|
Victor Valley Medium Community Correctional Facility, Adelanto, California
April 23, 2008 Bakersfield Californian
A Bakersfield businessman lost one part of a two-year legal battle with
California prison officials recently when a state appellate court affirmed
a lower court’s rulings and ordered him to pay the state’s legal costs.
Terry Moreland, a developer who previously ran a private prison in San
Bernardino County, tangled unsuccessfully with corrections officials over
proceeds from inmate phone calls. The scuffle prompted the former head of
the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in June 2004 to
write a letter accusing Moreland, through his company Maranatha
Corrections LLC, of misappropriating more than $1 million worth of phone
call funds. The letter was later released to media outlets. Moreland, in
turn, sued the department for libel and defamation, saying the published
accusations hurt his reputation and business. Moreland’s attorney, George
C. Harris of San Francisco firm Morrison & Foerster,
said the appellate court’s decision only affects one aspect of the case:
whether the state defamed his client. The basic case alleging that the
state breached its contract, Harris said, will continue at the trial court
level. I FOUGHT THE LAW AND ... Moreland now owes the state more than
$71,000 in legal costs for the original case and the appeal, documents
recorded earlier this month in Sacramento Superior Court show. The state’s
defense was conducted by lawyers in the office of the California Attorney
General. The state lawyers invoked a statute meant to protect free speech
of state government executives and others in issues of public interest. The
statute can require people who sue for defamation to pay legal fees if they
lose. Application of the so-called “anti-SLAPP” motion, which stands for
“strategic lawsuit against public participation,” was unanimously affirmed
by the 3rd District Appellate Court’s opinion published in January. The
three justices in the Sacramento appellate court agreed with the trial
court that the former corrections chief, Jeanne S. Woodford, acted as a
government executive in a matter of public interest — $1.6 million worth of
disputed phone call revenue — when ending Maranatha’s
contract through her letter. “We conclude the trial court got it right on
all counts and shall affirm the orders,” the opinion says. The dispute over
the phone call revenue, at least in part, cost Moreland the $8.1 million
annual contract for his 500-bed Victor Valley Modified Community
Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in Adelanto. Moreland also
resisted the state’s push to audit the phone funds to see how they were
being spent, archived news stories show. Moreland said he wasn’t an agent
of the state. He sold the facility in 2005. Whether the state had claim to
the phone money wasn’t addressed by the trial or appellate courts, nor was
it decided by a November 2004 report by the state Office of the Inspector
General. The inspector general found Maranatha
and affiliates collected $1.6 million worth of the inmate phone money
between 1997 and 2004. Deciding who got to keep the money was outside the
scope of its investigation, the report said, but inspectors advised
corrections officials to be more specific in future contracts.
February 23, 2007 Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
A lobbyist involved in San Bernardino County's controversial purchase
of a private jail received a "substantial commission" on the
deal, a former official of the corrections company has told District
Attorney's investigators. The allegation contradicts prior statements by
the jail's former owner, Terry Moreland, and the lobbyist, Brett Granlund, that no commission was paid on the jail's
$31.2 million sale price. Jim Hackleman, the
county's assistant district attorney, said that even if Granlund
hid the commission, there would be no immediate legal issue as Granlund is not a public official and was not under
oath. "If the bottom line is that he received a commission and lied to
us about it, while disappointing, that would not be a criminal
offense," Hackleman said. The district attorney's
public integrity unit closed its investigation into the jail's purchase in
April, and the new allegation is not enough to warrant reopening it, he
said. County spokesman David Wert said Thursday that whether Granlund's involvement had no effect on the county's
decision to buy the Maranatha Corrections
Facility. "That prison was a sound financial decision, and a sound
decision in terms of public service," he said, noting that the
county's appraisal of the property showed the county had gotten its money's
worth.
September 16, 2006 San Bernardino County Sun
Twice in less than two months, top-ranking San Bernardino County
officials have dismissed their own attorneys'
conclusions of unethical behavior and misconduct in county affairs. The two
attorneys, Geoff Hopper and Leonard Gumport, have
both worked for the county for years and previously earned high praise for
their work. Gumport unraveled the county's 1990s
bribery scandals, and was invited back to investigate allegations of
misconduct in county land deals. Hopper was hired to protect the county
from more than a dozen lawsuits from former county employees. In separate
matters, both attorneys determined that individuals obligated to act in the
county's interest failed to do so. In a series of leaked memos in July,
Hopper alleged that the chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, Bill Postmus, tried to undercut the county's own legal
defense in a lawsuit brought by a former employee. The plaintiff, Elizabeth
Sanchez, resigned after disclosing that she was romantically involved with
Jim Erwin, an ally of Postmus and the
then-president of the county's public safety employees union.
August 7, 2006 San Bernardino County Sun
The president and founder of a lobbying firm under scrutiny for one of its
lobbyists' role in San Bernardino County's purchase of a High Desert jail
said Friday that his firm has done nothing wrong. According to a county
investigation report released last week, the firm's lobbyist, former
Assemblyman Brett Granlund, R-Yucaipa, pressed
for the county to buy the Maranatha Correctional
Facility in Adelanto without disclosing to top county officials that in
addition to representing the county, Granlund
also represented the jail's owner. The investigation, conducted by Los
Angeles attorney Leonard Gumport, found no
evidence that Granlund earned a commission in the
jail deal but concluded he had acted inappropriately. Darius Anderson, an
executive at Granlund's firm, Platinum Advisors,
said Friday that although he hadn't read Gumport's
report, he had seen a summary. "I'm extremely upset," Anderson
said Friday. "First of all, it has now been shown Mr. Gumport never talked to the county's legislative
director. It isn't like we were trying to hide the ball on this. I think
it's slanderous." Since Gumport completed
his investigation in October, county officials have determined that
Platinum had alerted the county to the contract with the jail owner, but
the information never made it to top county leaders. In a Jan. 10 letter,
the county's former director of legislative affairs, Jim Wiltshire, said
Platinum had informed him of its contract with Maranatha.
"To specifically address this single issue, I want to be on the record
that I was fully aware that the private-prison owners in Adelanto had
engaged the services (sic) Platinum Advisors," Wiltshire wrote. The
letter was addressed to County Administrative Officer Mark Uffer and copied to Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmus and to Platinum Advisors. Before Wiltshire
became the county's director of legislative affairs, he had been a
registered lobbyist for the county since June 1999, according to the
letter. Gumport's reports focus in part on Granlund and his role as a consultant for Maranatha and its owner, Terry Moreland, at the same
time he represented San Bernardino County as a lobbyist. Granlund's input was a factor in the county's $43
million lease and $28 million purchase of the Maranatha
facility, Gumport concluded.
August 1, 2006 Press Enterprise
San Bernardino County supervisors Tuesday released two confidential
investigative reports into the county's $28 million deal for a private jail
in Adelanto and the purchase of former county land by a supervisor's former
top aide. Supervisors waived their attorney-client privilege and made
public the reports by Los Angeles attorney Leonard Gumport,
a reversal of a decision in January to keep them secret. Supervisors
released the reports after learning the district attorney's office no longer
needed them for its ongoing investigations. Gumport
was charged with determining whether Jim Foster, the former chief of staff
to Supervisor Dennis Hansberger, violated policy when he purchased a small
piece of former surplus county land and whether lobbyist Brett Granlund participated in jail negotiations and
inappropriately benefited from the deal. Top county officials Tuesday were
quick to take issue with Gumport's findings on
the jail. County Administrative Officer Mark Uffer
released a point-by-point rebuttal to Gumport's
jail report and questioned why Gumport inquired
about issues beyond his original assignment. Board of Supervisors Chairman
Bill Postmus said in a statement he was
disappointed that the jail report "wandered so significantly from its
specific purpose." Postmus said the 700-bed
jail was critical in easing jail overcrowding. Gumport
declined on Tuesday to comment. In his jail report, Gumport
found Granlund violated a lobbying contract by
not informing the county in writing that he also represented the jail's
owner, Maranatha Corrections. Granlund
is a former Republican assemblyman from Yucaipa who now works for Platinum
Advisors, the county's Sacramento lobbyist. The contract violations likely
influenced the county's decision to buy the jail despite a moldy condition
and the lack of an "as is" appraisal, Gumport
concludes in the 105-page report. Granlund
encouraged county officials to buy the jail, but Gumport
found no evidence that he benefited financially. In his response, Uffer said Granlund had
contact with county officials but never with those actually negotiating the
specifics of the purchase. While Granlund did not
inform the county in writing about working for the jail owner, he did tell
former legislative affairs director Jim Wiltshire, who waived the written
requirement, Uffer said. Uffer
said appraisals are not typically done on leases, which the county
initially planned for the jail, and the mold was well known and easily
removed. Hansberger, long a critic of Granlund's
involvement, said Tuesday he has never been opposed to the jail and issues
such as mold have been corrected. Still, he said the county's process to
buy the jail appeared rushed and there was an attempt to gloss over some
deficiencies. Granlund said Tuesday that county
taxpayers got a steal with the jail. "They are safer today because
those 700 inmates are behind bars," he said. "If they want to
blame me for that, bring it on." The other Gumport
report looks into potential conflicts of interest in the purchase of former
county land by Foster, Hansberger's former chief of staff. Foster resigned
last September, a month after Gumport delivered
his report to the Board of Supervisors. At the time, Hansberger said the
report raised an appearance of a conflict of interest on Foster's part. In
the full 60-page report released Tuesday, Gumport
concludes that Foster likely violated both state and county
conflict-of-interest codes. It also describes Granlund's
role as a possible co-conspirator while casting doubt on the veracity of
some of his statements. The deal involved four-tenths of an acre in
Redlands that the county sold in a surplus land sale for $20,000 in 2001. A
partnership that Granlund was part of bought the
land. Granlund and his then-wife sold their
half-interest to Foster for $10,000 in 2002. The parcel was sold in 2003
for $100,000, netting Foster $36,000 in profits, according to the report.
Since March 2001, county ethics rules have barred county officials and
high-level employees, such as Foster, from buying surplus county land at
county-run auctions. The rules prohibit officials from bidding on property
themselves or buying it through an intermediary. Foster participated in the
county's discussions regarding sale of the land, including personally
showing it to Granlund and other partners,
according to the report. Granlund claimed that
from the beginning he bought the property with Foster as a silent partner,
according to statements he made to Gumport.
Foster says no such agreement was made. Granlund
said Tuesday he was not aware at the time of any county policy about buying
land. "I was in between being a legislator and a lobbyist," he
said. "I had no idea at that time what local county ordinances were
being written in Dennis Hansberger's office." Foster said Tuesday that
had just received the two reports that afternoon and did not have a chance
to read them yet. He said he disagrees with the conclusions Gumport reached. As he had before, Foster said Granlund raised the allegations because Foster opposed
attempts to help Granlund's clients. "Much
of his testimony is made up in order to make me look bad and get me out of
the county of San Bernardino, which he did," Foster said.
March 26, 2006 San Bernardino County Sun
San Bernardino County leaders have mischaracterized the findings of an
investigation into a $28 million prison purchase and should release
confidential documents related to the review, according to an internal
Board of Supervisors memo. In the memo dated Feb. 3, Supervisor Dennis
Hansberger urged the board to either release the actual report written by
Los Angeles attorney Leonard Gumport on the
county's purchase of an Adelanto jail facility or have Gumport
draft a more accurate summary of his findings than that released by the
county. "I have thoroughly reviewed the report prepared by Leonard Gumport regarding the Adelanto Jail purchase, and after
considering the matter at length, I have come to the conclusion that the
summary issued to the public by (County Administrative Officer) Mark Uffer's office on December 22, 2005, is a
mischaracterization and does not accurately represent the information in
the report," Hansberger wrote. The 3rd District supervisor said Friday
that none of his colleagues on the board has responded to his request,
which was made just three weeks after the other four supervisors opposed or
did not vote on his recommendation in January to fully disclose Gumport's report. Gumport
said he could not comment on Hansberger's memo or his investigation.
"Only the Board of Supervisors can decide if the investigation report
should be made public," Gumport said. Board
of Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmus and
supervisors Paul Biane, Gary Ovitt
and Josie Gonzales did not return calls seeking comment for this article
but have said in the past that releasing the report would compromise
attorney-client privilege. Uffer has repeatedly
said he stands by the summary statement as accurate. It was prepared under
his direction and reviewed for accuracy and completeness by Postmus and county attorneys. The county's summary states there was no criminal wrongdoing and that the
only violation of county policy was by former Assemblyman Brett Granlund, R-Yucaipa, a lobbyist for the county whose
firm also represented the jail's owner, Terry Moreland. Granlund
failed to properly disclose his conflict of interest to county officials,
but according to the county's summary, he had minimal involvement in the
deal and no influence on the negotiations. A review of public records,
however, shows: Granlund had more involvement in
the jail negotiations than county officials have acknowledged. Postmus, who approved the county's summary statement
and pushed for the jail acquisition, received gifts from Granlund's lobbying firm. Supervisors unanimously
approved the $43 million lease and terms of purchase - for $28 million -
without a completed appraisal. When completed, the county appraisal matched
the $28 million price exactly. Contacted last week, Granlund
again dismissed Gumport's investigation. "I
haven't seen the report," Granlund said.
"It's the oldest, deadest story. I won't have anything more to say
about it." Since January, Moreland has not responded to requests for
comment. A woman who answered the phone Wednesday at Moreland Corp. in
Bakersfield said, "We have no comment. I promise you that." 'Our
Lord cometh' In the mid-1990s, "offender management" had the
shine of opportunity for eager entrepreneurs. Stock analysts gave the
growing industry positive reviews. Rising crime rates and finite lockup
space made private prisons a lucrative venture. Such was the case for
Moreland, who saw San Bernardino County as a good place in which to build.
County officials were already anticipating a shortfall of inmate beds, and
a Georgia-based consultant that plans and designs lockups, Rosser
International Inc., projected the county's inmate population would double
by 2020. Sheriff Gary Penrod touted the study
repeatedly. Against this backdrop in 1997, Moreland began building a
500-bed private prison in Adelanto for state inmates. Moreland formed a
company to run his prison called Maranatha
Private Corrections. "Maran atha," an Aramaic phrase from the New Testament,
means "Our Lord cometh," "the Lord has come," or simply
"Come Lord!" The facility had problems from the outset. Building
costs rose from $11 million to $16 million after completion in 1998.
Moreland had disputes with construction workers, who eventually sued,
claiming they were underpaid. In 2004, Moreland found himself facing a
possible shutdown in a conflict with the state over $1.6 million in inmate
phone-call revenues. In July 2004, the state Department of Corrections
announced it would not renew its contract with Moreland's prison in
Adelanto, citing misappropriation of phone revenues. State officials sent
Moreland a 14-page letter detailing their intent to end the contract,
transfer inmates and shut down prison operations by Sept. 1, 2004. Moreland
disputed this in court, and a state report found vague contractual language
that absolved Moreland. At about the same time, San Bernardino County
officials were casting about for solutions to what Penrod
portrayed as an escalating inmate bed crisis. Penrod
had long argued the need for additional detention facilities to accommodate
the number of criminals coming out of the court system. The problem was not
new. In 2000, the county was criticized for housing inmates in tents at the
Central Detention Center in San Bernardino. Suspected offenders whose bail
was set at less than $100,000 were routinely released rather than held
because of the bed shortage. In 2004, Penrod
estimated 300 to 600 inmates per month slept on the floor and that county
jailers were granting early release to 700 felony offenders a month. While
Moreland's dispute with the Corrections Department was unfolding publicly
in 2004, Penrod felt justified in identifying
short-term solutions to the bed shortage. Building a 3,000-bed facility in
the High Desert would cost as much as $293 million, Penrod
said. Leasing existing facilities - Adelanto's city jail or Maranatha - could temporarily ease crowding for a
fraction of the cost. Penrod laid out the options
for supervisors in October 2004. His recommendation was that the county
lease Adelanto's city jail because the construction was stronger. That,
however, was not to be. A platinum connection Granlund
had already suggested to top county officials, including Postmus, that Maranatha was a
"golden opportunity" for the county. Granlund,
who had served two terms on the state Board of Prison Terms, was and is
employed by Platinum Advisors, a lobbying firm contracted by the county in
December 2002 for representation in Sacramento. With offices in Washington,
Los Angeles and San Francisco, Platinum Advisors is one of the state's top
lobbying firms. The firm's client list, in addition to San Bernardino
County, includes AshBritt Environmental, 24 Hour
Fitness, Cingular Wireless, Clear Channel Communications, Comcast Cable and
Johnson & Johnson. In 2003, the firm was hired by Moreland to represent
Maranatha in Sacramento. In July and August 2004,
Platinum and one of its clients, software giant Oracle, treated Postmus to three nearly sold-out Major League Baseball
games in three states along with dinner at a swank San Francisco
steakhouse, according to the state 700 disclosure forms of Postmus and his chief of staff, Brad Mitzelfelt. On each of the baseball dates, it was
unclear why Postmus and Mitzelfelt,
who reported two of the three games on his 700 forms, were on the road and
who paid their travel expenses. Two months earlier, the Board of
Supervisors had approved Postmus' recommendation
to increase Platinum's payment from $9,000 a month to $16,000 a month.
During the same period, Granlund, who had lobbied
for Maranatha in Sacramento, suggested to Postmus and others that the county consider buying Maranatha. County officials say Gumport's
investigation determined Granlund had violated
county policy by failing to notify county officials in writing of his
conflict of interest. County officials have refused to release the findings
of the investigation but have said in a prepared release that the
investigation found no further wrongdoing.
January 13, 2006 The Press Enterprise
San Bernardino County for years had not enforced a requirement that the
county's lobbying firms disclose in writing ties to other companies, a
former county legislative director said Thursday. Instead, the lobbying
firms -- including Sacramento-based Platinum Advisors -- informally
disclosed new clients so the county could determine potential conflicts of
interest, said Jim Wiltshire, legislative director from November 2002 to
March 2004. The county's lobbying contracts came under scrutiny after Los
Angeles lawyer Leonard Gumport investigated the
role a lobbyist for Platinum Advisors played in the purchase of a private
prison in Adelanto from Maranatha Corrections.
Brett Granlund, a former Republican assemblyman
from Yucaipa who now works for Platinum Advisors, did not participate in
direct purchase talks with county officials, Gumport
concluded, according to a county statement on his report. But Granlund failed to disclose in writing that he
represented Maranatha Corrections and encouraged
county officials to consider buying the private prison, Gumport
concluded. Wiltshire said he was fully aware that Maranatha
Corrections had hired Platinum Advisors. In a letter this week to County
Administrative Officer Mark Uffer, Wiltshire said
he knew of the lobbying firms' new clients and during his tenure
"never asked for a letter to announce their retention of
services." "While I recognize that this technically violates a
provision of the contract, the practice of informal communication certainly
fulfilled the spirit of the provision," wrote Wiltshire, who was
legislative director when the county hired Platinum Advisors. Wiltshire
left the county several months before the jail talks began. Since he did
not require lobbying firms to send letters listing their clients, his
successors wouldn't have known about Platinum's ties to Maranatha,
even though it was disclosed, he said.
January 11, 2006 The Press Enterprise
San Bernardino County supervisors defeated an effort Tuesday to
publicly release an investigative report into the county's $31 million
purchase of a private prison in Adelanto. Supervisor Dennis Hansberger
introduced the measure, saying the report's release would build public
trust and outweigh any potential lawsuits the county might face as a
result. His attempts to release the report failed on a 4-1 vote, with
supervisors Bill Postmus, Paul Biane, Gary Ovitt and Josie
Gonzales voting to keep the report secret. "Openness would serve us
all very, very well," Hansberger said. Postmus
said the report is covered by attorney-client privilege, and that the
county's lawyers and the report's author have recommended against its
release. "The county could prejudice itself" if the report became
public, Postmus warned. The purchase of the
prison from Maranatha Corrections LLC came under
scrutiny when the county asked Los Angeles lawyer Leonard Gumport to investigate the role the county's Sacramento
lobbyist played in the deal. Brett Granlund, a
former Republican assemblyman from Yucaipa and now a lobbyist with Platinum
Advisors, did not participate in direct purchase talks with county
officials, Gumport concluded, according to a
county statement on his report. But Gumport did
find that Granlund encouraged county officials to
consider buying the private prison, solicited information and took part in
prison discussions. At the same time, Granlund
failed to disclose in writing that he represented Maranatha
Corrections -- a requirement under Platinum's contract with the county.
January 7, 2006 The Press-Enterprise
Three little words. That's all it would have taken for former Assemblyman
Brett Granlund to remain above reproach in San
Bernardino County's purchase of the Adelanto private prison. "They're
my client." That's all he needed to say about Maranatha
Corrections LLC, the owner of the prison, when he recommended to county
officials that the county acquire it as a High Desert jail. Three days before
Christmas, county officials released a summary of an investigation into the
county lobbyist's actions. The investigation by Los Angeles-based lawyer
Leonard Gumport found that Granlund
urged county officials, including County Administrative Officer Mark Uffer, to consider buying Maranatha's
prison without properly disclosing that Maranatha
was also a client. The county is supposed to be protected from such
conflicts of interest. High-powered Sacramento lobbying firm Platinum
Advisors, Granlund's employer, is required to
notify the county in writing whenever it adds clients so the county can
screen out potential conflicts of interest. So what Granlund
did is not only an ethical breach, it's a breach of his lobbying firm's
contract. According to the California Secretary of State's online report,
Platinum Advisors has added at least 28 lobbying clients since last
providing a client list to San Bernardino County three years ago. Platinum
Advisors President Darius Anderson did not respond to three phone calls to
comment Friday. Granlund didn't return my call
either. So what sanctions has the county levied against Platinum or Granlund for the failure to disclose the relationship
with Maranatha? None. Why are county officials so
indifferent to the breach of the explicit terms of their lobbyist's
contract? Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmus
didn't respond to repeated calls Friday. No one is saying the jail wasn't a
good buy. But notifying one client when you're advocating to him about
another is a no-brainer: Lobbying 101. The omission should have prompted
the supervisors to immediately fire Granlund and
put Platinum Advisors on notice that any more goofs like that would end the
firm's $245,000 contract. But county officials say they consider the matter
closed. Uffer told me it's up to Platinum to
discipline Granlund and decide whether he
continues to represent the county. This is a stunningly hands-off attitude
from a man who a year ago fired a protégé for failing to disclose a
romantic relationship, even though Uffer said the
county wasn't harmed. When I asked Uffer about
it, he said the county's lobbyists don't work for him; they work for the
Board of Supervisors. Come on. Uffer is the
county's chief executive. A contract extension for Platinum Advisors just
approved by the board authorizes Uffer to extend
it another three months at his sole discretion. So saying he's powerless
doesn't fly. County officials pay a lot of lip service to restoring public
confidence in county government. If they're sincere, they should sanction Granlund and Platinum immediately. Otherwise, other
county contractors will infer that they're free to violate the ethical
terms of their contracts without fear of consequences. Cassie MacDuff can be reached at (909) 806-3068 or cmacduff@pe.com
January 8, 2006 The Press-Enterprise
A 706-bed detention center will go a long way toward easing the space
crunch in San Bernardino County's jails, county officials said. Turning the
former private prison into a jail the county could use wasn't easy. The
jail needed more than $3 million in renovations to meet state standards.
That's on top of the $28 million the county paid to Moreland Family LLC and
Maranatha Corrections LLC. The purchase also came
under scrutiny when the county asked Los Angeles lawyer Leonard Gumport to investigate the role a Sacramento-based
lobbyist played in the deal. Gumport found that
former Assemblyman Brett Granlund, R-Yucaipa, the
county's lobbyist, failed to properly disclose his ties to the private
prison when he encouraged county officials to consider the site. Granlund represented the prison's owners before the
state Department of Corrections. The lobbying contract with the county
required the notification. Inmates at the former private prison were
allowed microwaves and irons and to freely walk from their beds to the
recreation yard and even to the cafeteria, sheriff's officials said. If the
county had built the jail from the ground up, it would have done things
differently, said Sgt. Laurie Savage, a 20-year department veteran working
on the county's transition into the detention center. "We have much
more stringent guidelines," Savage said as she recently walked through
the jail. "It is a different set up." Stainless steel toilets
replaced porcelain ones, which can be broken and turned into weapons. In
many areas, solid ceilings replaced drop ceilings to prevent inmates from
escaping into the rafters.
January 6, 2006 The Press-Enterprise
San Bernardino County must do better at overseeing the companies it
contracts with after its lobbyist failed to properly disclose his ties to a
private prison, the county's top executive said Thursday. Former
Assemblyman Brett Granlund, the county's
Sacramento lobbyist, did not report in writing that he represented the
prison's owners when he encouraged county officials to consider buying the
Adelanto facility to help ease jail crowding. The county's contract with
Platinum Advisors, Granlund's firm, requires the
notification. "It is important that you hold the contractor to
it," County Administrative Officer Mark Uffer
said. "We just have to do a better job managing
contracts." The county's $31 million purchase of the private
prison from Moreland Family LLC and Maranatha
Corrections LLC came under scrutiny when Los Angeles attorney Leonard Gumport investigated Granlund's
role in the purchase. Granlund did not
participate in direct purchase negotiations with any county official, Gumport concluded, according to a county summary of his
report. But Gumport did find that Granlund encouraged county officials to consider buying
the private prison, solicited information and took part in jail
discussions. Granlund failed to properly disclose
in writing that he represented the prison's owners before the state
Department of Corrections.
December 27, 2005 Daily Bulletin
San Bernardino County's synopsis of a five-month-long investigation into
county land deals, including the $31.2 million purchase of a private jail
in Adelanto, frowns on the actions of former Assemblyman Brett Granlund, R-Yucaipa. At the same time, it neatly
absolves county employees and county executives of any wrongdoing. That's
nice. But the conclusions reached in the county summary, signed off on by
county executives and released last week, cannot be taken literally without
a full examination of the report itself. The county commissioned the report
into five years' worth of county transactions involving surplus land after
first asking attorney Leonard Gumport to
investigate a suspect purchase Jim Foster, former chief of staff to
Supervisor Dennis Hansberger. Foster resigned, though that first report was
never released either. Foster then turned around and questioned
negotiations for the purchase of the Maranatha
Jail, citing involvement his former land partner, Granlund,
and county Chief Administrative Officer Mark Uffer.
Uffer has tried to distance himself from working
with Granlund on the purchase. And to that
effect, the county's unsigned, five-page statement whitewashes Uffer's role, while pointing fingers at Granlund as lobist for both
the jail and the county. Indeed, the county summary makes a point of noting
that Granlund's promptings had no bearing on Uffer's decision to pursue and recommend purchase of
the Maranatha facility. The error, the statement
says, was in Granlund's not disclosing his
potential conflict of interest. Granlund was
representing the owner of the jail in a legal matter at the same time he
was urging Uffer to purchase the jail to relieve
chronic overcrowding of the county's facilities. Though county executives
claim otherwise, there may be more here than meets the eye. The county
statement says Gumport's investigation found
nothing to indicate criminal behavior on the part of any county employee or
official. If true, then how can the county base its refusal to release the Gumport report on the need to protect information
"that might serve as the basis of future litigation the county"?
It pretty much shoots a hole in the county's standard "attorney-client
privilege" defense. If there is nothing to hide, then why is the
county still sitting on the report? County taxpayers should demand the
report of Gumport's inquiry be released in its
entirety. Nothing is certain without seeing the report in full.
December 23, 2005 Los Angles
Times
One of San Bernardino County's Sacramento lobbyists
encouraged county officials to buy a jail in Adelanto without disclosing
that he worked for the jail's owner, a county investigation has found. But
it also "found nothing to indicate criminal behavior on anyone's
part," said a statement released by the county Thursday. The lobbyist,
former Assemblyman Brett Granlund, told two top
county officials in 2004 that the private jail was a "quality
facility" that could help ease crowding in
the county's chronically packed jails, according to the statement. In
January, county supervisors agreed to buy the jail for $31 million. At the
time he was recommending the purchase, Granlund,
a Republican who had represented Yucaipa while an assemblyman, was working
for the jail's owner, Terry Moreland, and his companies, according to the
four-page statement. Granlund works for the firm
Platinum Advisors LLC. Granlund should have
disclosed his relationship with Moreland to county officials in writing,
concluded Leonard Gumport, a Los Angeles attorney
the county hired to investigate the jail purchase and other matters. But Gumport found that Granlund
did not unduly influence County Administrative Officer Mark Uffer, Sheriff Gary Penrod or
other staffers responsible for researching the jail purchase, and that the
lobbyist did not receive a commission from the sale. County officials would
release only a summary of Gumport's findings,
saying they involve a personnel matter and that their release would violate
the privacy of employees interviewed and could potentially be used for
lawsuits. The county has rejected a public records request from The Times
asking for the entire report, which totals more than 100 pages.
December 1, 2005 San Bernardino Sun
The county's newest jail will cost several hundred
thousand dollars less than expected because the owner failed to meet the
agreed-upon completion deadline. The San Bernardino County Board of
Supervisors agreed to purchase the Maranatha
Correctional Facility in February for $28 million and approved an additional
$3.2 million for renovations. Its new name will be the Adelanto Detention
Center. It will have about 700 beds for inmates. The state prisoners housed
in the private prison were moved to other facilities in June. The county is
facing crowding in all its jails, and officials have touted the purchase of
the jail as a much-needed "Band-Aid" for the problem. The
purchase of the jail has been investigated by Los Angeles-based attorney
Leonard Gumport, who was commissioned by the
county. The jail's purchase became part of an investigation into county
land deals when a former county executive accused county Chief
Administrative Officer Mark Uffer of negotiating
the purchase with former Assemblyman Brett Granlund,
R-Yucaipa. Granlund's lobbying company, Platinum
Investments, included the county as well as the Maranatha
facility as clients at the time. Uffer has denied
any wrongdoing. Granlund has said Platinum only
represented the jail in front of the state Department of Corrections and
was not involved in the jail purchase. As part of the $28 million purchase
price, the owner of the facility, Terry Moreland of Moreland Family LLC,
agreed to complete some renovations to bring it up to the county's
standards. The county also retained Moreland's services to do an additional
$3.2 million of construction work. The deadline for the remediation work
was Oct. 1, but Moreland asked for and received a 45-day extension. But
once the Nov. 15 deadline passed, the company began accruing $20,000 in
daily late fines. The work was completed Monday, according to Assistant
County Administrator Gerry Newcombe. The county
will subtract the late fines - about $260,000 - from the building's price
when it pays Moreland Family LLC.
October 16, 2005 Inland Valley Daily
Bulletin
San Bernardino County aide Jim Foster resigned following a questionable
county land deal, but that wasn't the end of it. The report on those
alleged transgressions was handed over to the county Board of Supervisors
at the end of August by attorney Leonard Gumport.
That report was never made public. And a month and a half later,
supervisors still have not passed it on to the District Attorney's Office,
where a determination on whether to prosecute Foster needs to be made.
Foster is the former chief of staff for county Supervisor Dennis
Hansberger. Foster is accused of buying county surplus land through an
intermediary, in violation of county ethics policy, and then selling it two
years later for a 400 percent profit. Gumport's
initial report concerned Foster. But the county expanded Gumport's directive to include looking into all county
land sales over the last five years, at least partly in response to
Foster's claim of conflict of interest in the county's purchase of a
private jail in Adelanto. Part II of that inquiry arrived at the County
Government Center on Wednesday. And taxpayers are just as anxious now as
they were when the Foster report was issued to see what Gumport
has unearthed.
September 9, 2005 Press Enterprise
San Bernardino County Supervisor Dennis Hansberger's longtime chief of
staff resigned Thursday after an internal investigation raised concerns
about a conflict of interest involving his purchase of former county land.
Hansberger announced the decision in a statement Thursday, saying that Jim
Foster believes he has become a distraction and wants the county to move
forward. Los Angeles lawyer Leonard Gumport
concluded a monthlong inquiry in August into the
sale of fourth-tenths of an acre in Redlands. In May 2001, the county sold
the land to former Assemblyman Brett Granlund,
his wife and another couple. Granlund, now a
county lobbyist with the Sacramento firm Platinum Advisors, sold the
half-interest he and his wife held in the land to Foster for $10,000 in
2002. The parcel sold in 2003 for $100,000. Since March 2001, county ethics
rules have barred top county employees from buying county land at auction,
either directly or through an intermediary. The report, which county officials have declined to release,
raises sufficient concerns that a conflict of interest may have occurred in
the land sale, Hansberger's statement said. Gumport,
who won multimillion-dollar judgments in the county's anticorruption
lawsuit against former county officials and the businessmen who had bribed
them, also is scrutinizing other recent county land deals. That
investigation is expected to include the county's recent purchase of a
private prison in Adelanto.
August 4, 2005 Monterey County Herald
Keeping a lawsuit alive, a Monterey County judge has ruled that
reservations to buy homes and written acknowledgement of selling prices in
a Gonzales subdivision could constitute legally enforceable contracts.
Judge Robert O'Farrell rejected a motion by Moreland Corp. to dismiss two
lawsuits filed by three prison employees who allege the Bakersfield
developer raised the purchase price well beyond what they agreed to pay for
homes in Cipriani Estates. Moreland, which
specializes in developing land near prisons, also runs private prisons in
Southern California under contract with the state. The contracts have led
to a series of disputes between the company and the state Department of
Corrections, which is now attempting to collect more than $1.6 million it
says Moreland misappropriated. The money came from collect phone calls
placed by inmates at Moreland's 550-bed prison near Adelanto,
money that the state says was supposed to go into prison programs and
upgrades.
July 26, 2005 The Press-Enterprise
Former Assemblyman Brett Granlund said Monday he
played no role in negotiating San Bernardino County's $31 million purchase
of a private prison in Adelanto. The County Board of Supervisors
unanimously agreed in April to buy the private prison to relieve chronic
jail crowding. The 13-acre facility is owned and operated under a state
contract by Terry Moreland and his companies, Moreland Family LLC and Maranatha Corrections LLC. The county first
agreed in January to lease the prison but had the option to buy it.
Meanwhile, no money has yet been paid to Maranatha
on the prison purchase, county spokesman David Wert said
Monday. When the deal is finalized, Maranatha
must disclose any commission bonuses, finder's fees or other compensation
paid to any third party in the prison purchase, according to the board's
April 5 vote. Granlund, now a county lobbyist,
said he spoke with County Administrative Officer Mark Uffer
about the prison in March but only as a courtesy to Moreland. Uffer was unavailable for comment Monday, Wert
said. Granlund said he represented Maranatha before the state Department of Corrections
and worked with Moreland on securing a private loan. Supervisor Dennis
Hansberger and Jim Foster, his chief of staff, have questioned Granlund's involvement in the prison purchase in recent
weeks. "My concern at the time was, you can't have the same guy
representing both sides," said Foster, who is on paid administrative
leave pending the outcome of an investigation into whether he violated
county ethics rules when buying former county land. Granlund said he was at the prison when county
officials toured it for the first time. But he said he was researching Maranatha's dispute with the Department of Corrections
over prisoner phone use.
July 21, 2005 Bakersfield
A Bakersfield businessman's sale of a privately operated prison has become
mired in a widening investigation of possible land-sale irregularities in
San Bernardino County. A key figure in the probe is a Sacramento
lobbyist who represents Terry Moreland of Bakersfield. Moreland earlier
this year sold the private prison he built and operated for years in the
desert town of Adelanto to San Bernardino County, which wants to expand its
jail facilities. The lobbyist, Brett Granlund,
a former assemblyman from Yucaipa, works for Platinum Advisors, a top
Sacramento lobbying firm which also represents San Bernardino County.
A fierce battle of words has broken out among warring factions of San
Bernardino County officials over whether Granlund
represented both parties in the sale of the prison, which could constitute
a conflict of interest. One San Bernardino County supervisor, Dennis
Hansberger, and his top aide have charged that Granlund
acted improperly in the prison sale. County officials earlier
directed an outside attorney, Leonard Gumport, to
investigate the land deal involving Foster. This week, county officials
said Gumport's probe is being expanded to include
the prison sale. The minimum-security community correctional facility
was purchased by San Bernardino County in April for $31 million, newspapers
in San Bernardino and Riverside have reported. Granlund
said he spent five hours answering questions from Gumport
on Wednesday. "I think it went fine," he said. Granlund said he only represents Moreland in dealing
with issues he has with the state Department of Corrections. "At
no time did I advise the county or act as a representative of the county to
Moreland," Granlund said. He said he
believes he initially informed county officials that he was aware from
Moreland that the prison might be for sale and that he was coincidentally
at the prison the first time county officials toured it. Moreland, who did
not respond to a request for comment, is no stranger to controversy. Last
year, the state Department of Corrections accused him of misappropriating
more than $1 million in inmate telephone revenues at the Adelanto prison.
Moreland emphatically denied any wrongdoing. Prison officials said Thursday
the issue still has not been resolved. Earlier last year, Moreland
settled a class-action lawsuit that claimed he underpaid workers who built
the prison in 1997 and 1998.
July 20, 2005 The Press-Enterprise
San Bernardino County's investigation into land deals will expand to
examine its $31 million purchase of a private prison in Adelanto, Board of
Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmus said
Tuesday. Part of the inquiry into the sale will focus on the
involvement of former Assemblyman Brett Granlund,
who works for the county's Sacramento lobbying firm Platinum
Advisors. County officials Tuesday disagreed over Granlund's
role in the prison purchase. Supervisor Dennis Hansberger; Jim
Foster, Hansberger's chief of staff; and a Sheriff's Department executive
who oversees jails said Granlund represented the
seller, Terry Moreland and his Maranatha
Corrections firm, while acting as a county lobbyist. Such a dual role,
representing both buyer and seller, would represent a conflict, Hansberger
said. Attorney Leonard Gumport arrived
Monday to head up the inquiry. Gumport, who won
multimillion dollar judgments in the county's anti-corruption lawsuit
against former county officials and the businessmen who bribed them, will
investigate the Granlund-Foster deal, the prison
purchase and other recent land transactions, Postmus
said. Gumport's contract, first signed in 2000,
was increased $200,000 Tuesday to $3.7 million. San Bernardino County
bought the private Adelanto prison in April to relieve chronic jail
crowding. The 13-acre private prison was owned and operated under a $59
million state contract by Moreland and his companies, Moreland Family LLC
and Maranatha Corrections LLC. Granlund worked for Moreland on the sale and was at the
Adelanto prison the first time sheriffs' officials toured the facility last
fall, said Deputy Chief Bill Cates, whose division oversees county
jails. Platinum listed Maranatha Corrections
among its clients as early as February 2003. Foster and Granlund are former partners in a billboard business,
the Colorado River Indian Land Company. Granlund,
elected to the Yucaipa City Council in 1992, won an Assembly seat in 1994
representing Yucaipa and parts of Riverside County. Foster was his chief of
staff. Granlund, a Republican, left office
in November 2000, forced out by term limits. He was on the state
Board of Prison Terms from February 2001 to May 2002, when he left to work
for Platinum, a top-grossing lobbying firm in Sacramento. Granlund, his wife, and another couple bought
four-tenths of an acre of land in Redlands in May 2001. The Granlunds, in the midst of a divorce, sold their
half-interest to Foster and his wife in June 2002. The parcel, acquired for
$20,000, sold for $100,000 in September 2003. Granlund,
in published reports, said he bought the land to help Foster get around
county rules barring top county officials from buying land at county
auctions.
January 22, 2005 Press Enterprise
A dispute between the state Department of Corrections and the operator of a
private prison in Adelanto opened a window of opportunity for San
Bernardino County. The state had threatened to pull its prisoners out of Maranatha Corrections LLC's Victor Valley Medium
Community Corrections Facility in the dispute over $1.6 million in revenue
from collect phone calls placed by inmates. Maranatha's
owner, Terry Moreland, decided to get out while the getting was good. Rather than hope the state would renew his
contract to house inmates, he offered to lease the private prison to the
county, which needs more jail space in the High Desert. The state's loss is
the county's and Maranatha's gain. The dispute
between the state and the private prison operator exposed a serious flaw in
the contract the state drew up: It failed to spell out to whom the
telephone revenue belonged. Private prison operators collected $2.7 million
from inmate phone calls last year. When it opened the prison in
1997, Maranatha negotiated a phone service deal
with Global Tel*Link to keep 45 percent of gross revenue from those calls.
A review by the inspector general showed Maranatha
received more than $1.6 million from inmate calls between November 1997 and
June 30, 2004. According to the inspector general, private prison operators
are using the money to offset costs they're responsible for anyway,
enabling them to increase their profits. The practice also circumvents
state budget control and oversight, and distorts the true cost of operating
private prisons, the inspector general said.
January 15, 2005 Bakersfield
Californian
A Bakersfield company that runs a private prison in Adelanto is being
sued over a pay dispute, the second such lawsuit the company has been hit
with. Gary Scott and Mario Gonzales sued Maranatha
Corrections Dec. 17. Scott and Gonzales said they have not been paid for
all of the hours they worked and have not been allowed to take breaks. Not allowing employees to take breaks
violates labor codes, their attorney, Philip Ganong,
said. Ganong said the people who run the prison
may have skimped on manpower and couldn't allow employees to take a break
in order to keep staffing up to standard. He said the situation
has been going on since 1998. The prison had an $81 million a year contract
with the state. The California Department of Corrections threatened to yank
the contract with the medium-security prison last year in a dispute over
more than $1 million generated by inmate telephone calls. As a result, Maranatha agreed to lease the prison to San Bernardino
County with an option to buy starting this fall. State prisoners should be
out by this summer, Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said. The prison
previously settled a lawsuit with hundreds of construction workers who sued
because they said they weren't paid from April 1997 to June 1998.
November 26, 2004 Victor Valley Daily
Press
Negotiators will return to the bargaining table next month in an attempt to
settle a contract dispute over $1.6 million generated by prisoners
use of pay phones at the Victor Valley Community Corrections Facility. The
California Department of Corrections believes The Maranatha
Corp., a Christian faith-based private community corrections operator that
runs the prison, misappropriated the money by spending it on prisoner
reform programs. The CDC has threatened to shut down the prison if the
money is not repaid. "That is where we were heading initially, we were
moving to shut it down," said Margot Bach, spokeswoman for the
department of corrections. "The worst-case scenario would be that we
would move the prisoners back to prison or other community correctional
facilities." A Jan. 31 deadline has been set to either resolve the
issue or terminate the state's contract with Maranatha,
which would mean closing the facility and putting its 90 employees out of
work. A recent review of the matter by the Inspector General's Office
offered little help in resolving the dispute. The report did point out that
state-run prisons return $26 million generated annually from prisoner
telephone usage to the state's general fund, but community correction
facilities across the state typically use the $2.7 million they collect
annually from prisoner telephone usage for prison upgrades, prisoner
programs and for costs associated with the prisoner telephone program. The report concludes by suggesting that any
future contracts between the state and private prison contractors should
either stipulate that the money go into the state's general fund or gets
used for upgrades to the prison.
The state Department of Corrections is
accusing Bakersfield businessman Terry Moreland of misappropriating more
than $1 million in inmate telephone revenues at a private prison he runs in
San Bernardino County. State prisons director Jeanne S. Woodford got
tough in a June 29 letter to Moreland. After more than two years of
Moreland's refusal to allow an audit of the prison's use of revenues
generated from inmate telephone calls, Woodford said the state has given up
and concluded that he misused the money. She said the state plans to
terminate its $8.1 million per year contract with the 550-bed,
medium-security Victor Valley Modified Community Correctional as of Sept.
30. That deadline has since been extended to Oct. 31. The
contract normally would run for four more years. The prison is
operated by Maranatha Corrections LLC, a
Bakersfield company headed by Moreland. Moreland denied
misappropriating the money. He said he has put it back into the prison to
benefit inmates, and even supplemented it with his own funds. But he
insists the state has no right to audit his books or dictate how he should
spend the telephone money. State officials disagree. They insist that
the inmate telephone money is supposed to be returned to the state's general
fund budget. Margot Bach, spokeswoman for the Department of
Corrections, said the state's immediate goal is to find out what happened
to the money. "We want them to account for the money that is
owed to the state of California," Bach said. (Bakers Field,
September 2, 2004)
The state Department of Corrections will
not renew its contract with the privately run Victor Valley Medium
Community Correctional Facility in Adelanto, forcing the 500-bed prison to
close within two months, officials said Friday. State officials sent
Bakersfield-based Maranatha a 14-page letter
announcing their intention to end the contract, reassign the inmates and
shut down prison operations by Sept. 1, said Margot Bach, corrections
spokeswoman. Maranatha reportedly
misappropriated about $1 million in revenue from the inmate telephone call
fund at the prison which should have gone to the Department of Corrections,
Bach said. (Victor Valley Daily Press, July 3, 2004)
A 28-year-old man jailed on drug charges
escaped from a medium-security prison here, officials said Monday. Guards
discovered Bounham Luangaphay
had disappeared when they conducted a prisoner count around 9 p.m. Sunday,
said Angela Valles, assistant facility director
at Victor Valley Medium Community Correctional Facility. The prison has
been on lockdown status since Luangaphay went
missing. How Luangaphay may have escaped from the
Victor Valley prison, run by Maranatha Private
Corrections, is still under investigation. (Daily Press, June 25, 2002)
Eight inmates and two employees at a
medium-security private prison were injured Tuesday when a fight broke out
between 135 black and Hispanic inmates, officials said. The most seriously
injured inmate at the Victor Valley Medium Community Corrections Facility
suffered possible broken ribs and bruises and swelling to his head. A
female sergeant with Maranatha Private
Corrections LLC, which operates the men's prison for the state, was hit in
the head with a microwave oven and received 14 stitches at an urgent-care
facility. (The Press-Enterprise, October 17, 2001)
A 19-year old man who escaped from a
prison here Sunday afternoon remained free for about 12 hours before being
he was captured at his mother's home in Ontario. Picazo
escaped from the prison about 5 p.m. Sunday. CDC officers have not
determined how the man got out, said Lee Cribb, a
spokesman for Maranatha private Corrections,
which owns the place. (Daily Press, Dec. 7, 2000)
|
