen.
Denton Darrington, R-Declo, chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Rules
Committee, who said he would support a new Idaho prison modeled after the
state-owned but privately run Idaho Correctional Center (ICC). "We don't
want to stay out-of-state unless we have to ��- It's undesirable." A decade
of movement -- Idaho has shipped inmates elsewhere for more than a decade,
though in some years they were all brought home when beds became available at
four of Idaho's state prisons. The 1,500-bed ICC - a state-owned lockup built
and run by CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) - also opened in 2000.
But that wasn't enough: "It will be years before a substantial increase
in prison capacity will allow IDOC to bring inmates back," the agency
said in April. In 2005, former IDOC director Tom Beauclair warned lawmakers
that "if we delay building the next prison, we'll have to remain
out-of-state longer with more inmates," according to an IDOC press release.
That year inmates were taken to a Minnesota prison operated by CCA, where
Idaho paid $5 per inmate, per day more than it costs to keep inmates in its
own prisons. "This move creates burdens for our state fiscally, and can
harden our prison system, but it's what we must do," IDOC said at the
time. "Our ability to stretch the system is over." Attempts to add
to that system have largely failed. Earlier this year Gov. C.L.
"Butch" Otter asked lawmakers for $191 million in bond authority to
buy a new 1,500-bed lockup. The Legislature rejected his request, but did
approve those 1,300 new beds at existing facilities. Reinke said IDOC won't
ask for a new prison when the next Legislative session convenes in January.
With a slow economy and a drop in inmate numbers, it's not the time to push
for a new prison, he said. Still, recent projections for IDOC show that
without more prison beds here, 43 percent of all Idaho inmates could be sent
out-of-state in 2017. "It's a lot of money to go out-of-state,"
Darrington said. Different cultures -- One of eight prisons in Idaho is run
by a private company, as are those housing Idaho inmates in Texas and
Oklahoma. The Bill Clayton Detention Center in Texas is operated by the Geo
Group Inc., which is managing or developing 64 lockups in the U.S., Australia
and South Africa. The North-Fork Correctional Facility in Oklahoma is owned
and operated by CCA, which also has the contract to run the Idaho Correction
Center. CCA houses almost 75,000 inmates and detainees in 66 facilities under
various state and federal contracts. Critics of private prisons say the
operators boost profits by skimping on programs, staff, and services. Idaho
authorities acknowledge the prisons make money, but consider them well-run.
"Private prisons are just that - business run," Idaho Virtual
Prison Program Warden Randy Blades told the Times-News. "It doesn't mean
out-of-sight, or out-of-mind." Yet even Reinke added that "I think
there's a difference. Do we want there to be? No." The Association of Private
Correctional and Treatment Organizations (APCTO) says on its Web site that
its members "deliver reduced costs, high quality, and enhanced
accountability." Falling short? Thomas Aragon, a convicted thief from
Nampa, was shipped to three different Texas prisons in two years. He said
prisons there did little to rehabilitate him, though he's up for parole next
year. "I'm a five-time felon, all grand theft and possession of stolen
property," said Aragon, by telephone from the ICC. "Apparently I
have a problem and need to find out why I steal. The judge said I needed
counseling and that I'd get it, and I have yet to get any." State
officials said virtual prisons have a different culture, but are adapting to
Idaho standards. "We're taking the footprint of Idaho and putting it
into facilities out-of-state," Blades said. Aragon, 39, says more
programs are available in Idaho compared to the Texas facilities where he
was. Like Aragon, almost 70 percent of Idaho inmates sent to prison in 2006
and 2007 were recidivists - repeat IDOC offenders - according agency annual
reports. GEO and CCA referred questions about recidivism to APCTO, which says
only that its members reduce the rate of growth of public spending. Aragon
said there weren't enough case-workers, teachers, programs, recreational activities
and jobs in Texas. Comparisons between public and private prisons are made
difficult because private companies didn't readily offer numbers for profits,
recidivism, salaries and inmate-officer ratios. During recent visits to the
Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas - where about 371 Idaho
inmates are now held - state inspectors found there wasn't a legal aid
staffer to give inmates access to courts, as required by the state contract.
Virtual Prison monitors also agreed with Aragon's assessment: "No
programs are offered at the facility," a state official wrote in a
recently redacted Idaho Virtual Prison report obtained by the Times-News.
"Most jobs have to do with keeping the facility clean and appear to be
less meaningful. This creates a shortage of productive time with the inmates.
"Overall, recreational activities are very sparse within the facility ��- Informal attempts
have been made to encourage the facility to increase offender activities that
would in the long run ease some of the boredom that IDOC inmates are
experiencing," according to a Virtual Prison report. The prison has
since made improvements, the state said. Only one inmate case manager worked
at Bill Clayton during a recent state visit, but the facility did increase
recreation time and implemented in-cell hobby craft programs, Virtual Prison
reports show. Other inmate complaints have grown from the way they have been
sent to the prisons. Inmates describe a horrific bus ride from Idaho to
Oklahoma in April in complaints collected by the American Civil Liberties
Union in Boise. The inmates say they endured painful and injurious wrist and
ankle shackling, dangerous driving, infrequent access to an unsanitary
restroom and dehydration during the almost 30-hour trip. "We're still
receiving a lot of complaints, some of them are based on retaliatory
transfers," said ACLU lawyer Lea Cooper. IDOC officials acknowledge that
they have also received complaints about access to restrooms during the long
bus rides, but they maintain that most of the inmates want to go
out-of-state. Many are sex offenders who prefer the anonymity associated with
being out-of-state, they said. Unanswered questions -- Three deaths of Idaho
interstate inmates in 18 months have left families concerned that even more
prisoners will come home in ashes. "We're very disturbed about...the
rate of Idaho prisoner deaths for out-of-state inmates," Cooper said. It
was the razor-blade suicide of sex-offender Scott Noble Payne, 43, in March
2007 at a Geo lockup in Dickens, Texas that caught the attention of state
officials. Noble's death prompted Idaho to pull all its inmates from the Geo
prison. State officials found the facility was in terrible condition, but
they continue to work with Geo, which houses 371 Idaho inmates in
Littlefield, Texas, where McCullough apparently killed himself. Noble
allegedly escaped before he was caught and killed himself. Inmate Aragon said
he as there, and that Noble was hog-tied and groaned in pain while guards
warned other inmates they would face the same if they tried to escape.
Private prison operators don't have to tell governments everything about the
deaths at facilities they run. The state isn't allowed access to Geo's
mortality and morbidity reports under terms of a contract. Idaho sent
additional inmates to the Corrections Corporation of America-run Oklahoma
prison after Drashner's husband died in June. IDOC officials said an Idaho
official was inspecting the facility when he was found. IDOC has offered few
details about the death. "The murder happened in Oklahoma," said
IDOC spokesman Jeff Ray, adding it will be up to Oklahoma authorities to
charge. Drashner said her husband had a pending civil case in Idaho and
shouldn't have been shipped out-of-state. She says Idaho and Oklahoma authorities
told her David was assaulted by another inmate after he verbally defended an
officer at the Oklahoma prison. Officers realized something was wrong when he
didn't stand up for a count, Drashner said. "He was healthy. He wouldn't
have been killed over here," she said.
December
28, 2007 AP
Fifty-five Idaho inmates who were moved out of a troubled Texas prison on
Thursday have been forced by a contract delay to make a temporary stop before
going to their final destination, a lockup near the Mexican border. More than
500 Idaho prisoners are in Texas and Oklahoma due to overcrowding at home.
The prisoners being moved are bound for the Val Verde Correctional Facility
in Del Rio, Texas, after more than a year at the Dickens County Correctional
Center in Spur, Texas, where one Idaho inmate killed himself in March.
Because a Texas county official has yet to approve the contract to house
Idaho prisoners at Val Verde, they have first been sent 100 miles away to the
Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas. There, they will sleep
in groups of up to 10 men on makeshift cots in day rooms until resolution of
the contract allows them to complete the final 250-mile leg of their journey
to Val Verde sometime in early January. The inmates "were a bit dubious
and questionable about that," said Randy Blades, the warden in Boise who
oversees Idaho's out-of-state prisoners. That's one reason why his agency has
sent two officers to make sure the move runs smoothly, Blades said. Both the
Dickens and Val Verde prisons are run by private operator GEO Group Inc.,
based in Boca Raton, Florida. Pablo Paez, a spokesman for GEO, didn't
immediately respond to requests for comment. GEO no longer has the contract
to manage the Dickens facility after Tuesday. Because Idaho recently rejected
an offer from the new company that will run Dickens, GEO on Thursday had to
move the Idaho inmates to temporary quarters in Littlefield. Though Idaho
officials thought details of the move to Val Verde had been resolved,
Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke said he learned only last week
that a Texas county judge wanted a lawyer to look at the contract one last
time. "It was something we did not anticipate," Reinke said.
"GEO is paying the transport costs." This is just the latest uprooting
of Idaho inmates since they were first shipped out of state in 2005. Since
then, they have bounced from prison to prison in Minnesota and Texas amid
allegations of abusive treatment. There also has been the criminal conviction
of at least one Texas guard for passing contraband to inmates; at least two
escapes; and the death of Scot Noble Payne, a convicted sex offender who
slashed his throat last March in a solitary cell at Dickens County. Idaho
officials who investigated concluded the GEO-run prison was filthy and the
worst they had seen. As a result, about 70 Idaho inmates were moved from
Dickens to Littlefield, where about 300 Idaho inmates were already housed,
while the state continued talks with GEO over sending the remaining 55 to a
new 659-bed addition at Val Verde. Despite the stopover, GEO has a hefty
incentive to make sure the move to Val Verde goes smoothly, Reinke said. The
company hopes to win contracts with Idaho to build a large new prison here to
help accommodate the state's 7,400 inmates. "They're really monitoring
this closely, and doing a good job at this point," Reinke said.
"It's not a lot different than triple bunking."
December
6, 2007 Dallas Morning News
Seven former and current inmates have filed a lawsuit against a private
prison company, alleging abuse by a registered sex offender who worked as a
night-shift guard at a troubled West Texas lockup that is now closed. The
young men allege they were mentally, physically and sexually abused in 2006
and early 2007 by a guard who was fired in March, after state officials
learned he was on the public sex offender registry. He had worked for seven
months at the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center, operated by Florida-based
GEO Group Inc. The facility housed Texas Youth Commission inmates until the
teens were removed in October because of squalor and mismanagement. One of
the plaintiffs, who filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Friday, alleges that
guard David Andrew Lewis let several inmates into his cell. They sexually
assaulted him with a broom handle while Mr. Lewis watched, according to
Dallas lawyer Bob Crill. GEO spokesman Pablo Paez said the company had no
comment about the lawsuit. Mr. Lewis, who isn't named as a defendant,
couldn't be reached. TYC also declined to comment. Several plaintiffs remain
in TYC custody, their lawyers said. Deon Olthoff, 18, of Granbury, said
Wednesday that his abuse began in November 2006 when he moved to a new Coke
County dorm with individual cells. Mr. Olthoff spent 14 months in the
facility after his parole for burglary was revoked because of truancy. Mr.
Lewis first leered and stood too close as he and other boys showered, Mr.
Olthoff said. Later, the guard would barge into his cell at night as Mr.
Olthoff slept or wrote letters. "He just came in and started choking me,
and getting on top of me, and grabbing my hands and pulling them behind my
back and stuff like that, and grabbing me in private areas," Mr. Olthoff
said. Until his release in February, Mr. Olthoff said, he coped with Mr.
Lewis' behavior by trying "not to think about it." Mr. Olthoff said
he and two other inmates filed a joint grievance in late 2006 alleging that
Mr. Lewis touched them inappropriately. GEO sent Mr. Olthoff's father a
letter in February notifying him of the allegations of mistreatment. The
letter said the Olthoffs would receive written notice about the outcome of an
investigation. But no follow-up letter arrived, Deon and his attorneys said.
Mr. Crill and Dallas lawyer Bady Sassin, who worked with a Corpus Christi law
firm to file the suit in San Antonio, said they were investigating whether
Mr. Olthoff's complaint led to Mr. Lewis' firing. A Texas Department of
Public Safety sex offender Web site shows that Mr. Lewis, 24, was convicted
in 1999 of indecency by exposure with a 5-year-old girl. After his firing,
Mr. Lewis said he had shown his prospective employer his sex offender card
when he applied but they told him to see if his background check went
through, according to an Associated Press report. Mr. Paez previously has said
that the company didn't know about Mr. Lewis' record because juvenile cases
don't show up on background checks. "Even if you excuse the inexcusable
– which is not knowing from the beginning that this guy was a registered sex
offender – there were complaints that were filed that should have put them on
notice long, long before he was terminated," Mr. Crill said. TYC
grievance records obtained by The News show the agency recorded four
mistreatment allegations against Mr. Lewis by inmates whose identities were
withheld. He was cleared on three allegations, including an accusation of
sexual abuse. In February, an allegation of unprofessional conduct was
sustained against Mr. Lewis.
November
29, 2007 AP
The mother of an Idaho inmate who killed himself in a Texas prison earlier
this year has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the
private-prison company that runs the lockup where he died. In her claim in
U.S. District Court in western Texas, Shirley Noble says prison operator The
GEO Group abused and neglected Scot Noble Payne before he slashed his throat
on March 4th. Scot Noble Payne, a convicted sex offender from Idaho, had been
moved to Texas along with more than 400 Idaho inmates to relieve overcrowding
at prisons in their home state. Idaho officials who investigated at the
Dickens County Correctional Facility in Spur, Texas, said the physical
environment of his solitary cell could have contributed to his suicide.
November
27, 2007 Idaho State Journal
A company that's due to take over a troubled privately run Texas prison in
2008 made a sales pitch Monday to Idaho Department of Correction officials,
saying it hopes the management shake-up and $1.2 million in proposed
renovations will overshadow past problems and persuade Idaho to ship more
inmates to the lockup. Civigenics, a unit of New Jersey-based Community
Education Centers, Inc., with prisons or treatment programs in 23 states,
will manage Dickens County Correctional Center in Spur, Texas, starting Jan.
1 after winning a competitive bid. Until now, The GEO Group Inc., based in
Florida, ran the facility. In March, Idaho prison officials called Dickens
under GEO's oversight ''the worst'' prison they'd seen, citing what they
called an abusive warden, the lack of treatment programs and squalid conditions
they said may have contributed to the suicide of inmate Scot Noble Payne, who
was held for months in a solitary cell. Idaho is nearly ready to move 54
prisoners who remain at Dickens to a new GEO-run facility near the Mexican
border, after shifting 69 inmates elsewhere this summer. Dickens County and
Civigenics officials came to Boise to offer assurances they'll remedy
concerns over their 15-year-old prison as they aim to stay in the running to
house some of the hundreds of prisoners that Idaho plans to ship elsewhere in
coming months to ease overcrowding. Some 550 of Idaho's 7,400 inmates have
been sent out of state since 2005. GEO ''thought they were too good,''
Sheldon Parsons, a Dickens County commissioner, told Idaho officials.
''They're used to running bigger facilities. That just kind of didn't fit
into our program. Civigenics will definitely fit.'' Idaho plans to send 120
additional prisoners to a private prison in Oklahoma in January. It's also
looking for space in other states for groups of inmates in increments of
about 100 starting in mid-2008. Bob Prince, a Civigenics salesman, said his
company could house as many as 150 Idaho inmates at a revamped Dickens. The
$1.2 million from Dickens County, which owns the prison, would cover new
fencing, exterior lighting, security improvements, kitchen renovations and
more rooms for education and treatment programs. Still, Idaho officials
including Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke indicated the plan
may not be enough to address complaints that have prompted him to vacate
Dickens. Idaho, which earlier this year conceded it lost track of how its
inmates in Texas were being treated before Payne's suicide, has outlined its
concerns in several reports over the last nine months. Lingering shortcomings
include a lack of cell windows and a drab, dingy atmosphere in an aging
facility built as county jail, not for long-term prisoners. ''The cells
inside that facility are pretty dark and dank,'' said Randy Blades, the Idaho
warden who oversees out-of-state prisoners. ''What are you looking at to
change the cells themselves?'' Texas officials conceded that wasn't
considered. ''We haven't looked into any of that,'' Parsons said, before
adding, ''We'll try and do anything we can to make people happy that are
coming in. Nobody has ever brought that up before.'' Despite past problems
with GEO, Blades said Idaho aims to soon finalize a contract with that
company to move inmates still at Dickens to a new 659-bed addition at the Val
Verde Correctional Facility, near the Mexican border. That contract also
calls for roughly 40 inmates currently in Idaho to be sent to Val Verde. Val
Verde has seen its own share of problems under GEO leadership. GEO settled a
wrongful death case after a female Texas prisoner killed herself following
allegations she was sexually humiliated by a guard and raped by an inmate.
Earlier this year, the local government was forced to hire a monitor for the
facility. Even so, Blades said a visit to the new cellblock slated for Idaho
inmates earlier this year convinced him and other officials that the prison
is appropriate and safe. ''It's a very good facility, very secure,'' Blades
said of Val Verde. ''There's a good dayroom. The cells are well lighted.''
October
12, 2007 KRIS TV
The delayed discovery of squalid conditions at a privately run Texas Youth
Commission jail was "a human failure" and stronger oversight is
needed to prevent similar incidents, a key state senator said Friday.
"It was very simple that the monitors were not doing their job and there
was a human failure," said Sen. John Whitmire, head of the Senate
Criminal Justice Committee. "Who's monitoring the monitors?"
Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, called a committee hearing about a week after a
Coke County juvenile lockup in Bronte operated by The GEO Group, Inc., was
closed because of filthy conditions. A Texas Youth Commission ombudsman
discovered the conditions, even though the facility had passed previous
inspections by TYC monitors. The TYC system was rocked earlier this year by allegations
of rampant sexual and other physical abuse against juvenile inmates in the
system. The star witness at Friday's hearing on adult and juvenile prison
monitoring was Shirley Noble, who told how her son, 43-year-old Idaho inmate
Scot Noble Payne, endured months of horrific conditions then slit his own
throat at a private Texas prison run by GEO Group. "It seemed there was
no end to the degradation he and other prisoners were to endure with
substandard facilities," Noble said. Her son died March 4 in a private
prison in Spur. Noble questioned why Idaho sent its inmates to Texas and why
the Florida-based GEO Group was allowed to keep prisoners in what she
described as "degrading and subhuman conditions." "Please,
please hold them accountable for all the injuries and misery they have
caused," Noble said. A spokesman for GEO Group did not immediately
return a telephone call from The Associated Press to respond to comments made
at the hearing. TYC Acting Executive Director Dimitria Pope, who took over
the youth agency earlier this year, testified that she's putting more
monitoring safeguards in place. That includes sending executive staff members
out to view the lockups, something she said hadn't been done regularly in the
past. "Because of my concerns of what I saw in Coke County, I have
implemented a blitz of every facility, either the ones that we operate, that
contract, district offices, anything that has TYC affiliated with it,"
she said, adding that each site will be visited by the end of October. Adan Munoz
Jr., executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, said he
has four inspectors do annual inspections of the 267 facilities under his
oversight. He defended his agency's practice of giving two- to three-week
notices about inspection visits but said recently there have been more
surprise inspections. Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, said
privatizing prisons is an "easy way out." He said he worries about
the state continuing to contract with companies that have a history of abuse.
"It's a myth that the private sector does a better job than
government" in running prisons, Hinojosa said. "They're there to
make a profit and they'll cut corners, and they'll cut back on services and
they'll many times look the other way when abuse is taking place."
Because of Texas' size and high rate of locking up convicts, the state is in
the national spotlight for its dealings with private prison firms, said Sen.
Rodney Ellis, D-Houston. "It puts a special burden on us," he said.
"If it needs to be improved, improve it, because everybody looks to
us." Noble was the panel's final witness. The room hushed as she told
the senators her family's emotional tale. Her son, a convicted sex offender,
was kept in solitary confinement for months with a wet floor, bloodstained
sheets and smelly towels. She said he wrote long, detailed letters to family
members in which he said the only way to escape the prison's harsh conditions
was to join his late grandfather in the spirit world. Noble said she begged
for psychological help for her son. She said he wasn't supposed to have been
given a razor, and she still wonders how he got the one he used to end his
life. "After he tried to unsuccessfully slash his wrists and ankles, he
knelt in the shower and cut his own throat," she said. "Surely only
a person in utter disillusionment and horrifying conditions would bring
themselves to this end."
August
8, 2007 AP
The mother of an Idaho inmate who killed himself in a dilapidated private
Texas prison earlier this year has filed a $500,000 claim against Idaho,
contending the state's Department of Correction is responsible for
"inhumane treatment and illegal and unconstitutional conditions of
confinement" that contributed to his death. Scot Noble Payne, 43, was in
prison for aggravated battery and lewd and lascivious conduct when he slashed
his throat March 4. He had been sent to the Dickens County Correctional
Center in Spur, Texas, with other inmates last year to relieve overcrowding
in Idaho prisons, which have more than 7,000 prisoners but too few beds to
house them all. Following Payne's death, Idaho prison health care director
Donald Stockman investigated Dickens and concluded "the physical
condition of the cell where the suicide occurred does not, in my opinion,
comply with any standards related to inmate housing for either segregated
housing or housing for inmates on suicide watch. The physical environment of
the cell would have only enhanced the inmate's depression that could have
been a major contributing factor in his suicide." "Just being in
the filth and degradation of that cell was sufficient to drive somebody into
suicide," Payne's mother, Shirley Noble, told The Associated Press in a
telephone interview Wednesday from her home near Los Angeles. The tort claim
against Idaho was filed last week. Under state law, the maximum Noble could
recover is $500,000. The state now has 90 days to respond to the claim; if it
doesn't, Noble could file a civil rights lawsuit in federal court. Kit
Coffin, the state's risk management program manager with the Department of
Administration, said tort claims like this are reviewed and assigned to state
adjudicators for consideration. She was uncertain if Noble's claim,
originally filed with the secretary of state, had been sent to her office
yet. In suicide notes he penned for relatives, Payne described a constantly
wet floor, bloodstained sheets and smelly towels in the isolation cell at the
prison where he was confined for three months following his escape and
recapture in December 2006. He slit his throat in his cell just after
midnight March 4. "Due to the inhumane conditions, Scot Noble Payne
became depressed and suicidal. ... Unattended, (he) committed suicide as a
result of being subjected to inhumane treatment and illegal and unconstitutional
conditions of confinement," according to Noble's tort claim. Since
Payne's death, 69 Idaho inmates have been moved from Dickens, which is run by
Florida-based private prison operator The GEO Group, to another prison. By
September, the remaining 56 Idaho inmates still at Dickens are set to be
moved to another Texas prison because Idaho officials aren't satisfied with
improvements at Dickens. Noble's lawyer in Boise, Breck Seiniger, said Idaho
had the responsibility to ensure conditions at Dickens were adequate,
regardless of whether prisoners were located in Idaho or 1,500 miles away.
Brent Reinke, director of the Idaho Department of Correction since January,
has conceded his agency didn't do enough to monitor conditions at Dickens
between August 2006, when Idaho prisoners were sent there, and Payne's
suicide in March. During that period, Idaho sent prison staff to Texas just
once. They have a responsibility to provide reasonable conditions of
confinement," said Seiniger. "They can't escape that responsibility
simply by passing these prisoners off to somebody else." Reinke's office
said it would review the claim, but declined to immediately comment. Payne's
family has also discussed a federal lawsuit against The GEO Group, though no
lawsuit has yet been filed. Phone calls to GEO Group spokesman Pablo Paez in
Boca Raton, Fla., weren't immediately returned.
July
31, 2007 Idaho Statesman
Idaho's Department of Correction has created a new position to manage Idaho's
roughly 2,400 inmates in private, out-of-state prisons and county jail beds.
Randy Blades, who has been the warden at the Idaho State Correctional
Institution south of Boise, will monitor the 500-plus inmates, now in three
Texas prisons managed by the Geo Group Inc. of Boca Raton, Fla. He will also
monitor the 240 inmates soon to be transferred from Idaho to a private prison
in Oklahoma, and the inmates in county jail beds across the state. Correction
Director Brent Reinke created the position after disclosing that conditions
at one of those prisons were so bad that inmates will be moved elsewhere.
Inmates at the Dickens County Correctional Center are being moved to the Bill
Clayton Detention Center after an inmate suicide at Dickens revealed filthy
living conditions and poorly trained and unprofessional staff. “Times have
changed and we simply need to get in front on this issue,” Reinke said in a
statement. “We must be proactive. We need to make sure inmates are being
treated adequately and taxpayers are getting what they are paying for.”
July
26, 2007 The Olympian
Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke next Thursday will visit a
private Texas prison where he intends to shift 56 inmates in September, after
problems including abuse by guards, deplorable conditions and a suicide
emerged at previous facilities in that state. Reinke, who concedes lax
oversight by Idaho contributed to problems, and three other Idaho officials
will review the Val Verde Correctional Facility and Jail in Del Rio, Texas,
run by Florida-based private prison firm The GEO Group. The prison area where
Idaho inmates are due to be housed at Val Verde is part of a new 659-bed
addition, Reinke said. Still, he wants to make sure the facility located near
the Mexican border meets Idaho standards so the recurring problems at the two
previous GEO-run prisons aren't repeated. "On contracts in general,
we're going to be stepping that up," Reinke told The Associated Press
this week. "We want to take a firsthand look." About 450 Idaho
inmates were first moved beyond state borders in 2005 to relieve overcrowding
at prisons here, where there are more than 7,000 inmates - but not enough
room to house them all. They were incarcerated at the Newton County
Correctional Center in Newton, Texas, until August 2006, when they were moved
following allegations of abuse by guards to the Dickens County Correctional
Center in Spur, Texas. But Reinke, who took over in January, acknowledges his
agency didn't do enough to scrutinize conditions at Dickens before Idaho
inmates were shipped there. And from August 2006 to March 2007, Idaho prison
officials only visited the Dickens County facility one time. The March 4
suicide by Scot Noble Payne, a convicted sex offender, and a subsequent
investigation illuminated conditions that one Idaho prison official described
as "beyond repair." One concern: There have been problems at Val
Verde, too. Inmate LeTisha Tapia killed herself there in 2004 after alleging
she was raped by another inmate and sexually humiliated by a guard. And a
black guard accused his captain of keeping a hangman's noose in his office
and a photo of himself in a Ku Klux Klan hood in his desk. Val Verde County
has been forced to hire a full-time prison monitor to keep a watch on prison
operations as part of a settlement with Tapia's family. Some family members
of Idaho inmates now at Dickens told the AP they're pleased Reinke is
scrutinizing Val Verde personally. Still, they said they're frustrated their
relatives are being moved again - especially since many problems at Dickens
have been remedied since Payne's suicide in March. "Things are OK
now," said the wife of a sex offender who asked not to be identified by
name. "They don't want to move." Reinke has pledged to improve
oversight of conditions at Texas prisons through what he's calling a
"virtual prison" that his agency adopted earlier this week. It's
modeled after a similar system in Washington state, he said.
July
11, 2007 AP
As overcrowding in Idaho prisons intensifies, so have lobbying efforts
and campaign donations by private prison companies aiming to win new
contracts - both to house more inmates beyond state borders and to build a
proposed 2,200-bed for-profit lockup. The GEO Group, a Florida-based prison
operator in 15 states, entered Idaho politics in 2005, when it hired its
first lobbyist, according to a review of lobbying and campaign finance
records by The Associated Press. A year later, it divvied up $8,000 among
three campaigns: Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter got $5,000, Lt. Gov. Jim
Risch got $2,500, and former state Rep. Debbie Field, who lost her House race
last November, received $500. Field also served as Otter's campaign manager
and was later appointed by the new governor as Idaho's drug czar. Since 2006,
GEO has won contracts worth $8 million annually to house more than 400 Idaho
inmates in Texas, including at two prisons where problems became so severe
that Idaho demanded inmates be relocated. Corrections Corp. of America, a
Tennessee company whose 95,000-inmate private prison system includes 1,500
prisoners at a prison south of Boise, gave nearly $32,000 for the 2006
election to 29 Republican candidates, including $10,000 to Otter, and $5,000
to the state Republican Party. CCA and GEO each hired two lobbyists for the
2007 Idaho Legislature. Just one Democrat, Rep. Margaret Henbest, D-Boise, received
money from CCA - $300. The GOP dominates Idaho politics, with 51 of 70 seats
in the House and 28 of 35 seats in the Senate. Steve Owen, a CCA spokesman,
said his company makes political contributions to candidates that support
"public-private partnerships." "That's what we're in the
business of, and that's reflective of our participation in the political
process," Owen said, adding his company has run private prisons for
nearly 25 years, including in Idaho, in a professional manner where standards
can exceed a state's own. "It has been a positive working relationship
between the Idaho Department of Correction and CCA." GEO spokesman Pablo
Paez didn't return phone calls seeking comment. Overcrowding in U.S. prisons,
plus a federal push to incarcerate more terrorists and illegal aliens, has
benefited private prisons that now oversee 140,000 inmates. Companies like
GEO and CCA spent $3.3 million between 2000 and 2004 on election campaigns in
44 states to ensure they profit from this private prison boom, according to a
2006 study by the National Institute for Money in State Politics, in Helena,
Mont. Private prisons have become a hot topic here, because of the problems
at GEO's Texas prisons where Idaho inmates are locked up to ease overcrowding
at home. Abuse by guards at the Newton County Correctional Center in eastern
Texas prompted Idaho officials to demand inmates be relocated in 2006 to the
Dickens County Correctional Center. Now, Idaho officials have called Dickens
"filthy" and "beyond repair," prompting a move to another
GEO Texas prison. "The way the contractor makes the most money is by
providing the least amount of service," said Robert Perkinson, a
University of Hawaii professor who is writing a book on Texas prisons,
including privately run facilities. "It's an inherently problematic area
of government to privatize." Still, Idaho, with about 7,000 inmates, now
has 256 more inmates in-state than it has capacity for - even with about 430
already in Texas. Efforts to develop sentencing alternatives to ease an
expected 7 percent annual increase in inmate numbers through 2010 will take
time, so Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke said alternatives are
limited to moving inmates elsewhere. Robin Sandy, Idaho Board of Correction
chairwoman, said she met with CCA officials in Idaho in June. They discussed
a new contract with the state to house 240 Idaho inmates in company prisons
in Oklahoma - a contract worth about $5 million annually - as well as
prospects of the company winning a share of the new 2,200-bed prison proposal
that Reinke plans to introduce in September to lawmakers. "It was a
courtesy visit," Sandy said. Otter said he's also been in discussions
with private prison companies eager to do more business with the state. Otter
is a former J.R. Simplot executive who has said he wants to run Idaho more
like the private sector. "There's been a lot of that activity,"
Otter told the AP. "During the legislative session, there were several
organizations that came in."
July
10, 2007 The Olympian
More Idaho inmates are slated to move to a private Texas lockup in the latest
effort by state prison officials to relieve overcrowding at facilities here.
In the move approved by state officials including Gov. C.L. "Butch"
Otter on Tuesday, 40 inmates now in Idaho will go to the Val Verde
Correctional Facility and Jail in Del Rio, Texas, at a cost of $51 per inmate
per day. In addition, 125 inmates now at the Dickens County Correctional
Center in Spur, Texas, will also be shifted, with 56 going to Val Verde,
located near the Mexican border, and the remaining 69 going to another prison
in Littlefield, Texas, where there are already 304 Idaho inmates. The shift
to Val Verde and Littlefield comes after problems emerged at Dickens,
including a March 4 suicide, reports of "filthy" and "dire
living conditions" and a guard convicted of providing contraband to
inmates. Still, both Dickens and Val Verde prisons are run by the same
private company - Florida-based prison operator The GEO Group - and prison
advocates say Val Verde also has a reputation as a "scandal-ridden
prison." One Texas inmate killed herself at Val Verde in 2004 after
alleged sexual humiliation by a guard, while a guard supervisor was accused
of keeping a photo of himself in a Ku Klux Klan hood, resulting in
accusations of racism. "We'll do a site visit in the immediate
future" to Val Verde, said Idaho Department of Correction Director Brent
Reinke, who has pledged to improve monitoring of Idaho inmates by instituting
a new program that includes more-frequent visits to out-of-state facilities.
GEO Group spokesman Pablo Paez said his company is working with Idaho to meet
its prison needs. In 2005, a black guard alleged his captain at Val Verde
kept a hangman's noose in his office and a Polaroid photo of himself in a Ku
Klux Klan hood in his desk. That case was settled in 2006. The settlement
with GEO isn't public, but details of the guard's complaint were confirmed by
a federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission probe reviewed by the AP.
The guard's attorney said Tuesday that the atmosphere at Val Verde was
"hostile and racist." "I would have serious concerns about the
way inmates will be treated," the lawyer, Mark Anthony Sanchez, said
from San Antonio. "If a jail treats its employees that way, how is it
going to treat inmates?" And in 2006, a female inmate's family sued The
GEO Group in the wake of her suicide at Val Verde. Before her death, LeTisha
Tapia said she was raped by another inmate and sexually humiliated by a GEO
guard after reporting to the warden that guards let inmates have sex. The
lawsuit was settled this year. Details of that settlement also aren't public,
according to U.S. District Court records in western Texas. But Val Verde
County, where the prison is located, has been forced to hire a full-time
prison monitor to keep a watch on operations at the prison, as part of its
own settlement with Tapia's family. "The county feels that the jail
monitor is necessary," said Ann Markowski Smith, the county attorney, in
an interview with the AP. She added that concerns remain about the GEO-run
prison, including whether inmates are properly receiving medication meant to
treat mental health conditions. Bob Libal, of Grass Roots Leadership, a group
that campaigns against for-profit prisons like GEO, is more critical.
"Val Verde is the GEO-group prison we always point to as a
scandal-ridden private prison," said Libal. "We hear very bad
things from there, whether it be in the lawsuits, or grumblings about the
facility being poorly operated." GEO's Paez declined to comment on the
settlement with Tapia's family, or the guard who sued the company over racism
allegations at Val Verde. Idaho's contract with GEO is worth some $8 million
annually. Idaho, which began sending inmates beyond its borders in 2005,
predicts inmate numbers will grow between 6 percent and 7 percent annually
through 2010, with the population reaching more than 8,800 inmates by then.
The state says it must ship inmates out of state to relieve overcrowding.
While Reinke said he'll soon introduce a plan to build a new 2,200-bed
private prison in Idaho, that won't be done until 2010, at the earliest. As a
result, Idaho likely will continue to send more inmates out of state until
then. For instance, it aims to send an additional 240 prisoners by November
to prisons in Oklahoma operated by another company, Corrections Corp. of
America. While Otter acknowledged he's reluctant to work with GEO due to
problems at its facilities, he added, "I have a great deal of confidence
in Mr. Reinke's ability to clean up the situation."
July
8, 2007 Magic Valley Times-News
The state's top prison official aims to soon send more inmates to a Texas
lockup run by a private company, even though Idaho prisoners at two of that
outfit's other facilities have had to be moved twice because of abuse by
guards, a suicide, filthy conditions and lack of treatment. Brent Reinke,
Idaho Department of Correction director, on Tuesday will ask the state Board
of Examiners, including Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, to let him move
more prisoners now in Idaho to an undisclosed Texas facility run by The GEO
Group, a Florida-based private prison company. Reinke's request also includes
relocating prisoners from GEO's Dickens County Correctional Center in Spur,
Texas. Conditions at Dickens, left largely unmonitored by Idaho between last
August and March, had deteriorated so badly that when Idaho's prison health
director finally investigated earlier this spring, he said it was "the
worst correctional facilities I have ever visited." Reinke concedes his
agency failed to properly monitor conditions at Dickens, but said moving
inmates to another GEO prison won't necessarily mean problems will recur
because not all the its facilities are run so poorly. For instance, another
GEO-run facility where 304 Idaho inmates are housed, the Bill Clayton
Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas, is an excellent prison that shows
problems aren't endemic, he said. "We just need to make sure we hold
them to the contract," Reinke told the AP Friday. "We've got to do
a better job monitoring the facilities." It wasn't immediately clear how
many inmates currently in Idaho would be affected by Tuesday's request. Otter
couldn't be reached for comment Sunday. Rising numbers of inmates in Idaho,
whose prisons now house more than 7,000, make this latest out-of-state
shipment unavoidable, Reinke said. Idaho predicts prison growth between 6
percent and 7 percent through 2010, with the population reaching more than
8,800 inmates by then. Idaho now pays GEO $51 a day to house about 430
inmates, or more than $7 million annually. At the time of Idaho's initial
out-of-state shipments in 2005, inmates went first to Minnesota. But space
constraints soon uprooted them again in 2006, this time to a GEO-run facility
in Newton, Texas. There, guard abuse and prisoner unrest forced another move
to two new GEO facilities: 125 Idaho inmates went to Dickens, while 304 went
to Bill Clayton in Littlefield. Problems continued at Dickens, including an
inmate suicide in March. A guard was fired, then convicted in state court,
for passing contraband to inmates. And the Dickens warden was ousted after a
probe in which Idaho prison health director Don Stockman called the facility
"beyond repair or correction," according to a March 15 report obtained
by the AP. GEO, based in Boca Raton, Fla., has said it's aiming for
improvements. "GEO strives to provide quality correctional and detention
management services in a safe and secure environment consistent with
contractual requirements and applicable standards," said spokesman Pablo
Paez, in a recent e-mail. Still, some prison experts criticize shipping
inmates out-of-state because they move prisoners far from families and raise
questions about conditions at for-profit operations. "The receiving
facility is agreeing to this arrangement as a way to make money, and so there
is always a risk that conditions and safety will be compromised as a way to
cut corners and save money," said Michele Deitch, a University of Texas
professor. Reinke said Idaho prisons are full, so he has little choice. A
prison consultant concluded recently that Idaho will need room for 5,560 more
inmates over the next decade. The cost: $1 billion dollars. Earlier this
year, Idaho made a call for 1,100 more out-of-state prison beds; Correction Corporation
of America, another private prison company, offered just 240 beds. Idaho is
now negotiating a contract with CCA, to shift 120 inmates in July, and the
remaining 120 in November. The state is also planning construction: It's set
to build a $15 million, 300-bed addition at a prison south of Boise by
December 2008. A separate, 400-bed drug treatment prison near Boise is in the
works. And in September, Reinke said he'll unveil a proposal to Idaho
lawmakers for a new 2,200-bed private prison _ larger than the 1,500-bed
facility he'd previously considered. "We're at 100 percent right now, as
far as capacity," said Reinke. "We're kind of between a rock and a
hard place."
July
6, 2007 AP
After months alone in his cell, Scot Noble Payne finished 20 pages of letters,
describing to loved ones the decrepit conditions of the prison where he was
serving time for molesting a child. Then Payne used a razor blade to slice
two 3-inch gashes in his throat. Guards found his body in the cell's shower,
with the water still running. "Try to comfort my mum too and try to get
her to see that I am truly happy again," he wrote his uncle. "I
tell you, it sure beats having water on the floor 24/7, a smelly pillow case,
sheets with blood stains on them and a stinky towel that hasn't been changed
since they caught me." Payne's suicide on March 4 came seven months
after he was sent to the squalid privately run Texas prison by Idaho
authorities trying to ease inmate overcrowding in their own state. His death
exposed what had been Idaho's standard practice for dealing with inmates sent
to out-of-state prisons: Out of sight, out of mind. It also raised questions
about a company hired to operate prisons in 15 states, despite reports of
abusive guards and terrible sanitation. Hundreds of pages of documents
obtained by The Associated Press through an open-records request show Idaho
did little monitoring of out-of-state inmates, despite repeated complaints
from prisoners, their families and a prison inspector. More than 140,000 U.S.
prison beds are in private hands, and inmates' rights groups allege many such
penitentiaries tolerate deplorable conditions and skimp on services to
increase profits. "They cut corners because the bottom line is making
money," said Caylor Rolling, prison program director at Partnership for
Safety and Justice in Portland, Ore., a group that promotes prison
alternatives. Payne, 43, was placed in solitary confinement because he
escaped from the prison in December by scaling a fence and eluding capture
for a week. He was among Idaho inmates sent to the prison in Spur, Texas, run
by a Florida-based company called the GEO Group. The business operates more
than 50 prisons across the United States as well as in Australia and South
Africa. Soon after Payne's suicide, the Idaho Department of Correction's
health care director inspected the prison and declared it the worst facility
he had ever seen. Don Stockman called Payne's cell unacceptable and the rest
of the Dickens County Correctional Center "beyond repair." "The
physical environment ... would have only enhanced the inmate's depression
that could have been a major contributing factor in his suicide," he
wrote in a report on Payne's death. Stockman said the warden at Dickens ruled
"based on verbal and physical intimidation" and that guards showed
no concern for the living conditions. After Idaho's complaints, GEO
reassigned warden Ron Alford, who told the AP he was later fired. He insisted
GEO did not provide enough money to make necessary improvements. "They
denied me everything. To buy a pencil with GEO, it took three signatures.
They're cheap," Alford said in an interview. He disputes Stockman's
findings on his treatment of Idaho inmates. GEO spokesman Pablo Paez declined
to comment on Alford's performance and would say only that the company had
been working to address Idaho officials' concerns. But on Thursday, the state
announced plans to move 125 inmates from Dickens to other facilities, citing
the poor living conditions. The private prison business has been booming as the
federal government seeks space to house more criminals and illegal
immigrants. "Sometimes it may be a better situation for the inmates, and
sometimes it's not," said prison consultant Douglas Lansing, a former
warden at the Federal Correctional Institution in Fort Dix, N.J.
"Monitoring is a vital component. You can't just move them out of town
and forget them." That appears to be largely what happened with Idaho's
inmates. The prisoners were sent to Dickens in August from another GEO-run
Texas prison after complaints about abuse by guards. But in the following
seven months, Idaho sent an inspector to Texas only once. That inspection
found major problems, including virtually no substance-abuse treatment, and a
complete lack of Idaho-sanctioned anger-management classes and pre-release
programs. There's no evidence the inspector's recommendations were followed.
And no one from Idaho visited the prison again until after Payne's suicide.
Most of the time, the Idaho prison employee responsible for monitoring the GEO
contract used only the telephone and e-mail to handle grievances, which also
included complaints about inadequate church services, poor food and limited
recreation time. Each time, Alford insisted everything was under control,
according to correspondence reviewed by the AP. The new director of the Idaho
prison system concedes his department did not adequately review the inmates'
treatment when he took office in January. "If I had to do it over again,
I would have," Director Brent Reinke said. Former Director Vaughn
Killeen said he couldn't afford more aggressive monitoring during his term
that ended in December. "We weren't happy about the things that were
going on down there," Killeen said. "We didn't have that level of
budget to accommodate full-time monitors." Some other states are more
vigilant. Washington state, for instance, has 1,000 inmates in Arizona and
Minnesota and places full-time inspectors at the prisons. A superintendent
visits every six weeks. Problems with GEO prisons are not limited to Dickens.
Elsewhere in Texas, a female inmate's family sued GEO in 2006 after she
committed suicide at the Val Verde County Jail near the Mexican border.
LeTisha Tapia alleged she was raped by another inmate and sexually humiliated
by a GEO guard after reporting to the warden that guards allowed male and
female inmates to have sex. In March, an investigation into sex abuse
allegations at another GEO-run Texas prison led to the firing of a guard who
was a convicted sex offender. And at GEO prisons in Illinois and Indiana,
hundreds of inmates rioted this past spring. The complaints have not hurt the
company's balance sheet. It reported profits of $30 million in 2006, four
times the amount reported in 2005. Inmates at Dickens say conditions have
improved since Payne's suicide. Hot and cold water problems have been fixed,
and cleanliness was judged "adequate," according to a May 31 report
by a new Idaho contract monitor. But prisoners still complain about sewage
from adjacent cells, poor medical and dental care, and a lack of educational
programs. Inmates like Robert Coulter, who was convicted of robbery, say
authorities should have acted sooner. "They basically put us down here
and just dumped us," he said.
July
5, 2007 AP
State prison officials say 125 Idaho inmates in a private Texas prison are
due to make their fourth move since 2005, following a suicide in March,
problems with a guard passing contraband to inmates and the former warden's
ouster. The inmates, who were moved out of state two years ago due to overcrowding
in Idaho lockups, are now at the Dickens County Correctional Center in Spur,
Texas, where they've been since Aug. 7, 2006. Concerns over conditions at
Dickens, an aging county jail run as a prison by Florida-based The GEO Group,
prompted this latest move, Idaho Department of Correction Director Brent
Reinke said Thursday. "The problems we've had in Texas reflect the
challenge of managing out of state. We believe Idaho inmates are best managed
at home in Idaho," Reinke said. He plans in September to introduce a
proposal to build a new 1,500-bed private prison in Idaho to create more
space for the state's 7,000 inmates. Reinke hopes to move 69 of the Dickens
prisoners soon to another GEO-run prison, the Bill Clayton Detention Center
in Littlefield, Texas, where similar problems haven't occurred. About 304
Idaho inmates are already there, but that facility is making space for more.
The remaining 56 at Dickens could go to another GEO facility elsewhere.
Reinke didn't specify where that prison is located. He said the date of the
move will be withheld until it's complete. The inmates in Texas were
originally moved from Idaho in 2005, going first to Minnesota. Space
limitations there forced them to be relocated in 2006 to a GEO-run prison in
Newton, Texas, where problems emerged immediately, including beatings by
guards. That prompted Idaho to request the move to Dickens and Bill Clayton
last August. But problems continued at Dickens, Idaho Correction Department
officials said. Sex offender Scot Noble Payne escaped in December, remaining
on the run for a week before he was recaptured. Payne then killed himself
March 4. Idaho sent prison inspectors to Texas after Payne's death, and
concerns that emerged over conditions at Dickens prompted complaints about
warden Ron Alford, who was relieved of his post and sent to another GEO
facility. And more recently, a Dickens prison guard was convicted in May in a
Texas state court of providing contraband to an Idaho prisoner. That guard
was fired last December. GEO installed new management at the facility after
Idaho's complaints in March, but Reinke said moving the inmates is still a
priority. "IDOC remains concerned about Dickens' operation and has been
working hard over the past four months to find alternatives," the state
agency said in a statement. In an e-mail statement to The Associated Press,
GEO said it's working to rectify problems at Dickens. "GEO strives to
provide quality correctional and detention management services in a safe and
secure environment consistent with contractual requirements and applicable
standards," spokesman Pablo Paez said.
June
6, 2007 AP
Under terms of his contraband sentence, a Texas prison guard who provided
illegal materials to Idaho inmates will only go to prison if he violates
conditions of his release. Those conditions include staying out of “honky
tonks” and “beer joints,” according to court documents. John Ratliffe, a
former guard at the Dickens County Correctional Center where hundreds of
Idaho inmates are housed, is also implicated in providing assistance to an
inmate’s escape. But Ratliffe has denied knowing Payne planned to escape.
Footprints matched to Payne, who later committed suicide, were found near
Ratliffe’s home. Dickens County prosecutors couldn’t be reached for comment on
whether Ratliffe faces additional charges related to the escape. Attempts to
reach Ratliffe were unsuccessful. His telephone number in Paducah isn’t
listed. The 43-year-old Payne was among inmates shipped to Dickens and
another nearby facility in Littlefield, Texas, in August 2006 due to problems
they experienced at another Texas facility, the Newton County Correctional
Center. Those included incidents in which the inmates were punched and doused
with pepper spray by guards. Both prisons are operated by The GEO Group of
Florida. GEO officials said they took quick action upon learning in December
about Ratliffe’s contraband operation. It included setting up a post office
box where at least some prisoners’ families sent items or money to be
transferred to inmates, according to documents. “When we have incidents of
this kind, we conduct a full investigation, and if disciplinary action is
required, we take that action properly, and that’s what we did in this case,”
said Pablo Paez, a GEO spokesman. Ratliffe was placed on unpaid leave, then
fired, Paez said. Records show a chaotic scene in Paducah before Payne was
finally cornered by search dogs in a nearby riverbed. Ratliffe allegedly
threatened to commit suicide shortly after searchers found Payne’s footprints
near his backyard fence, prompting Texas Rangers to transfer Ratliffe to the
local courthouse “where a mental health warrant was signed by the judge,”
according to the GEO report. Idaho officials said they learned of Ratliffe’s
activities after Payne’s capture. “We found out about it on Dec. 11 in a
conversation between Warden Ron Alford and our contract compliance person
Sharon Lamm,” said Jeff Ray, a spokesman for Idaho prisons. Alford was
transferred in March to another GEO prison, after complaints from Idaho about
conditions at Dickens.
June
6, 2007 AP
A private prison guard in Texas who company officials say helped an Idaho
inmate escape by providing an envelope stuffed with money has been convicted
in a separate case of providing contraband to another Idaho prisoner. John
Ratliffe, a former guard at the Dickens County Correctional Center where
hundreds of Idaho inmates are housed due to overcrowding at home, was
sentenced last month to five years probation, 120 hours of community service
and a $1,000 fine for giving cigarettes to Idaho inmate Patterson Franklin,
according to court records obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. Ratliffe
pleaded guilty. The problems surfaced starting Dec. 3 when sex offender Scot
Noble Payne escaped through a prison kitchen door and scaled a fence.
Afterward, Ratliffe acknowledged to his bosses at the prison run by
Florida-based The GEO Group that he used Franklin as an intermediary to
provide illegal items, including tobacco, underwear, sex tapes, music — and
at least $200 Payne had with him when he was caught Dec. 10, according to an
eight-page report compiled by GEO officials following the escape. Payne
committed suicide March 4 after weeks in an isolation cell. He had been
isolated as punishment for his escape. Officials say guard can avoid prison
sentence.
May
1, 2007 Spokesman Review
The warden of a private Texas prison housing Idaho inmates has been
"relieved of his duties" after complaints from Idaho. The Dickens
County Correctional Center, which houses 125 Idaho inmates, made the change
after an Idaho corrections team visited the large, older county jail near
Lubbock, Texas, in March and reported "deficiencies." Idaho
Corrections Director Brent Reinke said problems included an absence of
required educational and treatment programs, inadequate out-of-cell time,
inappropriate lighting, and problems with food, clothing and cleanliness.
Also, an inmate from Ada County who escaped in December and recaptured
committed suicide at the facility in early March. "The feedback I got
from the team was that what they were concerned with was the Texas style of
justice," Reinke said. "Texas justice is different than Idaho
justice. It just is. And we want our inmates handled according to Idaho
justice. "Ninety-eight percent of those folks are coming back to our
communities. … Our mission is to keep Idaho safe. … We don't want to make the
matter worse, so that they come back more violent or more angry." The
state Board of Correction voted unanimously Monday to explore private prison
options in Idaho as an alternative to sending inmates out of state in the
future. Dickens is one of two Texas lockups operated by GEO Group, formerly
Wackenhut Corp., to which Idaho inmates were moved after problems at another
GEO facility in Newton County, Texas, last year. The Newton County lockup saw
two escapes, a demonstration in which 85 Idaho inmates refused to return to
their cells for hours in protest over conditions, and the discipline of three
prison employees after jailers roughed up and pepper-sprayed six Idaho
inmates. Idaho has 431 inmates housed out of state due to overcrowding in its
prison system – 125 at Dickens, 304 at Bill Clayton Detention Center in
Littlefield, Texas, and two elsewhere. Reinke said GEO Group has been
responsive to the complaints, and the new acting warden has made
improvements. Complaints have dropped off since that change was made last
month. But members of the state Board of Correction were concerned on Monday.
"They're not meeting the terms of the contract," said board
Chairwoman Robin Sandy. "Maybe I'm just used to enforcing a contract a
little more aggressively." Sharon Lamm, deputy administrator of
management services for Idaho Corrections, told the board conditions were
much improved at a follow-up visit in April. Idaho pays $51 per inmate per
day in Texas. The average cost in Idaho is $48 per day. Idaho is seeking
proposals for additional out-of-state prison beds for overflow inmates. The
deadline for proposals is today. Reinke said the most recent estimates show Idaho
will need 5,200 more beds in the next 10 years. But Sandy said placing
inmates out of state could become prohibitively expensive because California
is poised to send 8,000 of its inmates out of state. "We all know what
that's going to do to the price of beds," she said. She proposed that
Idaho look into contracting for private prison space in state, which would
require a change in state law. Idaho has one privately operated prison, but
the facility is owned by the state. "It's something we need to discuss,"
Sandy told the board. "I've spoken to the governor's office about it.
They seem to like the idea." Board member Jay Nielsen said, "I
don't think we're going to get $60 million out of the Legislature to build
one, so our back's to the wall – if we're going to have a new prison, it's
going to have to be a private one." The board voted unanimously to seek
more information on that option. Jack Van Valkenburgh, executive director of
the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, said, "I'm less concerned
with whether it's a public or private entity than with whether conditions are
adequate and constitutional, and whether there are adequate programs to
return inmates to society in a productive manner." The Idaho inmate who
committed suicide at the Texas lockup, Scot Noble Payne, 43, was found in a
shower at 1 a.m. with fatal razor wounds. He was serving seven to 20 years
for lewd and lascivious conduct. Matt EchoHawk, staff attorney for the Idaho
ACLU, said his group received complaints from about one in five Idaho inmates
at the Dickens facility after Payne's escape in December. Many said they were
stuck in their cells without opportunities for rehabilitation. "The
prison officials would say it was due to weather or security, something like
that, but it wasn't happening, they wouldn't be out of their cells,"
EchoHawk said.
March
5, 2007 Idaho Statesman
An Idaho inmate housed in a Texas prison was found dead from apparently
self-inflicted wounds early Sunday morning, an Idaho Department of Correction
spokeswoman said. Guards in the Dickens County Correctional Center found Scot
Noble Payne, 43, slumped in a shower, bleeding and unresponsive about
midnight Mountain Time, Teresa Jones said. The fatal wounds were inflicted
with a razor, she said. He was pronounced dead at 1:17 a.m. after
unsuccessful attempts to revive him. Payne was serving time on an Ada County
charge of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor under 16, Jones said. He
was isolated from other inmates at the time of his death because of a
December escape, she said. Payne apparently scaled a fence Dec. 3. He was
captured on Dec. 10 after eluding the Texas Rangers, helicopters from the
Texas Department of Public Safety, local law enforcement agents and private
prison workers. Payne was one of about 100 Idaho inmates housed at the
correctional center near Spur, Texas. Idaho inmates have been in the facility
since July 2005. Payne transferred there in August. He was sentenced to 20
years, with seven mandatory, in December 2002.
December
11, 2006 AP
An Idaho inmate who escaped a private West Texas prison was captured
after a week on the run when authorities caught up to him at a ranch.
Authorities arrested Scot Noble Payne, 43, on Sunday at a ranch near the
small town of Paducah, said Daniel Hawthorne, a spokesman for the Texas
Department of Public Safety in Childress. Payne escaped Dec. 3 from the
Dickens County Correctional Center. The facility, which is run by
Florida-based Geo Group Inc., is located in Spur, about 60 miles east of
Lubbock. Prison officials said Payne, who was serving time for aggravated
battery and lewd and lascivious conduct, scaled the facility's fence. He fled
when temperatures were in the mid-20s, apparently without any extra clothing.
For a week, the fugitive eluded searches by the Texas Rangers, helicopters
from the Department of Public Safety, local law enforcement agents and
private prison workers. Hawthorne said several reports of sightings focused
searchers on the Paducah area, which is 50 miles northeast of the detention
center. Authorities closed down sections of highways and continued scanning
the area by helicopter, he said. Dogs eventually tracked Payne to the ranch.
Payne is one of more than 460 Idaho inmates who have been shipped to Texas or
other states since last year due to overcrowding in Idaho prisons. Idaho
inmates at private prisons in Texas have been the subject of controversy,
with a previous breakout in June and allegations of abuse that preceded the
firing of some Geo Group staff and the transfer of inmates to other prisons —
including Dickens County.
December
5, 2006 AP
Texas authorities continue to search for an Idaho inmate who escaped from a
privately-run prison in subfreezing temperatures. Scot Noble Payne escaped
from the Dickens County Correctional Center at about 7:30 p.m. last night.
Idaho authorities say Payne left a shirt in the fence he's believed to have
scaled. Teresa Jones, a spokeswoman for the Idaho Department of Correction,
says "Payne had no extra clothing when he escaped and temperatures are
near freezing." The search for Payne included helicopters, dogs and road
blocks.
December
4, 2006 AP
West Texas authorities were searching in subfreezing temperatures late Sunday
for an Idaho man who escaped from a privately operated prison in Spur. Scott
Noble Payne, 43, escaped from the Dickens County Correctional Center at about
7:30 p.m. CST, said Janie Walker, a dispatcher with the Dickens County
Sheriff's Office. State and local authorities from surrounding counties
joined the two-man Dickens County Sheriff's Office in the search for Payne,
Walker said. The search involved helicopters, dogs and road blocks. Jail
staff members believe Payne scaled the facility's fence, the Idaho Department
of Corrections said in a news release. Authorities believe he did not have
extra clothing. Temperatures in the region had dropped to the mid-20s degrees
by 11:30 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. Payne was serving
time for Idaho charges of aggravated battery and lewd and lascivious conduct,
according to the Idaho Corrections Department. He was one of about 100 Idaho
inmates being held at the Spur facility, which is located about 60 miles east
of Lubbock. The prison, which is operated by Florida-based The Geo Group,
Inc., is designed for minimum- to maximum-security levels, according to the
Geo Group's Web site. It has a capacity of 489 adult males.
October
29, 1998
More than 17 months after a Montana inmate died from wounds suffered during a
riot at the Dickens County Correctional Facility in Spur, his medical bills
totaling nearly $60,000 are still unpaid, a lawsuit states. Montana
inmate Neil Hage, 32, died May 16, 1997, at University Medical Center in
Lubbock a week after he was injured in a prison riot between inmates from
Montana and Hawaii. Now a lawsuit brought by University Medical Center
alleges that former DCCF operator Bobby Ross Group has failed to pay the
$59,480 bill despite promises to do so. But the May 9, 1997, riot at
the Spur facility came at a time when Montana officials were about to pull their
220-plus inmates out of the prison. An audit performed by the Montana
Department of Corrections in 1996 and 1997 made numerous claims of
inadequacies at the facilities, including a lack of CPR and medical readiness
in general. BRG agreed to terminate its contract with Dickens County in
April after county officials opted to sell the prison to Florida-based
Correction Service Corp., which now runs the facility. (Houston
Chronicle)
Sept.
7, 1997
Montana inmates at a Texas prison go hungry and have to wait days for medical
care, while the company running the prison continues to violate its $3.6
million-a-year contract with the state, an investigation by Montana
corrections officials found. A report released Friday said the Dickens
County Correctional Center, operated by the Bobby Ross Group, is not fully
complying with 15 of 22 provisions of the state contract. Violations
include food service medical care security, inmate transfers and disciplinary
actions, according to the report. Dickens County has had problems since
Montana inmates were sent there about a year ago. One inmate was killed
in a May brawl, a near-riot had to be halted by gunfire from guards last
fall, a warden was fired and two Montana escapees remain on the loose.
Friday's report found that the company is complying with the contract in its
education, treatment and drug-testing programs, providing jobs for inmates,
keeping track of inmate funds, supplying medication to inmates and
maintaining a set of medical policies. But the study was especially
critical of food service at the Spur prison. (Houston Chronicle)
May
12, 1997
One inmate was released Sunday and two others remained hospitalized, one in
critical condition, after a fight at a private prison in this Northwest Texas
town. Officials at the Dickens County Correctional Center would not say
whether the prison remained locked down Sunday, as has been the case since
Friday night's uprising involving inmates from Montana, Colorado and
Hawaii. As many as 100 inmates were in the prison's recreation yard
when the fight began about 8:30 pm Friday. The fighting prisoners
surrendered when guards approached them. (Houston Chronicle)
May
11, 1997
Three inmates were hospitalized, one with critical injuries, and their
privately run prison remained locked down Saturday after a fight involving
prisoners from Montana, Colorado and Hawaii. A total of seven inmates
were hurt Friday night at the Dickens County Correctional Center. No
weapons were recovered, and the victims apparently did not suffer gunshot or
knife wounds, Dickens County Sheriff Ken Brendle said. Officials said
141 inmates were transferred in November 1996 from Colorado prisons to the
correctional center to relieve crowding. To relieve crowding at the
Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, Montana sent 251 inmates to the prison
last summer and has about that many there now. An August 1996 uprising
began when about 120 inmates from Montana and Hawaii refused to begin work
assignments or return to their barracks in a protest over medical care, food
and strip searches. (Houston Chronicle)
Dickens County Jail
Dickens County, Texas
Community Education Centers
February 3, 2011 KCBD
While the Lubbock County Detention Center is filling up with inmates, other
counties are struggling to find an inmate. Taxpayers of those counties are
now being held prisoners by their own prisons as they're forced to pay the
price of empty facilities. About an hour from Lubbock, the Bill Clayton
Detention Center in Littlefield hasn't had a single inmate in the last two
years. "This was not built to house local inmates; it was built to house
inmates from other parts of the state or other parts of U.S. It was built to
bring economic development to the city of Littlefield," said Danny
Davis, Littlefield city manager. For a while it did bring money into
Littlefield, until the State of Idaho decided to remove its inmates from the
center when the economy tanked back in 2009. "Everybody was cutting back
it seemed, and it was very difficult to find other inmates from out of state
to come in and fill the facility," said Davis. Nearly 100 people lost
their job in the area, and with $9 million left to pay for the now empty
building, residents are stuck paying the price through increased taxes and
fees." Jokingly I've told people when I took this job I weighed a lot
more and had a lot more hair, so that's how I guess you can say how the
frustration level is. It has been a frustrating situation for the whole
community," said Davis. About two hours away Dickens County faces a
similar fate. Their contractor CEC didn't renew their contract with the
Dickens County Correctional Center. In mid-December the remaining inmates
were moved to Lubbock County's new facility, and nearly 120 jobs were lost -
huge hit to the small communities of Dickens County. "It cost money to
put people in jail. The state of the economy, the governments don't have as
much money. Our own state is cutting the budget, and there's one way to save
money…that's not to incarcerate them, and so that's why I believe our inmate
population is down," said Lesa Arnold, Dickens County Judge. So far
Dickens County hasn't had to increase taxes to foot the prison's one million
dollar bill each year, but that option might soon surface. "We need to
get this thing going within a year, and hopefully a whole lot sooner than
that before that issue comes up as to who's going to make those bond
payments," said Arnold. So how can Lubbock County fill its newly built
facility while these two and others around the U.S. are failing? It comes
down to why these facilities were built in the first place. Littlefield and
Dickens County didn't have an inmate population for the large prisons they
built; instead they were built to make a profit for the towns by contracting
out the prison cells to other parts of the state and U.S. Lubbock on the
other hand, needed the bigger facility. All 1,063 inmates currently in the
Lubbock County Detention Center are from Lubbock County, which means their
cells will constantly be filled with a local inmate population. The other
facilities are staying hopeful a new inmate population will come their way.
"I can't worry about why we have it because that's in the past. I can
only worry about what can we do with it now that we have it, and that's what
we work on every day," said Davis.
December
11, 2010 Texas Prison Bidness
On Friday, Community Education Centers (CEC) decided to let their contract
with the Dickens County Jail expire. All the inmates from that facility were
transferred to the Lubbock County Detention Center. The US Marshals will pay
the city of Lubbock a $40 per diem rate, and $10 per hour for guards, but the
jail's Chief Deputy said they would negotiate for a higher rate in order to
recover the cost of Lubbock's sending to Dickens in the first place. Now that
Lubbock has a new and larger jail, they want their inmates back: As of Friday
the Lubbock County Detention Center hold [sic] 105 inmates with more on the
way. Chief Deputy Downes said all the federal inmates should be transferred
by the end of next week. "The Lubbock County taxpayers are seeing some
return on what they spent on this facility," said Chief Deputy Downes.
But for Dickens County, a community of 2,700, having the federal inmates
transferred has led to all 489 beds empty and more than120 jobs lost. This
comes after the privately owned company that operated the Dickens County Jail
did not renew their three year contract and is in the process of
transitioning the operation of the jail back to Dickens[.] "We've been
working diligently for the last 8 months to ensure this day would never come.
Unfortunately it has," said Lesa Arnold, Dickens County Judge. The
Dickens County Judge said possible loss of the jail is not an effect of less
inmates. It's also due to the economy and location. "I think a lot of it
had to do with geography. It was just closer for the U.S. Marshals to the
court system in Lubbock," said Judge Arnold.
Eagle Lake Juvenile
Facility
Columbus, Texas
Youth Services International (formerly Correctional Services Corporation sub)
October 24, 2008 Houston Chronicle
The state's troubled youth prison system has canceled a contract with a
Florida company following criticism taxpayers were paying $22,500 a day to
lease empty prison beds, officials said. The Texas Youth Commission terminated
the contract Thursday with Youth Services International. No one at the
company could be reached for comment Thursday, the Austin American-Statesman
reported in its Friday online edition. Previously, a company official had
indicated the payments were reasonable. "This is what I asked for—
cancel that contract. We need to get our money back. It's a good day for
taxpayers and the Youth Commission that they corrected this big
mistake," said Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice
Committee. Whitmire was among the lawmakers demanding the contract be
canceled when they learned the embattled agency was leasing Eagle Lake
prison, near Houston. It sat empty for three months despite the state paying
the company nearly $1.3 million in startup costs, which covered part of July
and all of August. Checks for September and October were withheld by TYC,
which wants to negotiate a refund for much of what it already spent, the San
Antonio Express-News reported Thursday in its online edition. On Oct. 17,
officials moved 18 teen offenders into the Eagle Lake prison but sent them
Thursday to others around the state. Cherie Townsend, the commission's new
executive commissioner, said in a statement the company will be asked for a
detailed accounting of all state money spent so far on the contract.
Commission officials were criticized for inking the deal when its existing
lockups have dozens of empty beds. The number of teenage lawbreakers in
commission lockups has declined from more than 5,000 to about 2,700 in the
wake of a reorganization and management shakeup that followed a sex-abuse and
cover-up scandal in 2007. In a statement Thursday, Townsend said the agency
"is evaluating its youth population, future trends and future
needs." The contract is the latest trouble for TYC. Gov. Rick Perry
recently moved the agency out of the state conservatorship put in place in
2007 following allegations of inmate sexual abuse and a cover-up by agency
officials.
October
19, 2008 AP
Key state lawmakers want a contract with a private prison contractor
canceled after they learned the Texas Youth Commission spent $1.26 million to
lease empty beds. The agency moved 18 teenage offenders Friday into the new
lockup near Houston. It had been empty for three months. The contract showed
the state would pay $22,500 a day for three months at the empty facility to
cover start-up costs. However, records show only $1.26 million has been
spent. The Eagle Lake prison would need to house 119 offenders to cover the
costs. The money was paid to Youth Services International for startup costs,
something other state agencies prohibit. The Austin American-Statesman
revealed details of the contract this past week. John Whitmire, Senate
Criminal Justice Committee chairman, wrote a letter Friday to the agency
demanding the contract with the Florida-based company be canceled.
November
29, 2005 Victoria Advocate
The Colorado County Commissioners Court has formed a committee to determine
which of the county's taxing entities will be able to use the new voting
machines for its elections. "We formed the committee to come up with an
equitable system for all of the voting entities in the county to use the
equipment," County Judge Al Jamison said after Monday's court meeting.
"We've purchased 16 of the machines and have three cities and three
school districts." "Now that the county is running the facility,
the school district wanted the contract to be with us rather than
Correctional Services Corporation," Jamison said. "The district
operates an off-campus program at the juvenile facility with a principal and
five teachers. That way the kids at the facility are not in an educational
vacuum. For example, if they are in eighth grade, they follow an eighth grade
course of learning at the facility."
East Hidalgo Detention
Center
La Villa, Texas
Louisiana Correctional Service
May 22, 2012 Courthouse News
A former federal corrections officer was arrested on charges of taking a cash
bribe to smuggle a cellphone to a prison inmate, the U.S. Attorney's Office
said. Jorge Sandoval, 21, of Pharr is charged with taking a bribe while
working under authority of the U.S. Marshals Service as a corrections
officer, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement. Sandoval is accused
of taking the bribe while he worked at the East Hidalgo Detention Center in
La Villa, Texas, a 900-bed prison that houses federal and local offenders.
The prison is run by LCS Corrections Services, which describes itself as
"the largest privately held private corrections company in the United
States." If convicted, Sandoval faces up to 15 years in federal prison
and a $250,000 fine.
March
3, 2012 The Monitor
The operator of Hidalgo County’s only private detention center brought in
additional medical staff this week after concerns from county and state officials
regarding inmate tuberculosis testing at the facility. The Monitor learned of
a meeting between several federal, state and local agencies and LCS
Corrections, which owns and operates the East Hidalgo Detention Center in La
Villa. Questions about the facility came after the prison’s warden was
suspended late last month. Health officials questioned the prison doctor’s
assertion that it was safe for possible carriers of tuberculosis — including
inmates who had tested positive in the past — to be kept with the rest of the
prison’s population, said Adan Muñoz, executive director of the Texas
Commission on Jail Standards. “They were not agreeing with the opinion of the
state and the Hidalgo County Health Department that they were not being
managed correctly … as far as being segregated,” Muñoz said. The meeting came
after Hidalgo County Health Department officials learned a federal inmate at
the facility recently who tested positive for tuberculosis, was released to
Border Patrol agents and deported to Mexico without treatment, Sheriff Lupe
Treviño said. “He was deported without any precautions or advisories put
out,” the sheriff said. In another instance, county health officials learned
of four inmates at the prison who had tested positive for tuberculosis or were
possible carriers of the infection and were among other inmates, said Shannon
Herklotz, assistant director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, who
attended the meeting last month. County officials raised their concerns with
LCS, but received little response from the prison’s management. “I guess they
were shunned for lack of a better word,” Herklotz said. Tuberculosis,
commonly referred to TB, is an airborne bacterial infection that involves the
lungs, but can spread to other organs. It is spread via the air and can
remain dormant in a person for years. The state requires prisons to test new
inmates for tuberculosis within seven days of their booking at a penitentiary
with more than 100 beds. A March 2011 Centers for Disease Control study shows
Texas has one of the country’s highest rates for tuberculosis, with four
cases per 100,000 residents. But Hidalgo County has an average rate twice as
high as the state’s, Herklotz said. Prisons, where scores of people are
confined together for extended periods, can be hotbeds for disease to spread,
Muñoz said. “Any time you have a magnitude of inmates … you’ve got the
potential for all sorts of diseases and so forth,” Muñoz said. The Hidalgo
County Jail tests all inmates upon their initial booking into the facility
and before they are placed among the general population, Treviño said. County
inmates kept in La Villa are separate from those brought in by federal
agencies. “The reason we (test inmates upon booking) is we do not want to
take the chance of putting somebody back there infected and causing an
epidemic,” he said. But LCS was not always testing inmates within the
seven-day window, said Richard Harbison, the company’s executive vice
president. “We were falling behind on our time period for doing our TB
tests,” he said.
March
1, 2012 The Monitor
Details remain sketchy about a federal investigation into a La Villa prison
warden, but the facility has faced separate scrutiny in recent weeks. But
Hidalgo County’s only private detention facility faced allegations of unfit
conditions and a separate inquiry from federal investigators, only to have
its operators say they had “disproven everything.” East Hidalgo Detention
Center Warden Elberto E. Bravo has been on paid administrative leave since he
learned the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service were conducting an investigation
into fraud, bribery and theft allegations. No criminal charges against Bravo
have been filed. Sources who know Bravo and are aware of the investigation
say it’s unclear whether it involves his job or political influence in the
Delta region, given the private prison is one of the area’s largest
employers. While Bravo remains on leave, the warden from the Coastal Bend
Detention Center in Robstown will serve in the interim, said Richard
Harbison, executive vice president at LCS Corrections, the Lafayette,
La.-based company that owns and operates the East Hidalgo Detention Center.
“Any time there is (a federal inquiry), we bring a warden in from another
unit to make sure that if there were mistakes they are not being repeated
again,” Harbison said. The separate inquiry into the East Hidalgo Detention
Center launched in January, when Robin Whiteley, currently facing illegal
re-entry charges in federal court, told Chief U.S. District Judge Ricardo
Hinojosa of days without hot water — or any running water — and said it
sometimes took days to be seen by a nurse. Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe
Treviño said the investigation into Bravo was concerning, but he has been
told the federal investigation does not concern inmate safety.
July
21, 2010 The Monitor
Prisoner housing may be free of charge for this city, but inmate labor isn't
freely available. That's the outcome of a dispute between an Edcouch city
alderman and the warden of the La Villa detention center over whether Edcouch
is entitled to sandbags made by the inmates. Elberto Bravo, the warden of the
East Hidalgo Detention Center, a privately run, 900-bed facility in La Villa,
said he became incensed when Edcouch Mayor Pro Tem Eddy Gonzalez threatened
to write a letter to the warden's supervisors because inmates didn't make
sandbags for Edcouch residents when Hurricane Alex approached. Gonzalez says
no letter was ever written by the city to Bravo's bosses — City Manager P.R.
Avila said the same during Tuesday's city meeting — but that he was upset
that prison-made sandbags weren't available this year like they were for
2008's Hurricane Dolly. The apparent misunderstanding nearly led the warden
to end his policy of housing cash-strapped Edcouch's prisoners for free,
which could have forced the city to release people arrested on suspicion of
driving while intoxicated and other charges with a summons to show up at
court. "I don't need Edcouch, but Edcouch needs us," said Bravo,
who manages the La Villa facility and oversees two others detention centers
in South Texas that are operated by LCS Corrections Services Inc., the
largest privately held corrections company in the United States. "It's
not costing these cities in the Delta area one penny to house these individuals
here." Bravo, a long-time corrections officer, often puts inmates from
the U.S. Marshals Service — one agency that contracts to use the private
prison and allows him to use its detainees for labor — to work on special
tasks. He cooks turkeys and other food for special events in neighboring
cities, and he made 4,000 sandbags for Edcouch residents when Hurricane Dolly
made landfall two years ago, he said. But when Hurricane Alex turned this way
before the Fourth of July, he committed to make sandbags for Elsa and Hidalgo
County Precinct 1, which delivered sand by the truckload to the facility off
State Highway 107. When Gonzalez called him to demand that he also make
sandbags for Edcouch residents, Bravo refused to do so because of his other
commitments, he said. The warden said that's when Gonzalez threatened to
write a letter to the company's corporate office in Lafayette, La. Gonzalez
said he was upset sandbags weren't made for Edcouch like they were for other
entities, but he added that he never wrote a letter to LCS to complain about
the warden's approach. "I'm a little discontent, but I have no say-so
over what the prison does," said Gonzalez, who hinted at prior political
issues with the warden but declined to say what they were. "I wish he
would have (made sandbags) for Edcouch and La Villa — small communities like
ours." He also said he thought the warden's warning that he would stop
housing the city's prisoners at the detention facility for free was based on
business, not sandbags. The city was set to approve a new contract with the
East Hidalgo Detention Center in which it would have to pay the going rate of
$50 for each day an inmate stays there. With an average of about six Edcouch
prisoners housed at the detention center each week, the bill would have
topped at least $2,000 each month. But Alderman Noe Garcia said the warden
decided to scrap the new contract after he and other elected officials in the
city called to make amends. The city will now be required to cover any
medical costs the detention center incurs, but the warden said he won't
charge them the daily rate. "People need to understand that this is at
no cost to the city," Bravo said. "Even if the letter got to the
corporate office, they're not paying for our services. It's being provided free
to them."
October
23, 2006 Houston Chronicle
One of the five illegal immigrants who escaped from a privately run South
Texas jail along with a former police officer surrendered to federal agents
at a border checkpoint, officials said Monday. Joel Armando Mata-Castro, a
31-year-old Mexican citizen, walked up to the checkpoint Sunday night and
identified himself to Customs and Border Protection officers, who identified
him as a fugitive on federal escape charges, CBP spokesman Felix Garza said.
Mata-Castro was being held at the Cameron County Jail. He's the only inmate
captured after they escaped from the East Hidalgo Detention Center in La
Villa on Sept. 19 by overpowering a guard with a homemade knife and gaining
access to several exit doors. Authorities have said they suspected the men
had crossed the border into Mexico, about 20 miles away. The five illegal
immigrants are alleged members of the drug gang Raza Unida. Former McAllen
police officer Francisco Meza-Rojas, the supposed ringleader of the escapees,
was two weeks away from trial on drug-trafficking charges.
October
11, 2006 The Monitor
The private prison from which six inmates escaped last month has repeatedly
violated state standards, according to inspection reports from the Texas
prison board. The most recent inspection, conducted eight days after the
escape, cites the prison for employing too few guards, adding an unauthorized
number of bunks and keeping unlicensed guards on the payroll. Since LCS
Correctional Services took over the Eastern Hidalgo Detention Center in 2001,
the prison has come out clean in only two of its annual inspections. LCS
spokesman Richard Harbison said the violations were not intentional and that
they had fixed all the problems. "We are back in compliance," he
said. The latest infractions shed new light on the persistently troubled La
Villa prison, which has struggled with staffing and inmate security for
years. LCS President Patrick LeBlanc told The Monitor in previous interviews
that the La Villa prison staffed enough guards, even though a U.S. Marshals
spokesman said that was not the case. The state conducted an emergency review
after last month’s escape, when an 18-year-old guard said he was overpowered
by one of the inmates and stuffed into a closet. He has since been fired.
That inspection cited the prison for a third time for not employing enough
guards. The jail commission did not say in the documents what the actual
ratio of guards to prisoner was. It also found several guards were working
with expired licenses or no license at all. Harbison said the prison had a
policy of not applying for licenses until guards completed two weeks of work.
The warden didn’t want to waste the $100 application fee for a Texas jailer’s
license until he knew guards would stay, he said. That practice has since
stopped, he said. And since the emergency inspection the guards with expired
licenses have been fired, he said.
October
5, 2006 The Monitor
Three people, including a guard, have been arrested in connection with
the prison break in which six inmates escaped more than two weeks ago. Prison
commissary officer Joseph Paul Llanos, Martin Angel Villarreal Jr., and
Magdalena Peña, wife of one of the escapees, were arrested last week in
connection with the escape from the Eastern Hidalgo Detention Center in La
Villa on Sept 19., according to court documents obtained Wednesday. The six
inmates, including a former McAllen police officer accused of running a
family drug smuggling ring, are still on the loose and are most likely hiding
in Mexico, according to authorities. They are considered armed and dangerous.
The five other inmates who escaped with the former police officer are repeat
immigration offenders known as members of Raza Unida, a drug smuggling gang
based out of Corpus Christi. Information compiled from the three criminal
complaints recently filed in federal court paint two of the prisoners,
Enrique Peña-Saenz, 38, and the former police officer, Francisco Meza-Rojas,
41, as planning the escape from the inside. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in
Houston would not comment on the case because the investigation is ongoing.
But a spokesman for the company that runs the prison, LCS Correctional
Services, said that Llanos knew at least one of the inmates before they were
housed at La Villa. "One of our policies is that if a guard recognizes
someone they know in the past they need to report it," said LCS
spokesman Richard Harbison. Llanos had not reported knowing any of the
inmates, he said. But under questioning after the escape, Llanos admitted to
U.S. Marshals that two weeks before the escape he smuggled a cell phone and
charger to Meza-Rojas, according to a criminal complaint. Some time after,
Llanos smuggled in a pair of pliers that he handed to Meza-Rojas, according
to the complaint. Those pliers were later used to cut through at least three
fences, including an electrified one that someone had turned off, though the
complaint didn’t specify who may have done that. By the time the six inmates
had reached the fences, they had subdued 18-year-old prison guard Enrique
Zepeda and stuffed him in a closet. Once they made it outside, they split up
into at least three groups after crossing a levee east of the prison. Search
dogs traced the inmates’ scent to State Highway 107, which runs east of the prison.
Meza-Rojas used the cell phone that had been smuggled in to him to arrange
someone to pick him up at the highway, according to the complaint.
"Everything points that these guys are in Mexico," said Joe
Magallan, the U.S. Marshal’s McAllen-based spokesman. "These guys are
too scared to be crossing back into the United States." Marshals
immediately began investigating Villarreal after the prison break because
three of his business cards had been found in the eight-man pod where the six
inmates where held. One of the cards had Enrique Peña’s name and home phone
number on it. Villarreal, according to the complaint, had visited Peña in
prison two weeks before the escape and listed himself as Peña’s compadre in
the log book. Marshals believe he delivered the cell phone, wire cutters and
$200 to Llanos during two different visits to the prison, the last one in
August. Llanos was arrested Sept. 23, and Villarreal on Sept. 25. They were
each charged with aiding and abetting Meza-Rojas’ escape. It wasn’t clear why
they were not charged in connection with the other prisoners’ escapes. As for
Peña’s wife, Magdalena, she told U.S. Marshals her husband told of her of the
escape plans some time in August. He told her someone would give her $100 so
she could pay the man who would smuggle in the cell phone. She met an unknown
older white man later that day in Mission in front of Foy’s Supermarket. He
handed her $100 and instructed her to give the money to Villarreal. Magdalena
Peña was also arrested Sept. 25. She was also only charged with aiding and
abetting Meza-Rojas’ escape. The other inmates are Fernando Garza-Cruz, 20;
Joel Armando Mata-Castro, 31; Vicente Mendiola-Garcia, 34; and Saul Leonardo
Salazar-Aguirre, 24. LCS Correctional Services has made a series of personnel
changes since the escape. Zepeda, the young guard who the inmates
overpowered, was fired for not following policy, Harbison said. The prison
spokesman said Zepeda opened a control room door, unwittingly letting the six
inmates escape. He has not been criminally charged, though, and the company
believes he did not know of the plot. Zepeda, who was employed shortly after
his high school graduation three months before, had undergone on-the-job
training but had not attended mandatory training at the Hidalgo County
Sheriff’s Academy. New guards must take the course within a year of hire.
Harbison said there are at least 20 other employees, 13 percent of all La
Villa guards, at the prison who are like Zepeda and have yet to undergo the
academy training. The company has closed its investigation and is now
implementing a series of security policy changes, he said. The chief of
security at the prison was also demoted, he said.
September
23, 2006 KRIS TV
A control box for the electrical fence surrounding a private jail was
tampered with before six federal inmates escaped this week and may have kept
the alarm from sounding, an official with the company that runs the jail said
Friday. Richard Harbison, co-owner of LCS Corrections Services Inc., of
Lafayette, La., said an internal investigation revealed tampering with an
outside control box. He also said there were wiring problems with a control
box inside the East Hidalgo Detention Center. Meanwhile, two employees were
placed on paid leave pending the investigation into Tuesday night's escape of
a former police officer facing drug charges and five alleged members of a
drug gang. All six remained at large Friday.
September
23, 2006 The Monitor
The 18-year-old guard overseeing the six inmates who escaped from the local
prison Tuesday had been on the job less than three months and had not yet
undergone a training course mandated for Texas jailers. Enrique Zepeda was
one of 27 guards on duty Tuesday night when the six inmates threatened him
with a foot-long homemade knife, tied him up and stuffed him in a closet.
They then escaped through several inside doors and layers of outside fencing
to make their way out of the prison complex. The escapees, who included five
prison gang members and a former McAllen police officer accused of running a
drug smuggling ring, were still on the loose Friday. Zepeda — who began work
at the Eastern Hidalgo County Detention Center this summer just after his
high school graduation — was slated to attend the next round of training at
the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Academy, said Richard Harbison, a spokesman for
the company that runs the private prison. The Texas Commission on Jails gives
guards a year after their hiring date to complete the training, which at the
Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Academy lasts three weeks. As is standard for all
guards, Zepeda spent two weeks shadowing a more experienced officer when he
first began at the prison, Harbison said. Michael Gilbert, a professor of
criminal justice at the University of Texas-San Antonio, called formal guard
training key to prison security. “The training is critical. The lack of
training, it presents a clear liability for the organization.” Publicly run
prisons are exempt from lawsuits claiming negligence for failure to
adequately train prison staff, but private facilities have no such
protections, Gilbert said. Harbison, the prison spokesman, said Zepeda’s
injuries had not been serious enough to warrant medical treatment. “When we
have a guard that’s in that situation — that’s the first thing we check,” he
said of injuries sustained during prison breaks. “But we have to move forward
with an investigation.” LCS has had ample experience with such situations.
According to the Texas Commission on Jails, the company’s Brooks County
Detention Center has had two escapes in four years — one in 2002 and another
in 2005. The La Villa facility had two escapes in 2000, while it was owned by
a different company. But in September 2005, when under LCS management, a
prisoner escaped from the parking lot of the McAllen Medical Center after he
convinced guard he needed medical attention at the hospital. Another inmate
tried the same trick on Wednesday, when he jumped out of an ambulance headed
for that same hospital. Hoping to avert any more security breaches, LCS has
begun work on a new fence to surround the entire complex and is installing an
outside camera system. Both will likely be complete within 10 days, Harbison
said on Friday.
September
21, 2006 The Monitor
Prison and law enforcement authorities were investigating Wednesday
whether a guard or other staffer at the La Villa detention facility may have
helped the six federal inmates who escaped late Tuesday night. The six
escapees were housed in a single cell in a minimum-to-medium security
building, even though five of them were known to be members of a Corpus
Christi-based prison gang known as La Raza Unida, according to local and
federal officials. They broke out Tuesday at about 9:45 p.m. by threatening a
guard with a homemade knife and then cutting a hole in the electric fence
outside. They were still on the loose as of Wednesday night and considered
armed and dangerous. Michael Hallett, chairman of the criminal justice
department at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Fla. and an
expert on privately-run prisons, said such facilities face a greater risk of
inmates escaping because they are typically understaffed and pay low salaries
in order to make profits. These working conditions make for high staff
turnover rates, he said. “So, you have poorly trained guards who are too few
in number and who are very inexperienced — and that combination of factors
makes them susceptible not just to corruption, but also to coercion by the
inmates inside,” Hallett said. “That sounds like an inside job,” Hallett said
of the circumstances surrounding this week’s escape in La Villa.
September
21, 2006 San Antonio Express-News
The young guard who said he was overpowered by federal inmates at a
Valley detention center was one of two employees put on paid leave Thursday
as officials investigate how six men escaped. Enrique Zepeda, 18, who has
been on the job for three months, said the escape started late Tuesday with a
decoy. "They were distracting me to put my guard down for a moment and
it worked," he said. A spokesman for Lafayette, La.-based LCS
Corrections Services Inc., which owns and operates the East Hidalgo Detention
Center in La Villa, confirmed that Zepeda and one other employee were put on
paid administrative leave Thursday. All employees will be questioned, said
McAllen-based spokesman for the U.S. Marshals, Jose Magallan Jr. "We are
looking at all avenues, we are looking to see if it was an inside job,"
he said.
September
21, 2006 Houston Chronicle
Not enough officers were on duty at a privately owned federal jail when an
ex-police officer charged with drug trafficking led five other inmates in a
daring escape Tuesday night, a federal marshal overseeing the investigation
said Wednesday. The six men broke out of the East Hidalgo Detention Center at
9:40 p.m. Tuesday after using a footlong knife made of plastic to overpower a
guard. They managed to get through four jail doors before using bolt cutters
or wire snips to cut through two fences. Teams of federal agents and Rio
Grande Valley police using helicopters, horses and tracking dogs searched for
the escapees late Wednesday but had not found any of them. ''The way we see
it, there is lack of security there right now," said Joe Magallan, a
deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service. ''There are a lot of safety issues
pertaining to that. There's just not enough personnel. More security officers
and more detention officers, should be placed there."
September
20, 2006 The Monitor
Federal and local authorities are still looking for six men who escaped
from a federal prison last night. The men escaped from the East Hidalgo
Detention Center around 9:40 p.m. Tuesday by holding a foot-long, homemade
knife to the neck of a prison guard, U.S. Marshals Service spokesman Joe
Magallan said. They then tied up the guard and locked him in a room before
escaping through the backdoor of the building and using wire cutters to
detach an electric fence from the anchor holding it to the ground, Hidalgo
County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said. Someone had evidently de-electrified the
fence beforehand, Treviño said. The guard was unharmed. The men had been
housed in a minimum to medium security building within the prison complex,
said Richard Harbison, a spokesman for LCS Correctional Services, the company
that runs the private facility. Harbison said this is the first escape from
the facility since LCS took it over from the former management company in
2001. That company had gone bankrupt. Treviño stopped short of calling the
escape an inside job but said the circumstances were dubious. “From a law
enforcement perspective, it appears to be highly suspicious,” he said.
East Texas Intermediate Sanction
Facility
Longview, Texas
Management &Training Corporation
September 30, 2005 Tyler Morning Telegraph
In other business Thursday, county commissioners allowed the sheriff to
move forward with plans to convert the Marvin A. Smith Regional Juvenile
Center to the Marvin A. Smith Criminal Justice Center. With the county's jail
population hovering around capacity, the county plans to take the
already-closed juvenile facility and turn it into a low-risk adult detention
facility in April. He also said after the meeting that Management and
Training Corp., which leases a total of 300 beds in the county's jail, has
been put on verbal notice that the county currently is not in a position to
renew its contract, which expires in February 2007. The sheriff said
officials are working with the company on finding a new place to house those
inmates when that time comes.
Ector
County Correctional Center
Odessa,
Texas
CEC (bought CiviGenics)
January 30, 2013 CBS 7 News
Odessa/Midland – At Least dozen
people who worked at the Ector County Correctional facility, a private jail
in Odessa, face federal charges of bribery. Federal officials say they were
bringing contraband into the facility. The suspects indicted by the federal
grand jury are making initial appearances today in federal court. Bond is
expected to be set as well. The indicted employees and former employees
worked in Community Education Centers for the correctional facility. Sources
say one suspect was arrested in Austin. One of them is an employee at the
Ector County Detention Center according to sources. However, the female
employee is alleged to have committed the bribery charge while working at the
private Ector County Correctional Facility. The private jail is located on
the top floor of the Ector County Courthouse.
June
17, 2010 Odessa American
A Midland man who claims he was beaten into submission while jailed in
the Odessa Detention Center has not given up a years-long effort to be
compensated for what he said was the use of excessive force after he ran out
of his cell. Larry Wesley Brown, a federal prisoner serving more than four
years on a conviction of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, sought
$8 million in damages from Civigenics — a private company also known as
Community Education Centers — that operates the detention center — for
injuries he said occurred while he was awaiting trial in July 2007. The
lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice in March, but this month, Brown appealed
the district court’s decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Brown,
55, writes in court filings that he is a former Army medic with a
“well-documented history of psychological problems.” Among other disorders,
Brown said he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. Brown’s claim against the
detention center stems from a scuffle with several prison guards after — in
what he called a “delusional episode” — he repeatedly shouted for help from
his cell and then bolted into the hallway once the door was opened. “At the
time I believed that I was a member of the British royal family and was
mistakenly being held in the bowels of a military ship,” Brown said in a
sworn affidavit. “From within the cell, I continued to scream for help, and I
yelled for the guard to contact the Queen.” Brown said he suffered a number
of injuries when he was detained, including several broken teeth. “Community
Education Centers is satisfied with the judge’s ruling and confident it will
survive on appeal,” said Christopher Greeder, a spokesman for the detention
center. In a separate case, Civigenics was sued by another former inmate who
blames the detention center for the loss of his eyesight. Colby E. Miller of
Odessa claims in a federal lawsuit that Civigenics guards negligently allowed
a fellow inmate to obtain a broom. Miller’s attorney, Robert Swafford of
Austin, said in the lawsuit that the inmate struck Miller in the eye with the
broomstick, causing him to permanently lose his sight. Greeder declined to
comment on the Miller case, citing the pending litigation. No trial date has
been set in the Miller case.
April
6, 2010 Odessa American
An Odessa woman fearing a life sentence in federal prison hanged herself
in an isolation cell Monday morning, her family said. Vickie Faye Purcell,
51, was found dead in the Ector County Correctional Center, authorities said.
The Texas Rangers said Purcell’s death appeared to be a suicide, but they
were still awaiting the results of an autopsy Tuesday. “We’re just devastated,”
Purcell’s sister, Teresa Johnson, said by phone Tuesday. “She was a good,
sweet, wonderful person. We’re just going to miss her terribly.” Family
members said Purcell had been placed in isolation the night before after
getting into a fight with a cellmate. The suicide is at least the second by
an inmate in the past two years at the Ector County Correctional Center,
which is operated by Civigenics, a private company also known as Community
Education Centers. Christopher Greeder, a company spokesman, confirmed the
suicide on Tuesday but declined to comment further, citing an ongoing
investigation. Greeder also declined to discuss the jail’s general policies
on suicide prevention.
February
19, 2009 Odessa American
A former Ector County Correctional Center guard pleaded guilty Wednesday
in federal court to a federal bribery charge for giving an inmate a cell
phone for $150, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of
Justice. The release said that Andrew Zehr, who was arrested Dec. 9 and fired
from the privately managed jail two days later, also told the court he was
paid for smuggling in other contraband for the inmate, including a box of
marijuana one of the inmate's relatives gave to Zehr, which was wrapped in
black electrical tape with a lighter taped to the outside of the box. Zehr's
sentencing will take place June 25 at the U.S. District Court in Midland. He
faces up to 15 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. The Ector County
Correctional Center is a federal holding facility in downtown Odessa managed
by New Jersey-based Civigenics.
December
9, 2008 Odessa American
A guard working at the Ector County Correctional Center became the latest
person accused in Texas of smuggling cell phones for jail inmates, an
assistant U.S. attorney said. John Klassen, a prosecutor with the Western
District of Texas in Midland, said Odessan Andrew Allen Zehr, 23, was given a
federal charge of bribery. He's accused of taking $150 to smuggle the cell
phone and was also accused of smuggling two or three "baggies" of
marijuana at $100 a pop since late October. Zehr was apprehended by DEA
agents Tuesday afternoon and was in the process of being booked into the
Midland County Jail at press time. Klassen withheld the name of the prisoner
that he said offered the bribes pending a further investigation, but said he
was a federal inmate, and therefore the bribery charge Zehr had was also
federal. Zehr is an employee of Civigenics, otherwise known as Community
Education Centers, a New Jersey-based company that is contracted by the
county to manage the federal holding facility inside the Ector County
Courthouse. A call to Civigenics was not immediately returned Tuesday. This
arrest came as state prison officials were looking into several cell phone
smuggling cases throughout Texas.
March
13, 2008 CBS 7
The death of an Odessa jail inmate has been ruled self-inflicted in a
preliminary autopsy in Tarrant County. Luis Chavez Chavez was founding
hanging in a cell at the Odessa correctional facility operated by Civigenics.
The 21 year old was being held for illegal entry into the United States.
Formal autopsy results are expected in four to six weeks according to Texas
Rangers.
May
15, 2007 Midland Reporter-Telegram
A US District Court jury got a short course in jail house jargon in
Monday testimony about a Feb. 11, 2006, fire at Ector County Correctional
Center in Odessa. Through a Spanish translator, Marcos Antonio Gonzalez
Alvidres and Nicanor Portillo Olivas heard current and former ECCC staff
members implicate them in the smoky 3 p.m. episode that caused less than $1,
000 in damages but forced the evacuation of scores of inmates from the upper
floors of Ector County Courthouse. The six-man, six-woman panel learned the
meaning of terms like "tank boss," "2-Nancy," "2-Mary,"
"high profilers" and "SRT team."The muscular, mustachioed
Gonzalez Alvidres was described as a tank boss, or dominant inmate, and the
smaller Portillo Olivas as a lieutenant of his who vehemently objected when
the man was moved to an isolation cell in another area. If convicted, they
could face up to 10 years each in prison.A court official said they were
being held on alleged immigration violations when the incident took place.
They were each indicted on two counts of inciting a riot and setting a fire
in a federal facility.
September
24, 2003
Promising to increase Ector County’s 2003-’04 revenues from jail inmates’
telephone calls by at least $100,000, a Carrollton company was awarded a
one-year contract Monday by the county commissioners court. T-Netix
salesman Hank Schopfer was among representatives of a half-dozen companies
that made pitches at the 10 a.m. Monday meeting. Brad Jones made a pitch for
the former contractor, Inmate Communications of Midland. Commissioners
decided at an August budget workshop to re-bid the contract, noting that
2002-’03 revenues from charges assessed to people called by inmates at the
County Law Enforcement Center and federal detainees at the private Civigenics
jail in the courthouse had failed to meet expectations. Auditor David Austin
reported then that phone revenues would only total about $200,000.
(Odessa American)
April
12, 2002
Officials were still trying to determine Thursday whether tire failure or
driver fatigue caused a van wreck west of Pcos that killed two prison inmates
and injured 12 people Wednesday afternoon. The van was carrying 13 U.S.
Marshals Service prisoners from El Paso to the Ector County Correctional
Center in Odessa, said Jim Shaw, regional director for CiviGenics, the
company that operates the detention center. Although law enforcement
officials said the driver became fatigued and drifted off the road,
CiviGenics officials said Wednesday that the van rolled after the right front
tire blew out. Jack Dean, U.S. Marshal for the Western District of
Texas, said in a news release that "tire failure was not the primary
cause." (El Paso Times)
April
11, 2002
At least two people were killed and 12 were injured Wednesday when a U.S.
Marshals Service van carrying 13 prisoners and two guards rolled off Interstate
10 west of Pecos. The van was carrying federal prisoners from El Paso
to the all-male Ector County Correctional Center in Odessa, Texas, when it
crashed about 2:30 p.m. Investigators said they believed the driver of
the van was tired and allowed the vehicle to drift off the road and strike a
guardrail before the van rolled down a 10-foot regional director for
CiviGenics, the company that owns the van and operates the detention center
in Ector, said the accident occurred when "the right front tire blew out
on the van." (El Paso Times)
Eden Detention
Center
Eden, Texas
CCA
April 12, 2010 Standard-Times
The Eden Detention Center was in lockdown status late Monday after a riot
was contained Sunday night, a release from the detention center stated. Inmates
in Dormitory B at the detention center refused to go to their bunks Sunday
night, according to the release. “Facility staff used approved chemical
agents to enforce lawful orders and successfully resolved the situation, with
only minor injuries reported,” said Lee McDaniel, the public information
officer for the detention center. The nature of the chemical agents was not
specified, and the company did not say what caused the unrest. The facility
is locked down — inmates are confined to their cells — while staff
investigate what caused the riot, the release states. McDaniel said the
public wasn’t in any danger and staff contained the incident to one housing
area. Ricky Thomas, the assistant police chief of Eden, said the city police
were called out to control the area outside the center. “We were out in the
front, but they handled everything themselves,” Thomas said. “We don’t go
inside the prison when anything like that happens.” Riots at the detention
center happen “very seldom,” he said. The Corrections Corporation of America,
which operates the detention center facility, has the Eden Detention Center
listed as a low-security facility for men. It has 1,538 beds. The number of
inmates at the detention center, according to census estimates from 2008, exceeds
by about 200 the general population in Eden.
October
15, 2007 San Angelo Standard-Times
In January, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons notified Mayor Charlie Rodgers that
the $740,000-a-year payment for the Eden Detention Center would end May 1.
For some residents, the loss of that contract meant only one thing:
bankruptcy for the Concho County city of 1,200 residents and 1,400 inmates
some 45 miles east-southeast of San Angelo. The prison is owned by
Corrections Corp. of America. Federal payments to Eden helped cover such
expenses as fire department, ambulance service, streets, water, sewer and the
local library, among other things. The prison continues to operate virtually
unchanged after the CCA successfully submitted the winning bid. Roughly 250
people work at the center. Rodgers, a retired GTE employee serving his third
term as mayor, acknowledged the city has been forced to curtail some
activities but said nobody is throwing in the towel. Last year's $2.1 million
city budget has been slashed to $1.5 million, a more than 25 percent cut.
Subsidies to the volunteer fire department, ambulance service and the library
have stopped. "There's a lot of services affected," Rodgers said.
"The fire department had geared up because of the detention center and
invested over $150,000 for a pumper to meet the needs of the detention
center." The City Council raised water and sewer rates to deal with the
three-month shortfall from May until the July 31 end of Eden's fiscal year.
Minus $20,000 a year, librarian Deanna Beaver had to dismiss her assistant
and cut back three-day-a-week hours to 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. She also took a
pay cut. A nonprofit foundation owns and operates the library, but it counted
on the prison-related revenue for training rooms and interlibrary loans.
"We're going to continue on," said city attorney Dwain Psencik,
dispelling talk of Eden's imminent obituary. "The city is going to
provide safety and public health services necessary for the continued
well-being of all citizens." Eden's situation has been complicated by
rumors and misconceptions in the community, he added, because of the
complicated relationship with the prison. In 1985, Eden signed an
intergovernmental agreement with the prison bureau for inmates at the
detention center. That contract ended May 1. Under the agreement, the city
was paid about $1.50 per inmate per day based on actual costs for the past
two years and projected costs for three years ahead. "The BOP would cut
one check each month that was calculated on the number of inmates times the
agreed rate paid to the city," said Psencik, who also is president of
Eden's Chamber of Commerce. "The city would break that out to the
library and fire department. It was a reliable, monthly cash flow." Then
came January's bombshell regarding the bureau's payments. Similar letters
went to Big Spring, Pecos and Post. "I think CCA may have gotten a bad
rap," Psencik said, adding that he thinks the Nashville, Tenn.-based
firm has been a good corporate citizen. In fact, CCA pledged Oct. 5 to spend
$3.3 million toward the construction of Eden's wastewater treatment plant.
"It's not a simple matter to just reduce our budget and
expenditures," he continued. "We couldn't just snap our fingers and
cut the spigot off May 1." While the number of city employees has been
reduced and the city structure has been reorganized, Psencik said, safety has
not been compromised. After 20 years, the city secretary resigned. After 10
years, the city eliminated the bureau-mandated correctional contracts
administrator. "We are fighting the battle of atrophy of rural
cities," the city attorney said. "We've held our own because of the
federal prison. The main benefit of the prison is the jobs." Fewer than
100 of the 250 employees live in Eden, he estimated. A substantial number commute
from San Angelo. "We're trying to hold our head above water against the
I-35-corridor syndrome," he continued, referring to the federal highway
that connects Laredo to San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth and Dallas.
"It's a constant battle." Eden has hired an economic development
coordinator, Genora Young, to marshal assets and form regional alliances.
"This is a burp in the bubble," said Psencik. "We're trying to
take this lemon and make lemonade of it. We're still fighting, still being innovative."
September
29, 2005 Casa Grande Valley News
Several employees at Central Arizona Detention Center used their mid- day
break last Thursday to have a piece of cake and congratulate a colleague on
his birthday. Harry J. Larson celebrated his 80th birthday while on the job
as a correctional officer. CADC Warden Bruno Stolc presented a plaque to
Larson, who has been with the private prison in Florence since June 2001. The
warden recalled in front of about 25 people assembled, how Larson recently
helped pull an aggressive inmate off another officer. "So Mr. Larson is
not just filling a spot. Mr. Larson is a correctional officer, and we're dang
proud to have him," Stolc said. Warden Stolc said while Larson is the
oldest CADC employee, he is not the oldest employee in CCA. Frank Deloria, an
officer at the company's Eden, Texas, prison is 83. The company also has a
part- time registered nurse who is 87, Stolc said.
May
21, 2003
The parents of a former Eden Detention Center inmate have filed a lawsuit
against the privately operated prison, claiming their son died after mental
abuse that included withholding a special diet for his medical
condition. The wrongful death suit, filed by Conrado Mestas and Rafaela
Ochoa Mestas of El Paso, seeks more than $50,000 in damages and was filed
just a few days before a two-year statute of limitations expired, the San
Angelo Standard-Times reported in Tuesday editions. Conrado Mestas
Ochoa was found dead in his cell on May 20, 2001, according to the
suit. The family said the inmate suffered from cirrhosis of the liver,
metabolic derangement and a skin disorder. He had been in the detention
center since April. Lee McDaniel, the center's public information
officer, declined to comment on the case to the newspaper, referring questions
to Corrections Corporation of America. A CCA spokesman in Nashville, Tenn.,
did not immediately return a phone call from The Associated Press on Monday
night. Eden Detention Center is about 35 miles southeast of San
Angelo. (AP)
May
5, 2003
Officials at a privately operated West Texas detention center are
investigating the cause of a fray that injured at least 15 inmates.
Officials with Corrections Corporation of America said the altercation
happened Thursday night at the Eden Detention Center, about 35 miles
southeast of San Angelo. The unit remained locked down on Friday.
(AP)
August
23, 1996
A daylong riot in which shotgun-toting guards clashed with 400 boisterous
prisoners at a privately run federal detention center in West Texas has
renewed questions about how well such prisons are operated and
monitored. A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson said the bureau will review
the way the disturbance was handled by CCA's security force. At least
17 people were hurt in the riot, which began shortly before noon Wednesday
and ended about 2 am Thursday. Guards fired buckshot into the ground
and released pepper gas to quell the disturbance, which reportedly began as a
protest against poor food, inadequate recreation and other prison
conditions. One guard suffered a broken jaw after he was hit by a rock
thrown by an inmate. The detention center is a "low-security"
facility reserved for non-U.S. citizens who have less than three years to
serve. Most, Tracey said, will be deported upon completion of their
terms. The disturbance began about 11 am Wednesday when hundreds of
inmates conducted a sit-in rather than respond to morning roll call.
After negotiations between prison officials and the inmates failed, rowdiness
among prisoners increased. Some threw rocks and other items at security
guards. Guards discharged pepper gas and fired shotguns into the ground
as inmates stormed a fence in an apparent effort to escape. Two inmates
underwent surgery to remove buckshot that reportedly ricocheted. As the
day wore on - temperatures topped 90 degrees - several guards required
treatment for heat injuries and inmates pleaded for water. As prison
guards sought to bring the riot under control, about two dozen state troopers
and Texas Rangers stood by. A Department of Public Safety helicopter
patrolled the area searching for possible escapees. (Houston Chronicle)
El Paso County Jail
El Paso, Texas
Prison Health Services
May 24, 2006 KTSM
Sheriff deputies tell us 47-year old Mario Lopez was arrested today, charged
with violating the civil rights of a inmate and having improper sexual
activity with a person in custody. The Sheriff's Office say the investigation
started after an inmate complained about Lopez. He is now in the County Jail
under a $50,000 bond. The Sheriff's Office says Lopez is an employee of
Prison Health Services, which is under a contract with El Paso County to
provide medical services to prisoners at the jail.
Falls County Jail
Marlin, Texas
Correctional Education Centers
March 28, 2011 NPR
Private Prison Promises Leave Texas Towns In Trouble by John Burnett The
country with the highest incarceration rate in the world — the United States
— is supporting a $3 billion private prison industry. In Texas, where free
enterprise meets law and order, there are more for-profit prisons than any
other state. But because of a growing inmate shortage, some private jails
cannot fill empty cells, leaving some towns wishing they'd never gotten in
the prison business. It seemed like a good idea at the time when the west
Texas farming town of Littlefield borrowed $10 million and built the Bill
Clayton Detention Center in a cotton field south of town in 2000. The
charmless steel-and-cement-block buildings ringed with razor wire would
provide jobs to keep young people from moving to Lubbock or Dallas. For eight
years, the prison was a good employer. Idaho and Wyoming paid for prisoners
to serve time there. But two years ago, Idaho pulled out all of its contract
inmates because of a budget crunch at home. There was also a scandal surrounding
the suicide of an inmate. Shortly afterward, the for-profit operator, GEO
Group, gave notice that it was leaving, too. One hundred prison jobs
disappeared. The facility has been empty ever since. A Hard Sell "Maybe
... he'll help us to find somebody," says Littlefield City Manager Danny
Davis good-naturedly when a reporter shows up for a tour. For sale or
contract: a 372-bed, medium-security prison with double security fences,
state-of-the-art control room, gymnasium, law library, classrooms and five living
pods. Davis opens the gray steel door to a barren cell with bunk beds and
stainless-steel furniture. "You can see the facility here. [It's] pretty
austere, but from what I understand from a prison standpoint, it's better
than most," he says, still trying to close the sale. For the past two
years, Littlefield has had to come up with $65,000 a month to pay the note on
the prison. That's $10 per resident of this little city. A Resident Burden Is
the empty prison a big white elephant for the city of Littlefield? "Is
it something we have that we'd rather not have? Well, today that would
probably be the case," Davis says. To avoid defaulting on the loan,
Littlefield has raised property taxes, increased water and sewer fees, laid
off city employees and held off buying a new police car. Still, the city's
bond rating has tanked. The village elders drinking coffee at the White
Kitchen cafe are not happy about the way things have turned out. "It was
never voted on by the citizens of Littlefield; [it] is stuck in their
craw," says Carl Enloe, retired from Atmos Energy. "They have to
pay for it. And the people who's got it going are all up and gone and they
left us... " "...Holdin' the bag!" says Tommy Kelton, another
Atmos retiree, completing the sentence. The Declining Prison Population The
same thing has happened to communities across Texas. Once upon a time, it
seems every small town wanted to be a prison town. But the 20-year private
prison building boom is over. Some prisons are struggling outside Texas, too.
Hardin, Mont., defaulted on its bond payments after trying, so far
unsuccessfully, to fill its 464-bed minimum security prison. And a prison in
Huerfano County, Colo., closed after Arizona pulled out its 700 inmates.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the total correctional
population in the United States is declining for the first time in three
decades. Among the reasons: The crime rate is falling, sentencing
alternatives mean fewer felons doing hard time and states everywhere are
slashing budgets. The Texas legislature, looking for budget cuts, is
contemplating shedding 2,000 contract prison beds. Statewide, more than half
of all privately operated county jail beds are empty, according to figures
from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. "Too many times we've seen
jails that have got into it and tried to make it a profitable business to
make money off of it and they end up fallin' on their face," says
Shannon Herklotz, assistant director of the commission. The packages look
sweet. A town gets a new detention center without costing the taxpayers
anything. The private operator finances, constructs and operates an oversized
facility. The contract inmates pay off the debt and generate extra revenue.
The economic model works fine until they can't find inmates. In Waco,
McLennan County borrowed $49 million to build an 816-bed jail and charge day
rates for bunk space. But today because of the convict shortage, the fortress
east of town remains more than half empty. The sheriff and county judge, once
champions of the new jail, now decline to comment on it. Former McLennan
County Deputy Rick White, who opposed the jail, had this to say about the
prison developers who put the deal together: "They get the corporations
formed, they get the bonds sold, they get the facility built, their money is
front-loaded, they take their money out. And then there's no reason for them
to support the success of the facility." Two of Texas' busiest private
prison consultants — James Parkey and Herb Bristow — declined repeated requests
for interviews. The Inmate Market Private prison companies insist their
future is sunny. A spokesman for the GEO Group declined to speak about the
Littlefield prison, but he sent along a slew of press releases highlighting
the company's new inmate contracts and prison expansions across the country.
Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison
operator, says the demand for its facilities remains strong, particularly for
federal immigration detainees. New Jersey-based Community Education Centers,
which has been pulling out of unprofitable jails across Texas, issued a
statement that "the current (jail) population fluctuation" is
cyclical. One of the places where CEC is cancelling its contract is Falls
County, in central Texas, where a for-profit jail addition is losing money.
Now it's up to Falls County Judge Steve Sharp to hustle up jailbirds:
"If somebody is out there charging $30 a day for an inmate, we need to
charge $28. We really don't have a choice of not filling those beds," he
said. Another place where they're desperate for inmates is Anson, the little
town north of Abilene, Texas, once famous for its no-dancing law. Today,
Jones County owns a brand-new $34 million prison and an $8 million county
jail, both of which sit empty. The prison developers made their money and
left. Then the Texas Department of Criminal Justice reneged on a contract to
fill the new prison with parole violators. The county's Public Facility
Corporation that borrowed the money to build the lockups owes $314,000 a
month — with no paying inmates. They've got a year's worth of bond service
payments set aside before county officials start to sweat. "The market
has changed nationwide in the last 18 months or two years. It's certainly a
different picture than when we started this project. And so we're continuing
to work the problem," Jones County Judge Dale Spurgin says. Grayson
County, north of Dallas, said no to privatizing its jail. Two years ago, the
county was all set to build a $30 million, 750-bed behemoth twice as big as
was needed. But the public got queasy and county officials ultimately
scuttled the deal. "When you put the profit motive into a private jail,
by design, in order to increase your dollars, your revenues, your profits,
you need more folks in there and they need to stay longer," says Bill
Magers, mayor of the county seat of Sherman, a leading opponent. When the
supply of prison beds exceeds the demand for prison beds, there are
beneficiaries. The overcrowded Harris County Jail in Houston, the nation's
third largest, farms out about 1,000 prisoners to private jails. Littlefield
and most other under-occupied facilities in Texas have all been in touch with
Houston. "It really is a buyer's market right now, especially a county
our size," says Capt. Robin Kinetsky, who is in charge of inmate
processing for the Harris County Sheriffs Department. "They're really
wanting to get our business. So, we're getting good deals." Nearby,
disheveled and unsmiling men are brought from a holding cell to stand before
a booking officer for their intake interviews. The detainees are wholly
unaware that they may soon become the newest commodities of the volatile
inmate market. Aarti Shahani contributed to this NPR News investigation and
report.
January
18, 2011 Marlin Democrat
Falls County Commissioners met in regular session last Monday with a
multitude of agenda items to ponder including the non-renewal by CEC to run
the Falls County Detention Center. Following the opening of the Falls County
Detention Center in 2000, CiviGenics was awarded a contract to provide
personnel to run the jail and has done so until Community Education Centers
(CEC) acquired CiviGenics in 2007. CEC has chosen not to renew the contract
with Falls County and the detention center will come under the direction of
Falls County, sometime in April. CEC, which has personnel in many jail
facilities in many towns, has moved inmates to other facilities at a lower
cost and couldn’t afford to pay the inmate cost at the Falls County facility.
“With new facilities being built in the CEC service area, detainees are being
housed at a lesser cost than here, so our prisoner count has been declining
for several months. CEC.” Said County Judge Steven Sharp. Sharp said that at
the last meeting of the Commissioner’s Court, “We are working on creating a
budget so we can provide all services at the jail as well as amending the
Sheriff’s budget to cover such expenses. “We won’t loose all the outside
inmates and will still be able to provide services for the local ones. One
good thing to come out of this is that we keep all the profits and not have
to pay private contractors.” Jail capacity is 94 – 95 inmates.” Originally,
the plan projected that it would take 20 years to pay for the construction of
the $3.5 million structure with funds from housing prisoners to defray that
cost, but the county was paying thousands of dollars each month to CEC,
therefore making no profit. The county has eight more years to repay the cost
of building.
September
29, 2009 KWTX
A female guard employed by a private firm that provides security at the
Falls County Jail was fired this week after officials discovered she had
married a male inmate by proxy. Community Education Centers Warden, Mike
Wilson said Chastity Withers, who worked for CEC as an overnight guard at the
Falls County Jail, was married by proxy on Aug. 23 in McLennan County to
Timothy Hargrove, 31, an inmate who was jailed at the time and who was
sentenced this month to 30 years in prison after his conviction on charges of
manufacturing of a controlled substance. Wilson said confidential sources led
to an investigation and to the discovery of the relationship. Withers was
later arrested and charged with prohibited items and substances in a
correctional facility. The charge involves a cell phone, but Wilson declined
to release more details.
Fannin County Jail
BonHam, Texas
Community Education Centers
February 25, 2012 KTEN
A Fannin County inmate who has been at large for days is now in custody.
Saturday afternoon, Bonham police arrested 45-year-old Jimmy Lee Brock.
Saturday morning around 9:48, deputies got a call about a burglary at Fannin
County Precinct 3 Barn. Numerous items were missing, including chainsaws,
weed eaters, impact wrenches and a truck. Around 4:33 PM, Bonham Police got a
tip that Brock was at a Bonham business. That's where the escapee was taken
into custody. Brock was found in possession of the stolen items at the time
of his arrest. He is also accused of stealing a 2008 Impala, which he used to
escape earlier this week. Deputies later recovered car on FM 38 in Lamar
County. It was found driven into a group of cedar trees. Brock escaped
Tuesday around 8:45 AM while working at Fannin County Precinct 3 Barn near
Honey Grove.
February
21, 2012 KTEN
Fannin County authorities are reporting an inmate has escaped from the Fannin
County Jail. At around 8:45A this morning, the inmate, Jimmy Lee Brock,
walked away from a work detail near the town of Honey Grove. It is believed
Brock left the scene in a gold 2008 Chevy Impala, Texas handicap plate:
LP-9DPKZ. He is 45, 5'7" tall, 160-180lbs, and was last seen in a orange
jump suit. Brock was in jail on cruelty to animals and evading detention
charges. According to C.E.C jail staff, at the time of his disappearance Brock
was part of the Inmate Worker program and he had been for approximately 2
months with no problems. C.E.C. is a private jail that contracts with Fannin
County to hold inmates.
Fillyaw
Correctional Facility
Newton County, Texas
GEO Group (formerly CSC, Bobby Ross Group)
December 21, 2007 KFDM
KFDM News has learned a man cut his throat on razor wire while trying to
escape Friday from the Fillyaw Correctional Center in Newton County. Sheriff
Joe Walker tells KFDM News 40 year old Larry Waylon Metcalf is being treated
inside the correctional center for his injuries. Walker says guards called
the Newton County Sheriff's Office and asked for help with an escape. Metcalf
climbed over serpentine wire, got over the fence and was able to get outside
the compound, but Walker says within minutes his officers and guards caught
Metcalf. He says Metcalf was "cut everywhere," including his
throat, and is receiving medical treatment in the private prison.
Sept.
2, 1997
Two inmates serving time for car theft and forgery were back in custody
Sunday after escaping from a privately run prison in Newton County near the
Louisiana border. The private prison, operated by the Bobby Ross Group
Inc., is the same unit where another inmate escaped last year, kidnapped a
woman and took her at knifepoint to the Mexican border. The prison
increased security measures after the Feb. 14, 1996, escape of Larry Earl
Pagan of Hawaii, who scaled an 8-foot perimeter fence topped with razor wire.
Frio County
Detention Center
Frio County, Texas
GEO Group (formerly CSC)
July
15, 2010 News Express
The GEO Group, a Florida firm that contracts with local governments to
run jails, has agreed to pay $2.9 million to settle a class-action lawsuit
alleging indiscriminate strip searches of inmates at six facilities,
including three in Texas. The Frio County Detention Center in Pearsall, the
Dickens County Detention Center in Dickens and the Newton County Correctional
Center in Newton and jails in New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Illinois were
named in the suit, which was litigated in federal court in Pennsylvania. The
suit alleged GEO employed a uniform practice or policy of strip-searching all
pre-trial detainees who entered certain GEO-operated jails, regardless of the
crime or violation for which they were detained, and without making the
legally required determination of whether reasonable suspicion existed to
justify a strip search. Inmates incarcerated at the six jails between Jan.
30, 2006 and Jan. 30, 2008 qualify for a share in the settlement, but they must
call 1-877-234-4512, or visit
http://www.multistatestripsearchsettlement.com/index.html.
March
12, 2005 Express-News
An alleged member of the Mexican Mafia who was part of a jailbreak last
summer at the Frio County Jail pleaded guilty Friday to escape. Reymundo
Alaniz Flores - one of five inmates who escaped - entered the plea before
U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo in San Antonio. The escape occurred Aug. 6
at the privately run jail in Pearsall that used to house federal inmates. Authorities
allege Robert Lee Jack and Randy Wayne Folsom helped the escape by cutting a
hole in a perimeter fence, supplying wire cutters to the inmates and driving
them away.
January
21, 2005 Express-News
A San Antonio man admitted Thursday that he helped five federal inmates
escape from Frio County Jail last summer. At a hearing before U.S. Magistrate
Judge Pamela Mathy, Robert Lee Jack, 32, pleaded guilty to instigating and
assisting the Aug. 6, 2004, escape. Jack admitted he went to the privately
run jail in Pearsall the day of the escape and tossed a pair of bolt cutters
over a perimeter fence to an inmate. Jack also admitted cutting a hole in an
outside fence. He faces up to five years in prison when he's sentenced May
12. Two of the inmates remain at large.
October
13, 2004 Houston Chronicle
Two federal inmates who escaped
from a South Texas detention facility in August were captured Wednesday near
Laredo, officials said. The men were among five inmates who fled a Frio
County lockup Aug. 6, possibly with the help of the Mexican Mafia. One of the
escapees was caught shortly after the escape. The two who remain on the loose
are presumed to be in South Texas, officials said. The "Frio Five"
were able to flee the jail through holes cut in security fences, possibly
with outside assistance. An investigation continues into whether they had
inside help.
August
13, 2004 Express-News
Federal authorities are hoping
$50,000 will persuade someone to give up the whereabouts of five inmates who
escaped last week from the privately operated Frio County Jail. LaFayette
Collins, U.S. marshal for the Western District of Texas, said at a news
conference today that it is offering rewards of $10,000 apiece for
information leading to the recapture of the former jail residents, who
slipped to freedom Aug. 6 through holes cut in two perimeter fences. Collins also said
the escape probe continues, including interviewing — and re-interviewing -
jail guards to see what they know. No determination has been made on whether
the inmates — who are said to have ties to the Texas Mexican Mafia gang — had
help inside or outside the lockup, or both. "We
suspect everything and everybody at this point," Collins said.
Meanwhile, the Sarasota, Fla.-based company that runs the jail under
contract, Correctional Services Corp., has refused to publicly explain the
foul-up, ordering its local officials to turn down media interviews and not
returning numerous calls seeking comment.
August
11, 2004
The U.S. Marshals Service has withdrawn 240 inmates from a privately run jail
near San Antonio after the escape last week of five federal prisoners. The
escape happened just five weeks after the Frio County Detention Center in
Pearsall was ruled noncompliant with state regulations because of
overcrowding and understaffing. "The reason they were moved is the U.S.
Marshals Service had security concerns," said John D. Butler, chief
deputy U.S. marshal for the Western District of Texas. "Five prisoners
escaped at one time, and that's the second jail break they've had within the
past year." Four of the five inmates were born in Mexico. The fifth,
Reymundo Flores Alaniz, was born in Texas but is said to be a high-ranking
member of the Mexican Mafia and has been convicted of murder. They are all
considered armed and dangerous, authorities said. The 240 federal prisoners
were removed from the 390-bed jail Saturday. They were moved to several
facilities throughout the region. The firm that runs the jail – Correctional
Services Corp. of Sarasota, Fla. – responded Tuesday by laying off 35 of the
jail's 58 employees, said Pearsall Mayor Roland Segovia.
August
11, 2004
The first round of layoffs began Tuesday at the privately run Frio County
Jail in the wake of last week's broad daylight escape of five federal
inmates. Jose "Nacho" Hernandez, a former detention officer,
said his son, Joel, and a friend were among those who lost their jobs.
He said he didn't know how many detention officers received letters Tuesday
notifying them of the layoffs. But up to 30 employees are expected to
be laid off, County Judge Carlos Garcia said Tuesday. Garcia said
representatives with Correctional Services Corp. advised him the cutbacks
were necessary after the U.S. Marshals Service withdrew its remaining 240
inmates from the jail over the weekend, citing security concerns. The
five inmates that escaped Friday remained on the loose Tuesday.
(Express-News)
August 10, 2004
Big changes at the Frio County Jail, as hundreds of inmates are shipped
out. They were sent to another facility just one day after five
convicts escaped from the jail, and more changes could be on the way.
"What are we waiting for are. Are we waiting for one of these persons to
go into one of these homes and kill somebody?," said Mayor Roland
Segovia. The mayor of Pearsall is concerned about the company that runs
the Frio County Jail. Segovia says Correction Services Corporation out
of Florida is a good company but, "having six breakouts in the past
eight years and only catching one of the 15 that have escaped, that's pretty
scary," said Segovia. He says on Saturday about 200 jail inmates
were shipped to another jail. "We stand at only about 40 inmates
in the Frio County Jail," said Segovia. Segovia also says he's
heard dozens of Frio County CSC employees are being laid off as operations
are scaled back. "To lose 75 people in a matter of two or three
days that's a lot," said Segovia. (WOAI.com)
August 8, 2004
After the fifth breakout at Frio County Jail in the past eight years, nearby
residents reacted Saturday with a mix of anger and indifference to the rash
of escapes. Five inmates cut through two fences and walked away from
the jail at about 1 p.m. Friday, before a massive nine-hour manhunt came up
empty and was called off due to darkness, rain and thick brush in the
area. Since the start of 1996, 14 inmates have escaped from the jail in
five incidents. On Saturday afternoon, a bus from the LaSalle County
Detention Center in Cotulla was at the Pearsall jail to transfer some of the
federal inmates out of the Frio County facility. Jail officials declined to
provide details on the number of inmates being sent to LaSalle County.
Some nearby residents complained because they didn't learn of the escape for
hours. Like many Pearsall residents, Judy Stacy, who lives two blocks
from the jail, was incredulous after another escape. "It's
absurd," she said. "How could you cut two holes through the fences
and just walk out? Don't they have people watching them?" Nell
Youngblood lives a block from the jail, but did not hear about the escape for
more than two hours. Then her husband locked all the doors and all but one
window. (Express-News)
August 6, 2004
Five federal prisoners escaped today from a privately run lockup near San
Antonio, according to the Frio County Sheriff's Department. Spokesman
John Butler said the escape from a Correctional Services Corp. facility in
Pearsall occurred around 1 p.m. He said the prisoners were in the custody of
the Marshal's Service office in Laredo, which uses the lockup under contract.
Butler, based in San Antonio, said a headcount was under way this afternoon
to determine who was missing and how dangerous they might be.
Investigators were also trying to determine how the prisoners got away,
though Butler said witnesses reported seeing them crawling under perimeter
fences. (AP)
September 10, 2003
Law officers continued searching today for two federal inmates who escaped
from a South Texas lockup. The prisoners, both Mexican nationals, were
reported missing late Monday morning from the Frio County Detention Center.
Jorge Perez Delgado, 45, and 29-year-old Oscar Herrada Herrera were held on
federal drug charges out of Laredo, said David Sligh, supervisory deputy U.S.
marshal for the Western District of Texas. Wanted posters for the men were
released late Tuesday afternoon. Authorities suspect at least one of the
inmates may be headed for Mexico. The U.S. Marshals Service said no one
was harmed during the escape and there were no signs of a forced exit. The
inmates were last accounted for inside the jail at 9 a.m. Monday, but were
missing when the next count was conducted two hours later, Sligh said.
He said investigators who followed up on "some good leads" Tuesday
believed Herrada could be headed to Mexico because his last known address was
in Nuevo Laredo. Herrada, serving a 37-month sentence on a probation
violation, was originally convicted of heroin possession. Perez, whose
last known address was in Chicago, was awaiting sentencing on possession with
intent to distribute cocaine and conspiracy to possess with intent to
distribute cocaine. Frio County Sheriff Lionel Trevino referred
questions about the escape from the privately run detention center to the
Marshals Service, which was leading the investigation. Florida-based
Correctional Services Corp. operates the 391-bed detention center that houses
city, county and federal inmates. (AP)
August,
1999
Two inmates escaped by digging a hole behind the toilet in their prison cell
continue to elude authorities. They crawled from the hole onto an unguarded
walkway and then slipped out of the building through an unsecured back door.
(Express-News, August 30, 1999)
September
21, 1996
Prison board Chairman Allan Polunsky ordered Friday that a private prison
company be billed the $2,140 it cost the state to send 23 guards to help
quell a convict "standoff" that turned out to be a false
alarm. "It concerns me that our staff was called when public
safety was not in imminent jeopardy," Polunsky said of the incident that
occurred Wednesday at the Frio Detention Center in Pearsall. The
facility is a county jail operated by Dove Development Corp., a Texas company
based in Crystal City. Among its prisoners are 100 state felons from
Missouri and Utah who are being housed there because of crowding in their
home state prisons. (Houston Chronicle)
Galveston County
Jail
Galveston, Texas
Correctional Medical Services
June 7, 2007 The Daily News
A Missouri firm lost its longtime contract to provide medical care to jail
inmates when county commissioners Wednesday unanimously awarded a $5.5
million deal to the University of Texas Medical Branch. The island-based
medical branch beat out incumbent St. Louis-based Correctional Medical
Services, which had the multimillion dollar contract for nine years. The contract
calls for the county to pay the medical branch about $207,500 a month for the
first 14 months, beginning Aug. 1, and $216,360 for the next 12 months to
provide medical care to inmates. The medical branch will offer inmates
medical services that include on-site assessments at intake, chronic and
emergency medical management in the jail and hospital-based care if needed.
If the average daily population of inmates exceeds 1,000, the medical branch
could earn more, based on a pay formula, officials say. Also, the Gulf Coast
Center, a mental-health and retardation facility serving Galveston and
Brazoria counties, will pay the medical branch $14,000 a month for on-site
and on-call services. Galveston County Attorney Harvey Bazaman said
Correctional Medical Services had done an adequate job, but county officials
wanted to see if there were financial savings to be had by putting the
contract out for bid.
January
20, 2006 Texas City Sun
Two county jailers have been suspended, while a third jail employee was
fired after an investigation into an inmate’s suicide in November. Sheriff
Gean Leonard declined Thursday to give the name of the woman who was fired
because she was an employee of the company Correctional Medical Services, not
the sheriff’s office. The company could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Deputies Louis Padric Heck and Kendra Harris were suspended for five days
without pay. John Louis Kenney hanged himself in his county jail cell on Nov.
20. Hours earlier, he had been booked into the jail on a misdemeanor assault
charge stemming from a domestic dispute. Kenney, who hanged himself with a
belt deputies had returned to him earlier that night, had tried suicide in
jail once before.
Garza County
Regional Juvenile Center
Garza County, Texas
Cornerstone Programs Corporation
July 29, 2007 Dallas Morning News
Executives of the Colorado-based Cornerstone Programs Corp., which
manages the Garza County Regional Juvenile Center in West Texas, have a
history of involvement in troubled juvenile facilities in other states.
Cornerstone closed its Swan Valley Youth Academy in 2006 after a Montana
State Department of Public Health and Human Services investigation found 19
violations, including neglect and failure to report child abuse and an
attempted suicide. "Intake process was particularly harmful to youth,
and many have been made to vomit due to excessive exercise and drinking large
amounts of water," Montana officials wrote in their findings. According
to Montana officials, the state and Cornerstone had developed a corrective
plan to keep the facility open. "There was a number of charges of abuse
filed against the director of the program and the second in charge,"
said Cornerstone chief executive Joseph Newman. The bad press hurt business
and so it closed, he said. Mr. Newman said state officials later cleared them
of all the abuse charges, but Montana officials said they had no record of
that. In Texas, Cornerstone's Garza facility has been put under corrective
action plans to improve staff training, documenting grievances and group
therapy sessions. But the company has hired a new director and added new
staff to Garza, which it began managing in 2003. In 2005, a 17-year-old
inmate at the facility became paralyzed after falling on his head in an
attempt to do a back flip off a table. A lawsuit by his family against the
facility, settled in 2006, alleged that a guard not only failed to prevent
the stunt, but challenged the youth to attempt it. The officer was fired
after the incident. The Garza County facility consistently has received
positive reviews by the Texas Youth Commission. "The Garza County
Regional Juvenile Center is an exemplary program," a TYC monitor wrote
in the facility's 2006 contract renewal evaluation – the same year Swan
Valley closed. Cornerstone was founded in October 1998 by Mr. Newman and
board chairman Jane O'Shaughnessy, about six months after another company
they operated ran into trouble in Colorado. That other company, called
Rebound, operated the High Plains Youth Center in Brush, Colo., which housed
juvenile offenders from around the country. In December 1995, a University of
Illinois at Chicago psychologist hired by the state's Department of Children
and Family Services issued a damning report on High Plains, and the agency
later began removing its youth from the juvenile prison. "Unit staffing
practices appear to be a numbers game where management attempts to balance
the competing pressures of safety and profit," wrote Dr. Ronald
Davidson, a faculty member in the university's psychiatry department. The
facility also had a "consistent and disturbing pattern of violence,
sexual abuse, clinical malpractice and administrative incompetence at every
level of the program." A Human Rights Watch report later found that High
Plains "fell short of reasonable, even minimal, performance."
Colorado officials closed High Plains in 1998 after a 13-year-old inmate from
Utah committed suicide and a state investigation found widespread problems
with physical and sexual abuse. State officials also had uncovered problems
at other Rebound facilities in Colorado. Rebound's nonprofit Adventures in
Change program did not meet requirements to be licensed for drug and alcohol
treatment nor meet "acceptable standards for habitation," according
to a 1996 state audit. Auditors said the services, such as education, family
counseling, vocational training and employment, "are not routinely
provided." In his resignation letter as the facility's clinical
coordinator, Paul Schmitz wrote: "This is no longer a professional
treatment environment ... and is not supported by the company as such."
In 1997, Florida officials severed the state's contract with Rebound to
operate the Cypress Creek juvenile detention facility after repeated
problems, including reports of disturbances that led to the arrests of
several inmates for inciting a riot. Rebound also had operated in Maryland,
where it ran the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School briefly in the early 1990s. Mr.
Newman was the deputy secretary of Maryland's Department of Juvenile Services
from 1992 to 1994, according to the state. He joined Rebound in 1995. The
Hickey contract ended in 1993 after dozens of escapes, cases of alleged abuse
and other policy violations. Dr. Davidson, the Illinois psychologist, said
the past performance of Cornerstone and Rebound should raise concerns.
"Anyone who had bothered to check the record of this corporation in
Colorado and Florida and Maryland ..... would have easily discovered a
troubling history of incompetence and fecklessness," he said.
Giles W. Dalby Correctional
Facility
Post, Texas
Management and Training Corporation
January 17, 2001
Sixteen federal prisoners confined to the Giles W. Dalby Correctional
Facility in Post filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday alleging violation of
due process and their civil rights. The inmates, all immigrant aliens
in the United States, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Lubbock.
Management and Training Corporation runs the private prison, which contracts
with the federal government to house inmates. The lawsuit claims that
Dalby inmate receive inadequate medical care, food, rehabilitation programs
and legal supplies, among other complaints. The plaintiffs seek that
the Dalby prison be closed and permanently barred from operating as a federal
prison. (The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal)
August
1, 2000
A corrections officer suffered a concussion in a riot early Sunday morning at
a medium-security prison in Post after being struck by an object thrown by an
inmate, a county judge Giles Dalby said Monday. He said the riot started
on "Main Street," a wide outdoor sidewalk area that splits the
facility's two holding areas. According to Dalby, about 500 inmates
gathered on the sidewalk at about 8:30 pm. Saturday and began loitering
and making demands to the correction officers. "The officers were
able to talk them down to about 250 inmates," Dalby said. "When the
officers told them to lock up at around 12:30 am, some obeyed and some
didn't. A crowd of about 10 inmates stayed in the area." The
inmates then began to break wooden picnic tables and set them on fire.
They also pulled gutters off the side of the building and damaged seven
surveillance cameras, Dalby said. "That is when we pulled our
people back to safety and called the safety response team," Dalby
said. According to Dalby, the number of inmates involved in the riot
swelled to about 200 as the mayhem continued. The facility's response
team was called in at about 1:45 am Sunday and dispersed the crowd in 9
minutes using tear gas, Dalby said. Dalby did not have an exact figure
but estimated the damage to the facility to be sizable. (The Lubbock
Avalanche-Journal)
Harris County
Schools
Harris
County, Texas
Brown Schools
April
12, 2005 Houston Chronicle
A Harris County program that provides schools for 1,200 juvenile offenders
and youths expelled from their home schools will continue to operate despite
the bankruptcy of the company that runs it, a county official said Tuesday.
Harvey Hetzel, director of the county's Juvenile Probation Department, told
Commissioners Court that the county can temporarily take over management of
the program if necessary. Brown Schools Inc. teaches about 600 youths in
schools at the county's six detention facilities. It also runs a two-campus,
state-mandated program for about 600 students expelled by local school
districts. The Austin-based company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy March 25.
Brown Schools runs boarding schools and educational facilities for youths in
Texas, California, Florida, Idaho and Vermont. Brown officials didn't return
calls. Brown Schools' methods have drawn criticism from state regulators and
resulted in lawsuits against it, the Austin-American Statesman reported.
Hetzel said he did not believe that any of the six legal settlements that led
to $425,000 in unsecured claims listed in the bankruptcy filing stemmed from
Brown School's operations in Harris County. Most of the lawsuits were brought
by former residents of the company's residential treatment programs, not
their school operations, Hetzel said.
Hector Garza Juvenile
Detention Center
San Antonio, Texas
Cornell Companies
June 15, 2008 San Antonio Express-News
Sergio Fernández would rather not sound conspiratorial, but he has a hard
time explaining why, despite an existing agreement, the federal government no
longer sends detained immigrants to his San Antonio youth center. Though it's
open for business, the four-story, 12-acre Hector Garza Residential Treatment
Center near U.S. 281 and Loop 1604 on the North Side sits empty. Its last two
residents left nearly two weeks ago. He hasn't been given an official
explanation, but Fernández, the center's director, surmised it may have
something to do with a lawsuit filed against him, his staff and his corporate
parent by eight minors formerly housed at the center who claimed they
suffered physical abuse and neglect. The center is privately owned and
operated by Abraxas Youth and Family Services, the juvenile division of
Houston-based corrections giant Cornell. The 121-bed center, a former
psychiatric hospital, houses youths under state and federal contracts. The
agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is to
temporarily oversee as many as 30 unauthorized immigrant minors pending their
release or deportation. A spokesman for the federal agency did not return
messages for comment on why immigrant youths — whose average stay is two to
three months — are no longer sent to the center. The agency has also failed
to respond to repeated requests in the past three months for tours and access
to staff and residents of Hector Garza and other centers in the San Antonio
area. Unlike other HHS-contracted “shelters” or dormitory-style campuses, the
Hector Garza center is designated “staff secure” because it's a more
restrictive setting meant to handle problematic youngsters. The lawsuit,
filed in federal court in San Antonio in April, came as a result of a brawl
between center residents and staff in February. Staffers called police to
help quell the mayhem, which concluded with four minors under arrest.
According to the suit, filed by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, excessive violence
used by staff and police symbolized incessant abuse that minors reported to
supervisors to no avail. State and federal officials are accused of covering
up abuse reports. Fernández said the allegations are ludicrous and malicious
— legal and political maneuvering meant to buy minors more time for their
immigration cases while making a for-profit juvenile detention business look
bad. “They don't have one shred of evidence,” Fernández said Thursday while
giving a reporter a tour of the center. “We're looking forward to seeing this
through to be fully vindicated.” Though he couldn't discuss details of the
February fracas for legal reasons, he already claimed victory after a state
investigation cleared the center of abuse or neglect. The report from the
Texas Department of Family and Protective Services faulted staffers for
failing to remove one minor checking out the fight — a citation Fernández is
appealing — but found no other violations. Pointing to cameras and
microphones in the ceiling in the hallway where the clash took place,
Fernández remained confident he'll win the suit because the fight was
recorded. The three residential floors are split into two wings to separate
resident populations — immigrant youngsters cannot have contact with youths
housed under other contracts. Rooms have two single beds and a bathroom, and
doors must remain open except during the day, when staff lock them while
minors attend classes taught by the John H. Wood Jr. Charter School.
Residential wings have classrooms, lounges with seascapes painted by the
youngsters and laundry rooms — residents are encouraged, though not obliged,
to wash their own clothes, Fernández said. The first floor has an intake area
and cafeteria, while outside are picnic tables, a pool, a small soccer field
and a 12-foot steel “no-climb” fence that replaced another barrier over which
five minors had jumped to flee — three were caught. Fernández said
overzealous lawyers preyed on minors' survival instincts, prompting them to
sue the center. Staff and residents had cordial and even amiable relations
before lawyers began showing up, he lamented. “Sometimes we feel like a pawn
in a bigger issue,” he said. “But we're not about whether government policies
are right or wrong. We're about providing a safe environment for the kids —
that's it.”
May
16, 2008 CBS News
A new lawsuit filed against a private contractor who runs an immigrant child
detention center claims nine teenagers were beaten and abused by employees
who work for Cornell Companies. The company has been cited by immigration
officials for safety problems in the past. The Hector Garza facility in San
Antonio handles young immigrant “males with serious behavioral and
psychological impairments”. “I think the general American has no idea these
kids even exist,” said Susan Watson, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid attorney for
the nine plaintiffs, “When our own government treats them this way, they
deserve their day in court,” she said. The plaintiffs claim they notified
authorities of multiple beatings but no action was taken. One of the
plaintiffs is described in court documents as a 16-year-old Honduran male
identified as C.C. Arriving at the border alone, C.C. was put into custody
for a week by Border Patrol agents. He was later transferred to the Hector
Garza Center, where court filings claim a teacher “severely battered C.C.
punching and kicking him, then beating him with a chair as he lay on the
floor.” Lawsuit filings claim C.C. conveyed this to the authorities but
nothing was done. A week later, court documents indicate C.C. came to the
defense of another child who was being beaten. C.C. was hit again, this time
losing consciousness and ended up in the hospital, according to the civil
complaint. A spokesperson for Cornell Companies, Charles Seigel, says the
company strongly denies any abuse, “Every complaint has been investigated by
the company as well as by the state…and none of these have ever found any
evidence of anything that can back up the charges.” Seigel said there was a
time when one of the teenagers went to the hospital but said it was due to
injuries from a fight between the detainees, not from an abusive teacher.
This is not the first time Cornell Companies has been accused of safety
problems. In September, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
agency pulled all 600 detainees from an Albuquerque jail run by Cornell. ICE
spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said the agency, “had great concern over the health,
safety and security of our detainees in the facility” but would not provide
any more detail. News reports at the time described a dirty, crowded facility
with excessive heat and poor medical conditions. Nantel said the agency
terminated its memorandum of understanding with the company this winter. The
Hector Garza San Antonio facility that contracted with the federal Office of
Refugee and Resettlement (ORR) opened one month after ICE pulled their
detainees from Cornell Companies’ care. The Office of Refugee Resettlement
declined all comment citing the pending litigation. Cornell Companies is just
one of the companies that manages 36 ORR facilities nationwide. Documentation
of care for immigrant detainee children in these detention centers across the
country is poor according to a March, 2008 report from the Inspector General
for Health and Human Services. The report found, based on a sampling of case
files, that more than half lacked one or more required assessments for the
children. Half did not contain education records and more than half did not
include notes from counseling sessions. Auditors say this left it unclear
whether children were receiving services at all.
Holden Wal-Mart
Holden, Texas
Group 4
August 28, 2006 Tyler Morning Telegraph
Just days before jury selection was scheduled to begin on Tuesday,
Wal-Mart settled a wrongful death lawsuit for an undisclosed amount with the
parents of Megan LeAnn Holden, a clerk who was kidnapped from the Tyler
supercenter's parking lot and murdered. Attorneys for Ms. Holden's parents,
Sheri Kay Dunlap and James Vincent Holden, said the terms of the Wal-Mart
settlement were confidential. The Wackenhut Corp, which provided security for
the store, was also named in the lawsuit and settled for $1.3 million,
according to court records. Ms. Dunlap, "would like to see this as a
beginning to Wal-Mart making its parking lots safer for its customers and
employees, not just in Tyler, but everywhere," said her attorney, John
"Rusty" Phenix, of Henderson. Jury selection for the case was
scheduled to begin in U.S. District Judge T. John Ward's Marshall court
Tuesday, but, on Friday, Phenix sent a letter to the court announcing the
sealed settlement. Attorney Randell "Randy" Roberts, of Tyler, said
his client, Holden, was "very glad to have this entire matter behind
him." Ms. Holden was abducted Jan. 19, 2005, from the Wal-Mart
Supercenter by Johnny Lee Williams Jr., who pleaded guilty last year to
capital murder - kidnapping, sexually assaulting, strangling and shooting to
death Ms. Holden to death before he allegedly discarded her body in a West
Texas ditch. He also pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and was sentenced
to five stacked life sentences. Surveillance footage released by law
enforcement showed Williams following Ms. Holden to her pickup in the Wal-Mart
parking lot, rushing up behind her, shoving her into the vehicle and driving
off. Before the abduction, the video showed a security guard talking to the
suspect.
Hood County
Juvenile Detention Center
Hood County, Texas
Management and Training Corporation
February 1, 2006 Hood County News
The now abandoned county juvenile detention center drew attention from two
county judge candidates at the political forum Monday night for candidates in
the March 7 Republican primary. Precinct 2 county commissioner Charles
Baskett placed the blame on county judge Andy Rash for the loss of $837,00 in
operating expenses at the juvenile detention center (JDC). Rash countered
that the county inherited the JDC problem and took action to try and protect
their credit rating. In addition to Baskett and incumbent judge Rash, former
Granbury mayor Rick Frye is also seeking election to the position of county
judge. Baskett said the juvenile detention center was built by an outside
contractor, who then leased the facility to the county. The county then
sub-leased the facility to MTC, the company that ran the facility as a JDC
for about a year. “At the end of a year, they had lost $1.2 million. They
(MTC) cancelled their lease with the county and left town,” Baskett said. “I
tried to find someone to come back in to run the facility as a JDC. No one
was interested. They couldn’t make the numbers work. “Then the juvenile board
came up with a budget, and it was put on the commissioners’ court agenda to
determine whether Hood County should run the facility.” Baskett contends the
center was supposed to be run by a private enterprise, and that the county
had no business getting involved in managing the center. “It was a 3-2 vote
to run the center on our own. We had no obligation to do it,” Baskett said.
“We ran it for a few months and lost $837,000 before we had to discontinue.
We held the lease. We could have given it up. “They said they were worried
about losing our bond rating, and that’s why we should continue to operate
the facility. We lost it (bond rating) anyway. “We should have never tried to
run that facility ourselves. Now our bond rating is BBB.” “Had we terminated
our lease and not attempted to operate, both Standard and Poor, and Moody
threatened to lower our bond rating to BBB-,” he said.
Horizon Detention
Complex (Intermediate Sanction Facility & Multipurpose Facility)
Horizon
City, Texas
Avalon
April 17, 2003
A proposal to replace sex offenders with other inmates at the El Paso
Multi-Use Facility in Horizon City was met with outrage by the community at a
public meeting Wednesday evening. Next year, Avalon would like to
change the terms of the contract and stop housing paroled sex offenders, in
favor of pre-parolees of various backgrounds. "Even
murderers?" exclaimed Horizon resident Brenda Carroll. "When
they started, we were told it was going to be white-collar crimes; not
it's sex offenders and, what? Murderers? Our kids are the ones playing
hide-and-seek around here." (El Paso Times)
March
9, 2002
The El Paso County Sheriff's Department responded to a call of a possibly
dangerous escaped prisoner in Horizon City Thursday night, but deputies had
to wait about 45 minutes before prison officials would give them useful
information to start a manhunt, the Sheriff's Department said. He said he
understood that if prison officials suspect that a prisoner has escaped, they
first follow prison procedures before contacting the Sheriff's Department.
But in this case, he said, someone in the prison called the Sheriff's
Department before the prison was ready to give information to the deputies.
When deputies arrived, they had to wait for the prison to finish its escapee
procedure. "A whole 45 minutes went by before we could do our
jobs," Apodaca said. Southern Corrections, a subsidiary of Avalon
Correctional Services of Oklahoma City, runs the Intermediate Sanction
Facility under contract with the West Texas Community Supervision and
Corrections Department. (El Paso Times)
September
3, 2001
Few people can blame Horizon City residents for being concerned about safety
in the wake of two inmate escapes in June. The company in charge of
these private facilities is challenged to assuage resident's fears with an
improved safety performance. The two facilities near Horizon are
privately operated. The jury is still out on the state's, and in fact
the nation's, experiment with private companies operating prisons and
detention facilities. In the bigger picture, taxpayers are left to
wonder if these facilities truly are as secure as state-operated prisons.
(El Paso Times)
August
29, 2001
When two men escaped within one week in June from the private detention
centers near Horizon City, officials said both were freak incidents in a
well-run system. But several former inmates of both centers, one a
combination minimum-security prison and halfway house for parole violators
and one a guarded halfway house for probation violators, said escapes were
commonplace and just one of many problems. During their incarceration,
they said, escaping was easy, as residents took advantage of guard staffing
shortages and the centers' reliance on security cameras to slip away
undetected. Avalon arrived in Horizon City in the early 1990s, part of
the trend to shift responsibility for inmates from public to private prisons.
By cutting back on staff pay rates or replacing positions with surveillance
equipment, the private prisons were able to cut the costs of housing
residents. As residents lined up for their medication or meals, they
would pass time by studying the televisions that displayed the camera footage
used in lieu of live guards. Residents quickly discovered the dead
spots that surveillance cameras did not cover, Estes and other former
residents said. Allegations of intimidation from gangs, mistreatment by
guards and a lack of response to the complaints filed about such issues were
among the list of residents' complaints. Residents attributed most of
the problems to a staff they called inexperienced and underpaid. County
probation officials, who pay the centers to house some of their probation
violators, acknowledged that the $7-an-hour rate for guards leads to frequent
turnover and constant retraining. Avalon officials acknowledged the
high turnover rate, Smith said. But before the company can increase
guard pay, the facilities have to increase occupancy rates to become more
profitable. "That's just something a private company is going to
have to deal with," Smith said. "They won't be able to pay
what states do. We save taxpayers money by charging lower per diem."
(El Paso Times)
June
28, 2001
Two men escaped from a Horizon minimum-security detention complex within the
past three days -- one after climbing a wall and separating razor wire with
his bare hands, the second by simply walking away. The first escapee,
Floyd Ray Smith Jr., escaped Monday and was arrested Wednesday in his
hometown of Kerrville, Texas, about 500 miles away. The second escapee,
Lloyd Jacquez, left the detention complex shortly before 5 a.m. Wednesday and
was still missing. The escapees were residents of a pair of
minimum-security detention facilities on Horizon Boulevard a few miles
outside the limits of Horizon City. One of the buildings is the
Intermediate Sanction Facility and home to about 100 probation violators.
Next door is the Multipurpose Facility, which houses 229 parole violators,
including 26 sex offenders. Southern Corrections, a subsidiary of
Avalon Correctional Services of Oklahoma City, runs both facilities under
contract with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the El Paso
Probation Department. Smith had about eight hours to get away before
facility officials noticed his absence during a head count conducted about 2
p.m., Lopez said. Six hours later, shortly after 8 p.m., complex officials
notified the Sheriff's Department. Private detention complexes usually
do not notify local officials immediately when inmates escape, as opposed to
escapees from public prisons, officials of the Sheriff's Department
said. (El Paso Times)
Houston, Texas
Federal Bureau of Prisons
November 22, 2004 Houston Chronicle
Companies are scouting for sites to build a 190-bed federal halfway house,
but residents of the neighborhood where it could be built might not get to
air their thoughts at a public hearing. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons does not
require such hearings, and federal agencies are not bound by a Texas law that
mandates such hearings be held before state-funded halfway houses open.
Victor Trevino, constable of Precinct 6, where one company had proposed building
the halfway house, said Monday: "Any involvement of government, whether
it is federal, state or HISD — they definitely should have a responsibility
to inform its citizens." Bannum, a New Port Richey, Fla.-based company
that runs 13 federal halfway houses nationwide, has informed the county that
it will bid on the contract, but it has not disclosed the sites it is
considering. Bannum officials did not return calls. Commissioner Lee, whose
precinct includes the Lee Road location, said Correctional Systems should
have done better research and should have been in a position to explain why
it was recommending three or four sites to county officials. Companies and
public agencies "site these facilities where they'll find the least
resistance and the cheapest land costs," he said.
Houston County
School District
Houston, Texas
Community Education Partners
May
7, 2008 Creative Loafing
Patti Welch was living in Douglasville when she went through a divorce
last year. Atlanta was her chance to start over. Weary of her one-hour,
20-minute commute to the northside law office where she works as a paralegal,
Welch found a duplex in the West End only 20 minutes from her job. But the
move also was about her 15-year-old son, Patrick. He was a smart kid, a B
student entering the 10th grade. But he'd gotten into fights. One took place
just off school grounds and involved several kids, so officials labeled it
"gang-related." That meant Patrick would be sent to Douglas
County's alternative school. Even though she was confident her son wasn't in
a gang, Welch didn't bother to appeal the school district's decision. She
thought an alternative school might help him. And she hoped the 10 days
Patrick spent in jail after his last fight would serve as a wake-up call.
Welch knew her son would be sent to an alternative school when they moved to
Atlanta. But she thought it would be temporary. Instead, officials told her
that because Patrick had a gang-related fight on his record, he'd never be
allowed to enroll in a regular school in Atlanta. She tried to make the best
of it. When told he'd be sent to Forrest Hill Academy, she looked at her son
and forced a smile. "Wow," she said hopefully. "They're
putting you in an academy." Six months later, Patrick became one of eight
student plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil
Liberties Union's Racial Justice Program in New York City. The suit alleges
that Forrest Hill – which is operated by a for-profit company called
Community Education Partners – is little more than a pathway to prison for
Atlanta's unwanted students. "It would be a stretch to even call this a
school," says Reggie Shuford, an attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice
Program in New York. "There is little to no academic instruction, and
its students are treated like criminals. It is nothing more than a warehouse,
largely for poor children of color." The ACLU contends that Forrest Hill
students, 97 percent of whom are African-American, spend most of their days
filling out worksheets, for which they get no feedback. According to state
figures, nine out of 10 students at the school are unable to pass the
standardized state test for math proficiency. The figures also show that
Forrest Hill is the most violent school in Atlanta. "It is a national
disgrace that the Atlanta school system has handed over its constitutional
responsibility to a private, for-profit corporation," says Emily Chiang,
the case's lead lawyer. Forrest Hill wasn't quite the academy that Patti
Welch had hoped for. The idea of putting problem children into an
"alternative school" is a recent phenomenon in the world of
education. Before a federal law that took effect in 1978, public schools had
no legal requirement to provide education to special needs kids. If a child
was violent, or continually disrupted the class, schools could kick him or
her out. When the law took away that option, teachers and school systems
faced the chore of trying to tame disruptive students. The trend of taking
those kids out of regular classrooms and putting them into "alternative"
schools began to take hold. That practice quickly led to allegations that
some systems – under increasing pressure to churn out higher scores on
standardized tests – were simply "warehousing" their undesirable
students, out of sight and out of mind. "Those schools weren't about
education, but just getting through the day," says Eric Freeman,
assistant professor of educational policy studies at Georgia State
University. "Those were the 'expendable kids.' It's no longer acceptable
to have schools where kids are warehoused, but we still have a long way to
go." When it was founded in 1996, Community Education Partners touted
itself as a way to get expendable kids back into the mainstream. From the
start, however, there were indications CEP's considerable political weight
was as responsible for its rise as were its education programs. CEP was
formed in Nashville by four men with heavy Republican connections.CEO Randle
Richardson, was chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party from 1992 to 1995
and oversaw a 1994 electoral sweep in which Bill Frist and Fred Thompson won
Senate seats and Don Sundquist was elected governor. Another co-founder, John
Danielson, would become chief of staff for Education Secretary Rod Paige
under George W. Bush. One of the initial investors, Tom Beasley, had chaired
the Tennessee GOP before Richardson did. Beasley also founded the Corrections
Corporation of America, which runs privatized prisons. Founded in 1984, CCA
has grown to become the sixth-largest prison system in the country – trailing
only the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and four states. But the company also has
faced criticism for understaffing, high turnover and lax security. According
to a 1999 state audit, neglect of medical care and security at CCA facilities
in Georgia amounted to "borderline deliberate indifference." The
two companies – CCA and CEP – have turned out to share some parallels. Both
had business plans that relied on obtaining contracts to operate government
services. Both were started in Nashville by major Republican Party players.
And both went to Texas to make their mark. Texas was a natural entry point
for CEP. In 1995, George W. Bush had become governor, and his administration
was brimming with ideas to reform schools. The bundle of changes would be
touted during Bush's 2000 presidential run as the "Texas Miracle."
In that environment, George Scott, president of a Texas nonprofit education
reform group, helped CEP gain a foothold. "I got pulled into it by the
former superintendent for the Houston school department," Scott says.
"It's a sinister manipulation of reality to say that public education is
meeting its constitutional and moral obligation to these children; we throw
at-risk kids into alternative centers and forget about them. Then along came
a company that said it was going to do something different." Scott says
he first used his political connections to help the company land a contract
to take over the education services at a juvenile detention center. He was
impressed by CEP's pitch that its methods could help problem children get up
to speed academically so they go back to mainstream schools. "You have
kids in the ninth grade who can't do fractions," Scott says. "If a
kid is in the ninth grade but is at the fifth-grade level, giving them an
algebra book is useless. Under this program, we would start them at the level
where they are at, and build from there. CEP promised two years of academic
growth for every year a student was in their school." In 1997, Scott
says, he used his relationship with Paige, then Houston's school
superintendent, to help CEP land its first public school contract. Under the
future education secretary's stewardship, the Houston Independent School
District was becoming a cradle of the so-called Texas Miracle. Paige had put
a system in place that held individual principals accountable for dropout
rates and test scores. Then, the district signed a $17.9 million contract to
turn the education of as many as 2,500 children to CEP. Initially, the
corporation hired Carl Shaw – who was the former chairman of the Texas
Education Agency's assessment committee – to develop an independent test to
grade the progress of the CEP students. "I will never forget the day the
school board approved the CEP contract," Scott says. "Randle
Richardson and I were walking out of the building and I told him that not all
the kids in this are going to make two [years of progress] in one. But that
is going to be your strength. You'll say that you're being held accountable
for the program." Before CEP's contract with Houston took effect,
however, the first test results from the juvenile detention facility came
back. Scott recalls that they showed the students weren't making much
progress – some had even regressed. CEP blamed the test, and fired Shaw.
Richardson disputes that account. He says Scott let his friendship with Shaw
intrude on his judgment and that the scores showed 20 student inmates had
regressed in math but that most had made great progress. His own expert
looked at the test and determined it was flawed, an opinion seconded by the
Texas Education Agency. Whether it was over a principle or a friendship, the
incident left Scott with strong feelings about CEP. He now says the one thing
he's most ashamed of in his professional life is helping the company get into
the Texas schools. The absence of Shaw's test, he says, left the company
devoid of the very thing that had attracted him to the concept in the first
place: accountability. Instead, Scott says, CEP began to cull its political
connections. A sitting Houston school board member was hired as a consultant.
Sandy Kress, who later authored Bush's No Child Left Behind program, was
hired as a lobbyist. And when the company opened the campus of its first
alternative school, in Houston in 1997, former President George H.W. Bush was
at the opening ceremony to offer his endorsement. "They put together a
very powerful, politically juiced operation in Texas," Scott says. CEP
followed its Houston deal with a five-year, $10 million-a-year contract in
Dallas. Then, it moved on to Florida and Philadelphia. And all along it
followed a familiar pattern: It hired well-connected lobbyists to sell the
program and courted elected officials with generous campaign contributions.
CEP claimed it had found the key to educating a student population that was
thought to be beyond help. The schools used a computer-based education
program called PLATO that CEP said enables students to quickly catch up to
their age level in reading and math skills. The company was swept up in the
middle of what became a nationwide education reform movement. Bush campaigned
for the presidency heralding his "Texas Miracle" of low dropout
rates and high test scores. When he was elected, he named Paige to his
Cabinet and pushed through Congress the No Child Left Behind Act, which
instituted high achievement goals for the nation's public schools. But even
as it rode the wave of its association with Bush's education changes, CEP
became a target of criticism. Some parents complained of prison-like
conditions inside CEP schools. Others claimed CEP was, in reality, doing
little more than warehousing problem students. There were official rebukes as
well. An internal evaluation in Dallas found that "the model of
education provided by [CEP] was untenable." "The reliance on
non-certified teachers for the bulk of the student- teacher interaction was
useful for the company to save money, but was not a design in the best
interest of the students," the report went on to say. "Students who
attended Community Education Partners did not do very well
academically." CEP had even refused to provide its budget data to the
school district, the report said, which made it impossible to know just how
it was spending the money it received. In 2002, the Dallas school system
fired CEP. By then, however, the company was developing its relationship with
a new customer: Atlanta. It's unclear exactly how CEP came to acquire a $6.9
million contract to open an alternative school in Atlanta. Richardson says
the school system contacted the company in 2001. Citing the pending ACLU
lawsuit, Atlanta school officials won't even talk about CEP. At the time the
contract was signed, Atlanta officials brushed aside concerns already brewing
in Dallas. They cited a "task force" report that supposedly
recommended the district privatize its alternative schools; when the AJC
requested a copy of that report, however, school officials said they couldn't
find one. It didn't take long for concerns to crop up in Atlanta. In August
2002, CEP opened its alternative school in temporary quarters at the old
Archer High School. Parents of some of the students attended the Rev. Darryl
Winston's southeast Atlanta church. "We were hearing allegations of
mistreatment and a prison environment," says Winston, president of the
Greater American Ministerial Council. "We met with the staff, and they
admitted that 90 percent of what we described had to do with the building.
The Archer High School campus was extremely chaotic. They told us the
building did not give us an accurate picture of what the program was
about." CEP even flew Winston and other community leaders to Houston to
tour their schools there. "We were impressed by what we saw," he
says. The company assured Winston the problem was that the Atlanta school had
yet to find a permanent location. The company prefers a specific design for
its schools. Kids are segregated into male and female classes, and the
classes are isolated inside pods within the building. "In school, kids
get in trouble in the hallway or the cafeteria or going to the
restrooms," says Anthony Edwards, a CEP vice president. "So we
control that. There are restrooms and water fountains in each of the common
areas. It eliminates movement. Kids get in trouble when they're moving."
Three properties had already been identified, but each was scuttled by
community opposition to an alternative school in the neighborhood. CEP asked
for Winston's patience, and he was willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
Meanwhile, the company did what it could to strengthen its political ties in
Atlanta. When school board members faced re-election in 2005, CEP and its
executives gave money in four races. According to Fulton County records,
Randle Richardson made a $250 contribution to Mark Riley, who easily won
re-election. He also contributed $500 to Brenda Muhammad, a former board
member who ran successfully to regain a seat. CEP's chief financial officer,
Phil Baggett, contributed another $250 to Muhammad. CEP was more generous in
two other contests: Richardson and Baggett each made three separate
contributions to incumbent Eric Wilson that totaled $2,000, and newcomer
Yolanda Johnson received a total of $2,500. Although Georgia law requires
candidates to list the occupations and employers of their contributors on
their disclosure forms, none of the school board candidates did that for the
CEP executives. Muhammad says she had no idea Richardson and Baggett were CEP
executives until CL told her. "If they were standing in front of me, I
wouldn't know them," she says. "No campaign contribution will
influence me from making my decisions based on the best interest of the
children of Atlanta." Riley also said he was unaware that Richardson led
CEP. "That's a little embarrassing," he says. "I make a point
of never accepting contributions from vendors. I've even returned checks
before." Six months after the school board began its new term, it
extended CEP's contract to 2009. When school opened in August, Patti Welch
and her son got their first look at Forrest Hill. Welch went through a 90-minute
orientation, where the rules of the school were laid out. Patrick wasn't to
bring anything onto campus that was considered contraband. The list included
watches, jewelry, purses, combs, brushes, keys and money in excess of $5.
Paper and pens weren't allowed either; the school would provide everything
that was needed, even tampons for female students. Patrick would go through a
metal detector each morning and be patted down by a security guard to ensure
he didn't have weapons or drugs. Backpacks weren't allowed, and books
couldn't be taken home. In fact, there was no homework for Forrest Hill
students. Patrick went through a weeklong orientation that included tests on
the PLATO computer system to determine where he stood academically. On his
first day, he sent his mother a text message: "This school is so
bad." He found the lessons boring. He complained that the teacher would
simply put an assignment on the board; then the kids would be expected to do
it on their own. Once the students were finished, they were given crossword
puzzles to fill out. "Patrick found it totally uninteresting and totally
unmotivating," Welch says. "He kept sending me text messages, and I
didn't believe him. He started missing days, so I went up there." What
Welch saw alarmed her. The building was new and well-maintained, but the pods
where students were segregated reminded her of a jail. "There's one
steel door to the classroom, no windows. It looked like a mini-prison."
Not long after that, she heard the ACLU wanted to interview parents with
children at Forrest Hill Academy for a potential lawsuit. Welch decided to
talk to the organization. Two years ago, a special education lawyer in
Atlanta called the ACLU and suggested they investigate the CEP school in
Atlanta. "As soon as we began to scratch the surface, we were so
outraged by what we found," says the ACLU's Chiang. "The
standardized test scores are really shocking. No one was passing." State
statistics show the school has made few strides toward improving its students'
academic standing. According to state Department of Education figures from
the 2006-07 school year, 91 percent of CEP's students failed the state's
assessment test in mathematics; 66 percent failed the reading portion. In its
latest contract with Atlanta, CEP agreed to a performance goal of making
measurable progress in 31 categories for the 2005-06 school year, based
primarily on results from the state's Criterion Referenced Competency tests.
Of those categories, six couldn't be measured because there were too few students
enrolled to get a proper study group, and CEP students showed improvement in
11 from the previous year. But in 13 categories, the students tested worse.
In the final category – ninth grade physical science – there was no change:
100 percent of the students failed both years. "They cannot deny their
standardized test scores are abysmal," Chiang says. Shirley Kilgore, a
former Washington High School principal in Atlanta who now consults for CEP,
counters that it's unfair to evaluate the program based on state tests.
"Students in an alternative program are transient," she says.
"We had a girl come in here last week. She's been here a matter of days,
but her score belongs to us. Some of these students taking the tests have not
been with us for any length of time." Richardson, the company's CEO,
points out that almost 90 percent of students sent to Forrest Hill are at
least two grade levels behind in reading and mathematics: "You wouldn't
pass it either, if you're reading at the fourth grade level and you're taking
a ninth grade competency test." The ACLU claims the heart of the problem
is that Forrest Hill cuts corners when it comes to academics. The teachers
don't teach, Chiang says, but instead hand out worksheets for the students to
fill out. She also notes that CEP has a practice of hiring inexperienced
teachers. According to state figures, the average level of experience of the
teaching staff at Forrest Hill is less than a year. Kilgore, the CEP
consultant, argues that few quality teachers want to work at an alternative
school. "They are either committed to making a difference," she
says, "or else a new teacher starting out." But at least one other
alternative school attracts far more senior teachers: The average level of
experience at Fulton County's McClarin Alternative School is 19 years. The
ACLU also alleges that students often are manhandled by the school's staff,
that teachers have even thrown textbooks at the children in their rooms. CEP
denies there is any student mistreatment. "Inexperienced teachers are a
recipe for problems," says GSU's Freeman. "These kinds of schools
are special places and full of a challenging population of kids." Most
of CEP's teachers aren't instructing in their fields of expertise either.
According to state records, of the 76 total core classes taught at Forrest
Hill, only 45 percent are taught by "highly qualified" teachers –
those who have majored in the subject they teach. The statewide average is 96
percent. "We're very deeply concerned, especially in an alternative school
setting where you need highly-qualified educators to work with the
children," says Georgia Association of Educators President Jeff Hubbard,
whose group has lobbied against privatizing schools. "We don't think
students should be put in a situation where a company is trying to make a
profit off their education." CEP says it spends $9,300 per student
compared with $12,406 per pupil for the rest of the students in Atlanta's
public school system. The company contends the school saves money because it
doesn't have to offer such activities as sports or music programs that are
required in regular school programs. But Freeman's skeptical. While the
savings sound efficient, he stresses that, in education, you generally get
what you pay for: "These kids need a lot; they're needy kids. You need
to spend more money on them than typical schools. If they are spending less,
I'd want to know why it costs less to educate a student with exceptional
needs. Where are they saving money? What are they subtracting and is it good?
Are they saving money by hiring less experienced teachers who have no
training in dealing with these kids?" Freeman is careful to say he
hasn't studied Forrest Hill enough to make an ironclad assessment. But, he
says, "I know people who teach in alternative schools. It's not an easy
environment. It usually requires very special teachers who can work with
those kids. It's a big challenge." The Rev. Darryl Winston is angry that
he sees many of the same issues raised in the ACLU lawsuit that led him to
confront CEP officials four years ago. And his anger isn't just directed at
the company. "We need a statement from Superintendent Beverly Hall that
she takes these allegations seriously and that the APS is looking into
them," he says. "All we got was a statement from the press person
that amounted to kind of 'dismissing' it. I've been told as recently as last
week that the APS position is to wait and see what comes out in court."
What especially frustrates him is that no one who isn't behind the walls at
Forrest Hill can really know what's going on there. "CEP has denied
every one of the charges, but there's no way to verify that," Winston
says. "We need experts. I've called on the board of education to launch
its own investigation and see if the charges are true. If they can't, they
need a task force appointed by the governor to see what is going on at
CEP." As far back as Houston, CEP officials have had to deal with
complaints that the company's performance needed to be evaluated by
independent parties. "We want to be held accountable for attendance and
behavior and academics," insists CEP's Anthony Edwards. "It's very
important to us that we are a standards-based program." CEP claims
students who attended Forrest Hill in the 2006-07 school year were, on
average, performing math and reading on the third-grade level when they
arrived. The school claims that students who were at the school for at least
150 days made remarkable progress: an increase of 3.2 grade levels in reading
and four years in math. Under its Atlanta contract, however, CEP both
administers and grades those tests. There's no independent verification of
the results, but longtime educators say making those kinds of academic
strides in one year is virtually impossible. For a certain percentage of students
who are highly motivated, yes, it can be done; for an entire student
population, unlikely. "Kids with emotional and behavioral problems don't
do well in school," Freeman says. "And kids aren't just going to
snap to and start learning." Chiang says lack of progress on
standardized tests make it clear the PLATO test scores are skewed. Students
have told the ACLU that they take the PLATO tests unsupervised and can ask
each other for the answers they don't know. "CEP claims a pronounced
spike in the test scores, but we believe it is because of PLATO," she
says. "In reality, there's no teaching going on." Edwards downplays
PLATO's results. "We are not judged by these," he says. "It's
just a mechanism, a diagnostic tool. The student is given a grade level of
functionality." But the contract with the Atlanta school system says
that Forrest Hill's success or failure will be measured by a combination of
results from PLATO tests and state standardized tests. In addition, if a
student who attends CEP for at least 120 days doesn't show growth in reading
and mathematics of at least one year on the PLATO system, the contract
mandates that CEP must educate that student at no additional cost to the
school district until he or she has reached that level. Patti Welch says her
son continues to struggle at Forrest Hill, and has missed extended stretches
of school because he doesn't want to be there. But she says his disciplinary
problems now seem to be behind him. She plans to take him out of the
alternative school at the end of the year; she wants to home-school him. But
ACLU lawyers say the federal lawsuit – which names the school system, board
members and CEP as defendants – is about more than just eight kids in one
school. It cuts to the heart of a public school's responsibilities to kids
who are in the margins, and it raises questions about the risks of
privatizing public education. "We see it as a broader national problem,
the trend of privatization of government functions and warehousing kids in a
school-to-prison pipeline," Chiang says. For the students at Forrest
Hill, it's also about not being forgotten by the officials who sent them
there. "The problem is that Atlanta didn't build in an adequate system
for oversight and evaluation," Freeman says. "You want it written
into the contract to have a good program evaluation. It's got to be done by
people who know how to do it, people not connected to the school department
or CEP so there's no conflict of interest." Freeman says there should be
an annual independent review of Forrest Hill. Evaluators would go into the
school, see the teaching methods, and interview students and teachers and the
administrators. "I hope the CEP school is investigated by people who
know what they're doing," he says. "There are good questions to ask,
and they deserve good answers. The school can't answer those question, they
can only provide the information. Somebody else has to be the
evaluator."
Houston Independent
School District
Houston, Texas
Aramark
June 10, 2002
In a bold vote in 1997, the Houston
Independent School District privatized the
management of its massive food services program amid
a politically charged fight for the lucrative contract. Part of then-Superintendent Rod Paige's much-touted
reform aimed at focusing district energies on education rather
than business, this battle was mostly about money. When
the dust settled, Aramark, a Philadelphia-based
powerhouse in a joint venture with the local Quality
Concession Foods, won the five-year contract. On Thursday, HISD trustees will vote on whether to
continue with the Aramark team, the sole bidder. But once again the contract has sparked political fire,
this time from state Sen. Mario Gallegos, D-Houston, who contends
Hispanics, the city's largest ethnic group, have not gotten an
equitable piece of the action. During the four years of the food services management
contract, says Gallegos, African-American firms were paid more
than $3.7 million. The bulk of that went to Quality Concession,
an MWBE owned by Darryl King, a former chairman of the Houston
Area Urban League, to help manage food services. Only $15,000
went to a Hispanic firm. The sole $15,000 Hispanic contract he cites in the
letter went to his longtime political consultant and ally, Marc
Campos. The services rendered: Campos lobbied for Aramark
when it sought the contract in 1997. Campos since has been dropped. But Aramark and King
are in the midst of hiring Powersól Communications, state-certified
MWBE owned by Hector Careño and Frank McCune to internally
market the free and subsidized lunch program to students and
their parents. "I did what
any entrepreneur would do," says King. "I got myself
educated, followed the privatization story and prepared
myself for the opportunity that was coming. "I
invited Aramark to partner with me. They didn't come to town
and pick a politically connected black person." (The
Houston Chronicle)
Houston Processing
Center
Houston, Texas
CCA
July 21, 2010 Courthouse News
In a perfect immigration nightmare, a U.S. citizen claims the Department of
Homeland Security arrested her in her own home, imprisoned, threatened and
intimidated her and denied her food, water and medication unless she admitted
she was someone else. Then it deported her to Honduras, where she was
immediately imprisoned as an illegal alien, held in prison for 3 weeks and
sexually assaulted by "an officer of the Honduran government." Even
after she returned home, she says, U.S. immigration agents continue to harass
her and threaten to arrest her again. Diane Williams, 35, "a
natural-born citizen of the United States," claims she was arrested in
her Houston home on Jan. 18, 2009, by "a Special Agent of the Department
of Homeland Security-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (hereinafter 'ICE')
by the name of Rolando Jimenez, and other unidentified ICE agents."
Williams says she showed the agents her Louisiana birth certificate, but they
arrested her anyway, and accused her of Angelique Bethany Cortez Rodriguez, a
citizen of Honduras. She claims the "ICE officers made no attempt
whatsoever to verify the plaintiff's claim to U.S. citizenship," but
took her to the prison run by the Corrections Corporation of America, on a
contract with DHS. The agents did this though she "repeatedly informed
the arresting officers that she was a United States citizen and offered the
names and contact numbers of several family members who could confirm her
identity," Williams says. Inside the CCA prison, Williams says, she was
denied prescribed medications for seizures, asthma and emotional disorders.
She says that after 3 days she was allowed to take medication for asthmas and
seizures, "but was denied the medications for her emotional disorders by
officials of the Public Health Service." Also inside the prison,
Williams says, she "was interviewed in a hostile, threatening and
aggressive manner by various ICE officers including Rolando Jimenez, Tak
Wong, and other unidentified officers." The complaint continues:
"She was awakened and interrogated in the middle of the night, denied
food and water, and held in holding cells at extremely low temperatures and
without functional plumbing for hours. "Plaintiff was told by Officer
Rolando Jimenez and Officer Tak Wong that she would be jailed for four years
and still deported if she refused to admit that she was 'Angelique Bethany
Cortez Rodriguez, and a citizen of Honduras." Afraid of spending 4 years
in prison, "and in an unstable mental state due to the denial of her
medications," Williams says she signed the statement. Three weeks later she
was deported to Honduras. "Plaintiff did not have legal representation
at any point during this process, and was effectively denied from seeking
legal counsel due to her detention and repeated placement in solitary
confinement," she says. Nor did ICE follow the proper procedure and ask
the Honduran Consulate to verify her nationality - which would have
short-circuited her ordeal, she says. The complaint continues: "Shortly
after arrival in Honduras, plaintiff was arrested by officials of the
Honduran government as an alien and held in custody in that country for
approximately three weeks. "While detained by Honduran officials, she
was denied bathing facilities, slept on the floor, was fed irregularly and
was sexually assaulted by an officer of the Honduran government." Finally,
72 days after her nightmare began, "On March 31, 2009, the U.S. Embassy
in Honduras issued plaintiff a U.S. passport after receiving her birth
certificate from her family in the United States and investigating to their
satisfaction her claim to U.S. citizenship. "She was given a loan by the
U.S. Embassy in Honduras for half of the purchase price of a ticket to the
United States (her family paid the other half), and returned legally to the
United States through the Miami port of entry on March 31, 2009. "After
returning to the United States Plaintiff has been subject to continuing
harassment and abuse by officers acting under the authority of ICE and other
government agencies, in spite of demonstrating evidence of her status as a
citizen of the United States, including the continued existence of an
immigration warrant encouraging her arrest by any law enforcement agency in
the United States." (Parentheses in complaint.) Williams seeks damages
from the United States of America for negligence, false imprisonment,
intentional infliction of emotional distress, malicious prosecution, abuse of
process, assault and malpractice. She is represented by Lawrence Rushton of
Bellaire, Texas.
June
8, 2010 Houston Chronicle
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are preparing to roll out a
series of changes at several privately owned immigration detention centers,
including relaxing some security measures for low-risk detainees and offering
art classes, bingo and continental breakfast on the weekends. The changes,
detailed in an internal ICE e-mail obtained by the Houston Chronicle, were
welcomed by immigrant advocates who have been waiting for the Obama
administration to deliver on a promise made in August to overhaul the
nation's immigration detention system. The 28 changes identified in the
e-mail range from the superficial to the substantive. In addition to
“softening the look of the facility” with hanging plants and offering fresh
carrot sticks, ICE will allow for the “free movement” of low-risk detainees, expand
visiting hours and provide unmonitored phone lines. ICE officials said the
changes are part of broader efforts to make the immigration detention system
less penal and more humane. But the plans are prompting protests by ICE's
union leaders, who say they will jeopardize the safety of agents, guards and
detainees and increase the bottom line for taxpayers. Tre Rebstock, president
for Local 3332, the ICE union in Houston, likened the changes to creating “an
all-inclusive resort” for immigration detainees. “Our biggest concern is that
someone is going to get hurt,” he said, taking particular issue with plans to
relax restrictions on the movement of low-risk detainees and efforts to
reduce and eliminate pat-down searches. The changes outlined in the ICE e-mail
are planned for nine detention centers owned and operated by Corrections
Corporation of America, including the 900-bed Houston Contract Detention
Facility on the city's north side. Some of the changes will be implemented
within 30 days; others may take up to six months, said Beth Gibson, ICE's
senior counselor to Assistant Secretary John Morton and a leader of the
detention reform effort. Other major changes include: • Eliminating lockdowns
and lights-out for low-risk detainees. • Allowing visitors to stay as long as
they like in a 12-hour period. • Providing a unit manger so detainees have
someone to report problems to other than the guard. • Allowing low-risk
detainees to wear their own clothing or other non-penal attire. • Providing
e-mail access and Internet-based free phone service. Not about punishment
Gibson said the improvements are part of ICE's efforts to detain immigrants
in the least restrictive manner possible while ensuring they leave the
country if ordered to do so. “When people come to our custody, we're
detaining them to effect their removal,” Gibson said. “It's about
deportation. It's not about punishing people for a crime they committed.” ICE
officials have faced pressure from immigrant advocates and some members of
Congress to improve the detention conditions for the roughly 400,000
immigrants it houses annually. The agency has relied on a hodgepodge of more
than 250 government-run detention centers, private prisons and local jails to
accommodate its growing population — with roughly one in four detainees held
in Texas. At the CCA facilities that have agreed to ICE's changes, detainees
will see more variety in their dining hall menus and have self-serve beverage
and fresh vegetable bars. CCA also plans to offer movie nights, bingo, arts and
crafts, dance and cooking classes, tutoring and computer training, the e-mail
states. Detainees also will be allowed four hours or more of recreation “in a
natural setting, allowing for robust aerobic exercise.” CCA also committed to
improving the look of the facilities, such as requiring plants, fresh paint
and new bedding in lower-risk units. Advocates pleased Some of the
improvements offered at the CCA facilities counted as hard-fought victories
for immigrant advocates, including plans to improve visitor and attorney
access. “A lot of these measures are what we've been advocating for,” said
Lory Rosenberg, policy and advocacy director for Refugee and Migrants' Rights
for Amnesty International. “Many of these points are very important to
changing the system from a penal system, which is inappropriate in an
immigration context, to a civil detention system.” Union members said they
have concerns about the plans, primarily focusing on safety. Rebstock said
some detainees may be classified as low-risk because they have no serious
criminal history but still may be gang members that “haven't been caught
doing anything wrong yet.” He also said eliminating lockdowns will make it
more difficult to protect detainees from one another. He said reducing or
eliminating pat-down searches could allow contraband into the facilities,
including weapons. Gibson, with ICE, said the agency is developing a
sophisticated classification system and will make sure “that our detainees
are still safe and sound.” “As a general matter, it will be the non-criminals
who don't present a danger to anyone else who are benefitting from the lowest
level of custody,” Gibson said. ‘On the taxpayers' dime' Rebstock also
questioned the cost to taxpayers for the changes. “My grandparents would have
loved to have bingo night and a dance class at the retirement home they were
in when they passed away, but that was something we would have had to pay
for,” he said. “And yet these guys are getting it on the taxpayers' dime.”
Gibson said CCA is making the improvements at no additional cost to ICE. The
agency's contract with CCA for the Houston detention center requires that ICE
pay $99 per bed daily for each detainee, slightly lower than the $102 average
daily rate ICE pays nationally .
March
26, 2009 Houston Chronicle
If you were to stop on a street corner anywhere in America and knowingly
hire an illegal immigrant to do your laundry or clean your basement, you
would be breaking the law. But for years, the federal government has been
paying immigration detainees $1 a day to perform menial work in the nation’s
public and private detention centers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
officials insist there is no double standard, saying the Voluntary Work
Program offers detainees a break from the monotony of incarceration and a
chance to earn money while they are locked up. Rutgers University criminal
justice professor Michael Welch called the program a “paradox.” “It’s ironic
that these undocumented immigrants are barred from working legally in the
community, but while behind bars, they are not only allowed but encouraged to
work for a dollar a day,” Welch said. ICE officials have found an eager work
force in their growing network of detention centers, which house an estimated
400,000 immigrants annually. The agency does not track participation in the
work program on a national level, said ICE spokesman Gregory Palmore, though
more than 11,000 detainees participated last fiscal year at one Houston
detention center alone. Immigrant advocates offered general support for the
program, saying it at least gives detainees an opportunity to pass the time
by doing something other than sitting in a cell. But the irony of the program
is not lost on some. “Why can the U.S. government hire undocumented
immigrants? And not only hire them, but get a day’s work for a dollar?” said
Brittney Nystrom, senior legal advisor at the National Immigration Forum, an
immigrant advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. “It really is an
absurdity.” ICE says program legal -- ICE officials say the program is
perfectly legal. There is no specific statute, regulation or executive order
authorizing the program, ICE said in a statement. The program “does not
constitute employment and is done by detainees on a voluntary basis for a
small stipend,” according to ICE. Nystrom had a hard time buying that legal
explanation, citing ICE’s own detention standards, which describe the program
as providing “monetary compensation for work completed.” “That sounds like
employment to me,” Nystrom said. Variety of jobs performed -- At Houston’s
Contract Detention Facility on the city’s north side, about 200 immigration
detainees are currently participating in the work program, performing jobs
including cleaning and washing dishes, laundry, and maintenance of the
facility, according to ICE. Others jobs include working as a barber and
helping in the medical clinic, law library or commissary. ICE officials said
no detainees from the Houston facility performed work outside of the
detention center grounds. The Houston detention center is owned and operated
by Corrections Corporation of America, one of the nation’s largest private
prison companies. CCA’s warden in Houston, Robert Lacy, referred questions
about the program to ICE. Work programs are commonplace in state and federal
prisons. The lowest-paying jobs in the Federal Bureau of Prison system, such
as cleaning and grounds keeping, pay 12 to 40 cents per hour. In its
statement, ICE officials said the program gives detainees “an opportunity to
be gainfully occupied on a voluntary basis.” The agency added that perhaps
the most important benefit from the program is “reducing inactivity and
disciplinary problems.”
February
24, 2005 Houston Chronicle
Houston lawyer Richard Prinz is unhappy because there is no place for lawyers
to talk with their clients in the vital minutes before the court appearance
in the new immigration facility on Greens Road. He says he would like to see
some small space made available near the courtroom. Lawyers representing
immigrants at a new federal facility in far north Houston are confronting new
restrictions on communications with their clients. Before the courtroom was
moved to 5520 Greens Road in January, said Houston lawyer Richard Prinz,
attorneys could talk with their clients in the cellblock visiting area until
they were called to court. "So you'd basically go to court together and,
of course, if you wished to speak to them afterward, you'd just go right back
there and speak to them," he said. The routine at the new facility,
however, is for a lawyer to wait in the small lobby just inside the
building's entrance until a guard escorts the lawyer into the courtroom.
Detainees are brought from cells into the courtroom by another route. Prinz
said there is no opportunity to speak with a client in the vital minutes
before the court appearance or after going inside. He would like to see some
small space made available near the courtroom. "The judge has not and
will not ever let you visit with your client while you're in the courtroom,"
he said. A member of Immigration Judge Susan Yarbrough's staff said the judge
is not in charge of the building's layout and would have no comment on the
issue. Luisa Aquino-Deason, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, referred questions to the Corrections Corporation of America.
"We simply contract out that facility," she said. CCA Division 5
managing director Charles Martin said lawyers can meet with their clients
"at a different part of the building" almost any time they want
throughout the week. When they go to court, however, "they have to be
prepared to go on in the courtroom," he said.
February
27, 1999
A Cuban inmate overpowered a guard and ran out of the front door of the
facility. There appeared to be a white van waiting for the inmate which
took him away. The escapee was convicted of "burglary of a habitation
with intent to commit aggravated rape with a deadly weapon." (Houston
Chronicle, March 2, 1999)
Hunt Count Jail
Hunt County, Texas
CiviGenics
August 31, 2005 Herald Banner
The consideration of a plan to privatize the operation of the Hunt County
Jail came to a sudden halt Tuesday when officials saw that it would be more
expensive to hire Civigenics, Inc. than to maintain the status quo. Hunt
County Judge Joe Bobbitt said the numbers revealed that Sheriff Don Anderson
was running an efficient operation with the resources allotted him. "The
proposal from Civigenics was a good one, and it included a level of service
above what we currently provide, but it did not prove to be an affordable
option at this time," Bobbitt said. "What they proposed is
something we can only aspire to right how." Hunt County Sheriff's Office
Chief Deputy Robert White said he was not surprised at the outcome of the
talks. "We felt at the time of the initial offer that there was no way
they'd be able to do it as cheaply as we do it ourselves, but out of fairness
we went through the process and let them work the figures out," White
said. He said the proposals from Civigenics varied from $34 to $37.50 expense
per inmate per day, compared to a current cost of $23.61 per inmate per day
under county operations. "They were figuring in some other things in
their costs, but it still was not close," White said.
Jack Harwell
Detention Center
McLennan County, Texas
Community Education Centers
January 30, 2013 wacotrib.com
McLennan County Commissioner
Lester Gibson said Tuesday he remains committed to finishing repairs at the
county’s shuttered downtown Waco jail, arguing the county has spent too much
money on the facility not to reopen it.
Gibson also said he was tired of
keeping a private jail operator “afloat” by continuing to house inmates from
the downtown jail at the Jack Harwell Detention Center on East Marlin
Highway. The operator, New Jersey-based Community Education Centers Inc., has
failed to adequately market the Harwell center to other entities, making it
increasingly dependent on county inmates to fill beds, he said. The county
has spent more than $1.2 million to renovate the 34-year-old downtown Waco
jail, which has been closed since 2010. Rod Aydelotte / Waco Tribune-Herald,
file Past agreements to house inmates from Dallas and Harris counties failed
to produce results, Gibson said. “It’s my opinion that we have burdened
ourselves as well as taxpayers by keeping CEC afloat,” Gibson said during a
commissioners court meeting. Commissioners must decide by this summer whether
to renew the county’s contracts with CEC, which operates the Harwell center
and houses overflow inmates from the county-run McLennan County Jail on State
Highway 6. CEC also is under contract to run the downtown jail, but
commissioners voted in June 2010 to close the facility and transfer inmates
to the new Harwell center. Company representatives did not attend the
meeting. In a statement, spokesman Charles M. Seigel said the company had
“spared no expense” in its efforts to market the facility and fill beds.
“However, it is a well-known fact that over the last several years nationwide
prisoner populations have been declining,” Seigel said. “However, it should
also be noted that the county’s inmate population has been increasing, from
an average of 100 to 375 in the past 18 months. CEC remains committed to
working with our county partners in achieving our mutual goals.” The county
has spent more than $1.2 million to renovate the 34-year-old downtown jail,
and commissioners hoped to reopen it this year to help ease a budget crisis
fueled in part by overflow inmate housing costs. But County Judge Scott
Felton cast doubt on that plan last week after learning that the jail’s smoke
evacuation system needed potentially costly updates to pass a state
inspection. Depending on the cost, commissioners may want to wait to spend
the money until they have a use for the downtown jail, Felton said. Felton
elaborated Tuesday, saying the county’s current contract with CEC lets the
company decide where to house the county’s overflow inmates. Plenty of beds
are vacant at the Harwell center, so the company probably wouldn’t move
inmates downtown if the jail were open, he said. The 816-bed Harwell center
was about 65 percent full Monday, with 410 of the 528 inmates coming from
McLennan County. The percentage of county inmates there has been as low as 25
percent but jumped to between 60 percent and 80 percent in recent weeks as
the federal inmate population declined, Felton said. Commissioner Kelly Snell
said the county should stop sending inmates from the downtown jail to the
Harwell center when the contracts with CEC expire in June. “That was supposed
to be a temporary thing,” Snell said. “I think the temporary time is up. We
need to get our people over here (to the downtown jail).” Snell echoed
Gibson’s critique that CEC had failed to market the Harwell center to win
other housing contracts. Felton disagreed, saying the company has struggled
because the jail industry is overbuilt nationally. “We need to keep talking
about it, keep it in front of us and look for solutions,” Felton said. “But
also, let’s be aware of what the (business) environment is out there.” The
$49 million Harwell center was built by the McLennan County Public Facility
Corp., a governing body formed by the county to issue revenue bonds without
creating a debt liability for the county. Commissioners transferred inmates
from the downtown jail to the Harwell center so revenue earned from housing
them could be applied to the bond debt. The public facility corporation has
met its scheduled bond payments so far, in large part because the county
houses so many inmates at the Harwell center, County Auditor Stan Chambers
said. “So you could say that our inmates located in the Jack Harwell center
are right now what’s helping to make the bond payments,” he said. In essence,
that means taxpayers are helping to pay the bonds, since the county pays
overflow inmate housing costs through its property tax-supported general
fund, Chambers said.
June
14, 2010 Waco Tribune
After four months of sitting idle, the county’s new jail is finally beginning
to take in inmates. Community Education Centers, the New Jersey-based company
managing the jail, will begin moving about 300 inmates from the downtown jail
to the 816-bed Jack Harwell Detention Center today. About 100 Harris County
inmates also will be transferred to the new jail this week. CEC Warden Mike
Wilson said it will take three to four days to transfer all the inmates. Up
to 50 inmates will be moved at a time — about 100 per day — using three vans
and two buses. “You have to get them all booked in and classified correctly
so that they are placed in the right wing, and that takes some time,” Wilson
said. “You can only process so many in a day.” In the weeks leading up to the
official opening, CEC staff focused on small details to make sure everything
runs smoothly today. The staff prepared hundreds of “bedrolls” — a
pillowcase, sheet, face towel and washcloth rolled into one — that will be
given to the inmates at booking. Jailers also hand-numbered each rubber
pillow and mattress for the beds to track them. One of the eight-bed cells
was laid out as a model setup, from the bed essentials to an unopened box of
checkers, dominoes and deck of cards stacked neatly on the dining table.
Yellow logbooks are stacked on a monitoring desk in the central hallway for
jailers to record interaction with inmates and the operation of the jail. Maintenance
workers also were busy getting the building in shape, from routine cleaning
to installing napkin dispensers in the medical exam rooms. “There’s a lot of
little things that we have to think about and take care of before we open,”
Wilson said. Organization has been the key. Everything from office and
cleaning supplies to jailer radios and cell keys is arranged in neat rows for
easy access and use, a system Wilson plans to keep in place after the jail
begins operations. “That’s the best way to keep up with everything and make
sure we have what we need,” Wilson said. The jail also received some extra
protection for a smooth opening. Wilson said a group of local pastors toured
the jail and visited the chapel where church services will be held, then blessed
the facility. Opening delays -- The Jack Harwell Detention Center jail was
finished in February. The jail originally was planned to help solve
overcrowding issues and an expanding female inmate population at the
neighboring McLennan County Jail, plus earn additional revenue from housing
state and federal prisoners. But the county’s jail population is now below
its maximum capacity of 931, and federal agencies are pulling back plans to
house inmates in local facilities. The facility was counting on that revenue
to repay $49 million in bonds that financed the jail’s construction,
potentially putting the county’s bond rating at risk if the payments could
not be made. The county voted last month to temporarily shut down the
downtown jail and transfer the inmates to the Harwell center. The move allows
CEC to use the money taken in for housing inmates at the downtown jail — $3.5
million in the 2009 fiscal year — and apply it to the debt on the new jail.
The county made roughly $700,000 on the housing contracts in fiscal 2009. It
also means the county would miss as much as $71,000 in net monthly earnings
from its share in the housing agreements for the downtown facility. CEC also
agreed to pay the county $40,000 for each month the downtown jail is closed.
The move is in effect only through Dec. 31 or until the Harwell center
reaches 90 percent capacity, whichever comes first. After that, CEC is
expected to move inmates back to the downtown facility.
June
6, 2010 Waco Tribune-Herald
The county soon may have to pony up $1.1 million for some long-needed
improvements to the downtown jail. Most of the equipment in the jail, which
is operated by New Jersey-based Community Education Centers, was first
installed when the county built the facility in mid-1970s. CEC Warden Mike
Wilson said while the detention company performs about $60,000 annually in
equipment and building maintenance, some of the materials in the jail are
nearly obsolete. “The problem we’re running into with the doors and the
control system is getting replacement parts,” Wilson said. “They’re no longer
commercially available. They no longer manufacture them.” Wilson said CEC has
been using old locks the county had on hand to replace defunct doors in the
jail, but few of those remain. Replacing the 129 doors and locks securing
inmate cells and installing 10 new control panels is the most expensive
project, carrying a $668,473 price tag. Other major work includes replacing
four old elevators, a $298,436 expense; installing a new intercom system;
upgrading the kitchen ceiling and equipment; and replacing the fire system.
Wilson submitted the proposed projects to the sheriff’s office last week.
McLennan County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Randy Plemons discussed the work list
in a budget work session with the county commissioners. The commissioners
court is reviewing major capital projects that it may fund next year to begin
shaping the 2011 fiscal-year budget. Divvying up costs -- The court was split
on whether the county has to pay for the upgrades, because the jail belongs
to the county, or whether CEC should be responsible for some of the repairs.
“We need to sit down and look item by item and decide if we need to do it,
they need to do it, or whatever,” County Judge Jim Lewis said in the budget
work session. One key issue is whether the housing agreement with CEC places
the responsibility for such repairs on the detention company. The contract
the county signed with CEC in October 2003 states that at the end of the
lease, the company “shall return the facility to the county in the same
condition as when leased, normal wear, tear and depreciation excepted.”
However, the most recent agreement signed in November 2008 does not include
that provision. None of the commissioners was aware of the change prior to
the meeting. It was not clear, both in court and meeting minutes, who drafted
the contracts and why the changes were made. Clause and effect -- “I assumed
it was the same contract that we had been renewing and renewing for the past
10 years (since CEC first began managing the jail),” Commissioner Ray Meadows
said. “We probably need to look at that and get at our attorney and see why
it was changed like that.” Commissioner Lester Gibson said even if the
original clause was still in effect, the county is responsible for these
major repairs to the downtown jail. Wilson said the county has not discussed
whether CEC would have to pitch in for some of the repairs. He said CEC
already took care of some upgrades on its own, such as replacing a nonworking
surveillance system and upgrading a portion of the intercom system. CEC is
moving the inmates from the downtown jail to the county’s new Jack Harwell
Detention Center on June 14, along with an estimated 100 Harris County
inmates.
May
14, 2010 KXXV
McLennan County's new Jack Harwell detention facility was completed in
February of this year, but now its 816 beds remain empty. The solution is to
transfer the entire population of the downtown jail to the brand new
facilities on Highway 6. The move is aimed to attract more outside contracts
to send inmates to the Harwell facility, and at the same time begin
generating revenue from the new jail in order to begin paying back the $49
million in bonds it cost to build. But it also means losing revenue generated
by the downtown jail; revenue which goes to the county's general fund, and
belongs to the taxpayers. Ken Witt, president of the McLennan County
Sheriff's Office Association, says the action doesn't do anything to create
new revenue. "It's not going to matter whether you transfer the downtown
out there or just pay it straight. It's going to be the money that was
originally already generated and it's not going to be new money," Witt
said. Community Education Centers, the company charged with managing the
jail, has agreed to pay the county $40,000 a month to mitigate the nearly
$60,000 in revenue the downtown jail was earning. But some, like TEA Party
member Marie McClellan, are afraid the agreement is too complex for taxpayers
to understand. "This is our money. I'm not certain who authorized this
and where this is going. Is this a business venture? Are the taxpayers on the
hook for this? If they can't find the population who pays for this,
eventually?," McClellan said. The Harwell unit will have until December
to reach 90 percent occupancy, about 734 inmates, before the downtown jail
can be reopened and begin generating revenue once more. But what happens if
the beds still aren't filled? Precinct One commissioner Kelly Snell, who
voted against the action, says it's time for a Plan B. "Not only have we
spent $49 million, but now we're getting less money than we projected to get
to start with. Now we really need to get an exit plan, because like I said
today, what happens if this don't work?," Snell said. McLennan County
Judge Jim Lewis told News Channel 25 by phone that Harris county and a dozen
other entities have already pledged to send inmates to the new jail, and he
hopes to have both jails full and making money within a few months.
May
6, 2010 Waco Tribune-Herald
The county’s treasurer is concerned taxpayers could be forced to repay
construction bonds on the new jail if the company hired to run it cannot.
While the company that evaluates the credit risks of proposed bonds agrees
with this view, confusion remains among county officials over whether the
county will have to pay for a facility that was to be built at no cost to
taxpayers. The Jack Harwell Detention Center was built using $49 million in
project revenue bonds issued by the McLennan County Public Facility Corp., a
seven-member board that includes the county commissioners court. Community
Education Centers of New Jersey, the private detention company contracted to
manage the jail, agreed to repay the bonds using revenue from housing state
and federal inmates. CEC has not lined up any housing agreements, and the
jail remains empty. Bill Helton, county treasurer and member of the public
facility corporation, said the situation raises the question of whether the
county is responsible for the debt if housing revenue cannot cover the bond payments.
The jail belongs to the county and is operated by CEC. “If you borrow money,
you’re expected to pay it back,” Helton said. “The PFC has indeed borrowed
money here by selling the bonds, and I anticipate that the bondholders are
going to want to be repaid.” A matter of obligation -- The responsibility of
repaying the bonds hinges on what party is legally obligated to pay the debt.
The bond document was prepared by investment banking firm Municipal Capital
Markets and outlines the construction project, projected revenues from the
jail and bond repayment schedule for potential investors. Helton said some
language in the bond documents implies that the county has promised to assist
with the debt. In the “risk factors” section of the bond documents, it states
that “the county presently intends to appropriate other available money of
the county, if necessary,” to make the bond payments. County attorney Herbert
Bristow said the county is not legally obligated to repay the bonds. He
points to language in the bond documents that states the county is not
required “to appropriate any money for payment of its obligations under the
lease.” The county only has to budget funds each year to pay for any county
inmates that are housed at the new jail, Bristow said. He added that the
commissioners court could choose yearly to budget money to help repay the
bonds. “It is so crystal clear to me, and it is crystal clear to the
bondholders, that the obligation to appropriate (county) funds is a
discretionary call for the commissioners to make, period,” Bristow said. But
James Breeding, director of Standard & Poors Rating Services in Dallas,
said the bond documents imply that the county would cover bond payments if
housing revenues fell short. “The way the docume |
