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Callaway County Jail
Fulton, Missouri
Correctional Medical Services
November 17, 2005 Fulton Sun
With half a month left before inmates at the Callaway County Jail lose their
healthcare provider, county officials believe they have found a new provider,
one that will offer more benefits at a cheaper rate. The Callaway County
Commission decided Wednesday morning to pursue using Advanced Correctional
Healthcare to provide medical services to the county's inmates. After
Correctional Medical Services - which will provide the county's healthcare
until Nov. 30 - notified the county that it was pulling out of the contract
at the end of October, Callaway officials have been hurriedly looking for
another provider. "I was really concerned when the sheriff said (CMS)
would no longer be providing services," said county auditor Rosemary Gannaway. "That was the scary part." CMS
generally provides medical services to institutions larger than county jails,
but because of Callaway's proximity to the Department of Corrections in
Jefferson City - which CMS services - CMS agreed to cover the Callaway jail, Gannaway said. CMS provided a nurse practitioner to work
18 hours a week at the jail, as well as an on-call doctor. Because the nurse
practitioner recently accepted another job, Gannaway
said CMS decided to end the contract rather than trying to find another nurse
practitioner to fill the position.
Chillicothe Correctional Center
Chillicothe, Missouri
Arizona prisons in
health-care quandary:
February 16, 2012, Bob Ortega, The Arizona Republic. Expose on
for-profit health providers
Nov 30, 2019
kansascity.com
Therapist sexually abused women at Missouri prison for years, lawsuit says
A therapist
who worked at a Missouri prison for women sexually abused his patients for
years and preyed on inmates with mental health issues, according to a federal
lawsuit. While the counselor, John Thomas Dunn, was known by inmates as a
“creep,” his criminal behavior at Chillicothe Correctional Center did not end
until he was arrested by an outside agency, the lawsuit contends. The lawsuit
was filed by 49-year-old Teresa Ketner, who said she was sexually assaulted
by Dunn while she was confined at the state Department of Corrections
facility for possession of a controlled substance. There, she sought
counseling to address her history of trauma and hoped to secure a referral to
a psychiatric professional. She was assigned to Dunn, and became his victim,
according to the lawsuit. She said she still has nightmares. “It’s hell,”
Ketner said in a phone interview from her home in the Lake of the Ozarks
area. “I hope these people have to answer for what they’ve done.” The
allegation was not the first against Dunn. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to
sexual conduct with another prisoner. The year after, another woman, Karen Backues Keil, filed a lawsuit alleging Dunn began
sexually assaulting her after she was raped by a guard at the facility. As
many as nine women have accused Dunn of wrongdoing, whether officially or
not, Ketner’s attorney, Brendan Roediger, told The Star. Roediger said as far
as he knows, the Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to investigate
sexual misconduct at Chillicothe Correctional Center, which is about 90 miles
northeast of Kansas City. In February, the other woman suing Dunn was
informed the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating the possibility of
federal criminal charges. Ketner’s lawsuit names as defendants Dunn; Corizon
Health Inc., which employed him and has a contract with Missouri prisons; and
three other people, including Dunn’s supervisor and a state employee who
investigated Ketner’s allegations. They had an obligation to work to prevent
inmates from being abused and failed to protect Ketner, according to the
lawsuit. Corizon Health and the Department of Corrections did not respond to
emails seeking comment Wednesday. Dunn could not be reached for comment by
phone and no one answered the door at his listed Kansas City address. Dunn’s
attorney has said he no longer works at the prison. The federal lawsuit was
the fifth filed since mid-2018 to allege sexual assault at Chillicothe
Correctional Center. Ketner was at the prison from 2013 to February 2015. She
sought counseling and medication for post-traumatic stress disorder,
depression and anxiety, but she was told she first had to speak with a
counselor and be given a referral, her lawsuit states. Dunn was assigned as
her counselor. He harassed her from the beginning, directly asking her, according
to the lawsuit: “Would you like to be molested?” and laughed. The sexual
abuse occurred in Dunn’s office, which had no cameras, according to Ketner’s
lawsuit. During sessions, he kept the door shut and the shades pulled down,
Ketner’s attorneys wrote in the suit. The correctional center has
historically placed inmates in solitary confinement, cutting them off from
visitation, when they reported Prison Rape Elimination Act violations,
according to the lawsuit. Ketner has been in solitary, also known as the
“hole,” before. It was cold and scary, she said, so she didn’t report the
alleged abuse. Ketner was released from the correctional facility in 2015 and
returned in 2016. She feared being abused. She requested to see a mental
health provider other than Dunn. When Ketner came forward, her allegations
were investigated by a corrections employee who had no authority to
investigate Prison Rape Elimination Act violations, according to the lawsuit.
He made sexually suggestive comments as he interrogated Ketner, the suit
says. That investigator threatened Ketner with solitary and additional
charges if she did not recant her story, her attorneys said. The
investigator, she told The Star, asked her: “Why would he go after you when
there’s young, beautiful women on this camp?” “Like I’m too old and ugly to
rape,” Ketner said. The investigator did not substantiate Ketner’s complaint
and Dunn was allowed to continue working at Chillicothe Correctional Center,
according to the lawsuit. After Dunn was arrested in 2017, another
investigator reviewed previous probes of allegations against Dunn. The new
investigator substantiated Ketner’s claim and determined the other employee
“acted outside his scope of duty,” the suit says. Ketner said she hopes her
lawsuit lets other women know they can come forward. She wants Dunn to never
work at a women’s facility again. “Mr. Dunn shouldn’t be a counselor,
period,” Ketner said. “He shouldn’t counsel animals.”
Jun 16, 2018 kttn.com
Former Corizon employee at
Chillicothe Correctional Center pleads guilty to sexual conduct with a
prisoner
A
former employee of a company contracted for services at the Chillicothe
Correctional Center, who previously pleaded guilty to felony sexual conduct
with a prisoner, appeared in Livingston County Circuit Court Tuesday. Online
court information shows John Thomas Dunn of Kansas City, Missouri was
sentenced to a facility to be determined by the Missouri Department of
Corrections and Human Resources for four years, which was to run concurrently
with all other sentences. Execution of sentence was suspended, and Dunn was
placed on probation for five years under the supervision of the Missouri
State Board of Probation and Parole. He was ordered to serve 120 days of
shock detention with credit given for time served. Judgment against Dunn was
in the sum of $10 for the Crime Victim’s Compensation Fund, and his home plan
was approved. A spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections
previously reported Dunn was an employee of Corizon Health at the time of the
incident in September 2017. A former inmate filed a suit in the Western
District federal court of Kansas City in May against Dunn and corrections
officer Edward Bearden accusing them of rape and sexual abuse. According to
the lawsuit in federal court, Dunn began sexually assaulting the victim after
she told him Bearden raped her.
Mar 2, 2014 St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS • The City of St. Louis this week settled a
lawsuit that alleged that medical negligence and heroin withdrawal caused the
death of a jail inmate. Isaac Bennett Jr. was jailed on July 23, 2007, and
told a nurse that he was a heroin addict who had used heroin the day before
his arrest, the lawsuit claims. Bennett died after two days of diarrhea and
vomiting, “classic symptoms of heroin withdrawal,” the suit says, and “was
not given even the most basic medical treatment.” An autopsy showed Bennett
“died of metabolic changes secondary to withdraw from heroin causing
disturbance of cardiac rhythm and resulting in cardiac arrest,” the suit
says. The city and Correctional Medical Services denied Bennett's claims,
which were filed in 2010 by Bennett's father, Isaac Bennett, and Christine Youell, the mother of his child. The city agreed to pay
$10,000 to settle the case, according to a copy of the settlement agreement
made public on Friday, the day after the settlement was approved by U.S.
Magistrate Judge Terry Adelman. Correctional Medical Services agreed to pay a
settlement amount that is confidential under terms of the agreement. Correctional
Medical Services, now Corizon, provides healthcare at the two city jails, as
well as state prisons in Missouri and 27 other states.
August 30, 2012 ACLU Press Release
The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri’s civil suit against
the city of St. Louis and Correctional Medical Services, the medical provider
for the city jails that is now known as Corizon, was dismissed today.
Originally filed in 2010 on behalf of an HIV-positive inmate at the Medium
Security Institute in St. Louis, the ACLU-EM’s lawsuit cited life-threatening
deliberate indifference to a serious medical condition. The inmate, known as
John Doe to protect his privacy, was incarcerated in early 2010 and for the
first 20 days of his stay was denied the life-saving medication for which he
had a daily prescription. During that period he was given only Tylenol,
despite repeated attempts by him, a friend and his doctor to re-establish his
prescribed medical regime. “No one awaiting trial should ever be denied
medical care,” says Brenda L. Jones, executive director of the ACLU-EM. “But,
this case was especially egregious because people who are HIV-positive can
quickly build resistance to medications that are not taken consistently.”
Tony Rothert, the ACLU-EM’s legal director, said “This
gross violation of our client’s constitutional rights caused him suffering,
mental and emotional distress, and great fear of physical harm. Even worse is
the gross incompetence displayed by Corizon, the company that also provides
medical services to the state of Missouri’s prisons.” The case was dismissed
as part of a settlement agreement. A condition of the settlement prevents the
disclosure of the amount of settlement funds paid to Doe.
May 24, 2012 Post-Dispatch
About an hour after a doctor instructed St. Louis jail staff to send inmate
Courtland Lucas to a hospital immediately, medical records show, the
31-year-old prisoner collapsed in a cell and soon died. The lapse is among a
variety of medical missteps alleged in a wrongful-death and malpractice lawsuit
against the private contractor that provides medical care for the St. Louis
Justice Center. Medical records obtained by lawyers for Lucas' family also
contain a nurse's notes indicating a belief at the time that his episodes
were 'staged." Lucas died May 25, 2009, from complications of a heart
problem, congenital aortic valve stenosis while under the care of
Correctional Medical Services Inc. CMS merged last year with PHS Correctional
Healthcare to form Corizon. It provides medical coverage to more than 400,000
inmates at 400 correctional facilities across the country, including St.
Louis, where its operational headquarters is located. A company spokesman,
Pat Nolan, said: "Corizon and its employees work hard every day to
provide quality care to thousands of inmates across the country." Mayor
Francis Slay's spokeswoman, Kara Bowlin, would not comment on specific allegations. She
noted that the city spends nearly $7 million each year on inmate health care
and "takes seriously its obligation to provide health care services to
the people it confines, many of whom come to us with serious medical
problems." The suit, filed this month by the St. Louis Lawyers Group on
behalf of Lucas' minor son, Trayon Lucas-McNairy,
seeks unspecified damages over $25,000 from CMS but does not name the city as
a defendant. Burton Newman, one of his attorneys, said in an interview:
"We found several individuals who were quoted on the record as
recognizing the care that this gentleman needed, but other individuals seem to
have failed to recognize the care needed, or ignored the care needed."
It is the second attempt at compensation in the case. A prior wrongful-death
suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against the city and the
health care provider, was voluntarily dismissed last year on a legal
technicality. DETERIORATING HEALTH -- Lucas, the youngest of 14 children, was
a jokester who wrote poetry and announced a new commitment to God, his family
told the Post-Dispatch in 2010. He had been a restaurant manager but struggled
with drugs, including heroin, for the last four years of his life. Medical
records show Lucas long suffered from serious heart problems, which required
several valve replacements and a hospitalization in 2009 for swelling and an
irregular heartbeat. He was diabetic, suffered from hypertension and had a
pacemaker. When he was arrested by St. Louis police May 20, 2009, on a parole
violation — he had a record of drug and traffic offenses — he was taken to
St. Alexius Hospital, complaining of chest pain. Doctor's orders from that
visit set out a plan for checking his blood sugar and administering insulin.
Later orders from a jail physician offered a similar schedule. But Lucas'
lawyers, one with a medical degree, say evidence shows the orders were not consistently
followed. The suit refers to medical records it says reflect neglect. The
plaintiff's lawyer provided a Post-Dispatch reporter with CMS documents that
show: • May 24, afternoon: Lucas, in a narcotics detoxification unit, shows
signs of trouble. His blood sugar level is elevated, at 228. Nurses
administer insulin but don't record another blood-sugar check until the next
day. • May 24, 7:15 p.m.: Lucas complains of a fast heartbeat and
hallucinations, talking of "little people" in his room. A nurse
notes he is agitated and perspiring. A jail physician has asked to be called
about any changes in Lucas' mental status but there is no record of such a
call; Lucas' lawyers maintain it wasn't made. • May 25, 4 a.m.: Lucas asks to
go to a hospital and says he doesn't want to die in the jail. He is taken by
wheelchair to an examining room. Nurses try to draw blood but note that it's
too thick. Existing hospital orders call for a doctor's care if his blood
sugar rises above 300; it is now 325. There is no note of any insulin being
administered. • May 25, 1:10 p.m.: A nurse notes Lucas' altered mental status
and also writes that "all episodes appear to be staged as (Lucas) easily
comes back to normal conversation." • May 25, 5:30 p.m.: Lucas is found
lying in his cell in a 'stuporous condition" and answers questions
'sluggishly," according to a nurse's notes. Insulin is administered but
there is no note of his sugar being checked. Nurses have trouble detecting
his pulse and blood pressure, but ultimately find his heart rate is high, at
160. • May 25, 5:45 p.m.: The on-call physician orders Lucas taken to a
hospital emergency room immediately. • May 25, about 7 p.m.: Lucas is still
waiting for transport. A sheriff's deputy reports that Lucas has collapsed
while sitting in a wheelchair. Records indicate a lost minute while medical
staff struggles to have the doors to the holding unit opened by master
control. • May 25, 7:10 p.m.: Paramedics arrive and take Lucas to St. Louis
University Hospital. • May 25, 7:54 p.m.: Lucas is pronounced dead. OTHER
CLAIMS OF NEGLECT -- CMS which has worked for Missouri's prison system since
1992 and has for decades been one of the biggest inmate health care
contractors, has been a target of criticism before. It was the main subject of
a 1998 Post-Dispatch investigation, which showed that inmates died in more
than 20 cases due to negligence, indifference, understaffing, inadequate
training or cost-cutting. Such concerns rose again in 2007 after the death of
LaVonda Kimble, 30, from an asthma attack at the
St. Louis Justice Center. A fire department report, obtained by a lawyer for
her family, showed paramedics encountered delays and apathy when trying to
get into the jail. Autopsy findings showed no trace of a drug that jail
nurses said they repeatedly administered to ease Kimble's breathing.
"The discovery in this case showed they did little to nothing for her.
They just watched her die," according to her family's attorney, John
Wallach. A confidential settlement of that suit was reached last year and
fulfilled in the past few weeks. Wallach said that "justice was done to
the extent that the law would allow..." In 2010, the ACLU alleged in
federal court that an HIV-positive John Doe plaintiff was deprived of
medications for 17 days, even though he told jail staff of his condition and
his physician faxed information about his medicines and dosages. Also that
year, Vanessa Evans, 37, died hours after she complained to staff about
having trouble breathing. Jail officials said she appeared fine a half hour
earlier. Evans' family complained that the company failed to take her claims
seriously despite her history of asthma. Newman said Lucas' case is another
chapter in a sad history. He complained: "It's tragic that a man with
known medical conditions was incarcerated in the city jail and did not
receive any of the medical care that he was not only entitled to, but ... the
medical officials at the jail knew he needed."
December 13, 2011 Baltimore Sun
Annapolis lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano will go into
the 2012 legislative session next month with ethics charges safely behind
him. Bereano settled a case with the State Ethics
Commission earlier this year by agreeing to pay a $2,750 penalty for failing
to make required disclosures of meals and other gifts to state officials. Bereano, a convicted felon who settled a more serious
ethics cases in 2009 with a $29,070 payment, came to a new agreement with the
ethics panel in May under which he agreed to a fine and submitted amended
disclosure forms that added detail about which state officials were the
beneficiaries of his generosity. Over the years, Bereano
appears to be the lobbyist most frequently cited by the panel for violations
large and small. He now has seven ethics cases on file with the commission. The
most recent settlement was found in an examination of the commission’s
records. The panel does not normally send out public notices of violations –
helping to account for why the infraction was not reported for months. The
agreement stipulated that Bereano did not properly
disclose his spending on meals and beverages he bought for Richard B.
Rosenblatt, then an assistant secretary in the Department of Public Safety
and Correctional Services, each year between 2005-2008. Meanwhile, Rosenblatt
was making the required disclosures each year – though he took a short cut by
overestimating Bereano’s spending on him as coming
to $500 a year for those four years. Rosenblatt was violating no law,
according to the ethics commission, because state law allows executive branch
officials to be wined and dined in the presence of the person footing the
bill as long as the identity and amount are disclosed. But when ethics
officials cross-checked Bereano’s disclosures
against Rosenblatt's, they found that the lobbyist hadn’t been quite as
diligent. Records show Bereano filed amended
disclosures for 2006-2008 showing spending between $148 and $300 on wining
and dining Rosenblatt for those three years while representing Correctional
Medical Services. In the same settlement, Bereano
also admitted to a failure to disclose a series of gifts to a Senate staff
member between 2001 and 2005. The lobbyist explained that the gifts,
including sports tickets, were personal in nature and weren’t paid for by one
of his employers. The ethics panel found that such gifts to employees of the
legislature are not permitted. The recipient was a former member of the staff
of state Sen. John Hafer, a Western Maryland
Republican. Bereano’s amended disclosure shows that
the gifts followed a running theme involving the Dallas Cowboys, including
tickets to the teams games against the Washington
Redskins. The agreement noted that the staff member eventually reimbursed Bereano for the gifts. Rosenblatt, who now works in the
prison health industry, said he regrets having been imprecise in his
disclosures, but not having dined with Bereano. He
said his outside-the-office communications with the lobbyist helped improve
communications between his department and a company that already held a
contract. “He helped improve the service received from the client,”
Rosenblatt said. Bereano did not return a call
seeking his comment. The infractions were far less serious than the previous
case in which Bereano was cited. That involved
signing an illegal contingency contract that would have rewarded him for a
successful outcome. But the $2,750 settlement is considerably more than the
typical fine paid in a case against a lobbyist – which typically involve $250
fines for late filing of a disclosure. Bereano is
currently seeking to have his 1994 federal mail fraud conviction invalidated
because of subsequent appellate rulings that call into question the
prosecution's legal groundwork for the case.
June 3, 2011 Biz Journal
Valitás Health Services Inc. on Friday completed
its previously announced acquisition of America Service Group Inc. for $250
million, and the merged, privately held company has changed its name to
Corizon. Valitás, the St. Louis-based parent
company of Correctional Medical Services Inc., announced in March that it
planned to buy Brentwood, Tenn.-based America Service Group, parent of PHS
Correctional Healthcare Inc. America Service Group shareholders, who are
being paid $26 per share, approved the deal Wednesday. Valitás
previously was one of the largest privately held companies based in St.
Louis, with $750 million in 2010 revenue. However the newly named Corizon’s
operational headquarters will remain in St. Louis, but its corporate
headquarters will be in Brentwood, Tenn. America Service Group President and
CEO Rich Hallworth is now CEO of Corizon, and Valitás Chairman and CEO Richard Miles is Corizon’s
non-executive chairman. Stuart Campbell, formerly president and chief
operating officer of Valitás and Correctional
Medical, is Corizon’s president and chief operating officer. The combined
prison health-care service provider has about 11,000 employees and
independent contractors, and serves more than 400 correctional facilities.
Corizon's annual revenue is expected to total $1.4 billion for 2011.
March 3, 2011 The Street
America Service Group Inc. (NASDAQ: ASGR), the parent company of PHS
Correctional Healthcare, Inc., and Valitás Health
Services, Inc., the parent company of Correctional Medical Services, Inc.,
announced today the signing of an agreement and plan of merger (the “Merger
Agreement”) under which the two companies would be combined, bringing
together two leading companies in the correctional healthcare field – America
Service Group's PHS Correctional Healthcare and Valitás’
Correctional Medical Services. Upon completion of the transaction, the
combined company will have approximately 11,000 employees and independent
contractors and will serve more than 400 correctional facilities. The
combined company’s annual revenues are expected to total approximately $1.4
billion for 2011.
October 12, 2010 AP
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a wrongful death lawsuit over
the death of a jail inmate in St. Louis, claiming he did not get proper care
for a heart condition. The ACLU filed suit Tuesday on behalf of Landa Poke. Her brother, 32-year-old Courtland Lucas,
died at the St. Louis City Justice Center in May 2009, five days after he was
jailed on a probation violation. The ACLU says Lucas had chronic heart
disease and was wearing a pacemaker when taken into custody. The suit
contends Correctional Medical Services failed to provide proper medications
or care for Lucas. A spokesman for CMS says the company has not yet seen the
lawsuit and cannot comment on the allegations. A message left with a
spokeswoman for the city of St. Louis was not returned.
May 5, 2010 The News-Journal
Three new vendors will replace the company that provides medical care in
Delaware's prisons, the state's response to five years of criticism and
turmoil over the quality of inmate health care. Correction Commissioner Carl
C. Danberg acknowledged the agreements Tuesday,
shortly after he signed a $29.8 million contract with Nashville-based Correct
Care Solutions, which will serve as the general health care provider. On
Monday, Danberg said, he signed a $10 million
contract with MHM Services Inc., of Vienna, Va., and a $700,000 contract with
Correct Rx Pharmacy Services Inc. of Linthicum, Md. MHM Services will provide
mental health and substance abuse treatment to the Department of Correction.
Correct Rx will fulfill pharmacy responsibilities. The two-year contracts,
with optional one-year extensions, go into effect July 1, the day after St.
Louis-based Correctional Medical Services' contract expires. The new
contracts are expected to be announced today. The breakup of the single
medical health care contract was a result of frustration with CMS, the
subject of a 2005 investigation by The News Journal. The newspaper's series
brought to light problems with high inmate death rates, especially from AIDS
and suicide. It also pointed out neglect of sick inmates who were in filthy
infirmaries that sometimes lacked beds. Following the series, a federal
monitor was appointed by the U.S. Justice Department to oversee prison health
care. The state entered a three-year agreement in 2006 with the Justice
Department to improve inmate health care.
March 5, 2010 News Journal
Twenty-four companies have submitted bids to provide health care services at
Delaware's prisons Four of them are from Delaware, and many critics of the
current health care provider, St. Louis-based Correctional Medical Services,
say a local contractor is needed to help lift the Department of Correction
from under the federal scrutiny it's been under for almost four years.
"The good news is that the deplorable tenure and administration of
[Correctional Medical Services] will come to an end," said the Rev.
Christopher Bullock, senior pastor of New Canaan Baptist Church and
co-founder of the Delaware Coalition for Prison Reform and Justice. "Hopefully,
this will be the beginning of a new day for Delaware corrections."
Correction Commissioner Carl C. Danberg announced
last year he would end the contract with Correctional Medical Services after
it was criticized for providing inadequate care despite being paid more than
$130 million over three years. In place of hiring a single health care
provider, Danberg broke the contract into 10
smaller agreements focusing on specific services. Last week was the deadline
to submit proposals. "We've never had more than half a dozen vendors
participate in either the substance abuse contract or the medical contract
before," Danberg said. "So to have 24
we're doing something right." In addition to the four local bidders,
another 10 are from neighboring states. Participants could submit bids to
provide more than one service, and eight businesses have done so, including
some of the Delaware companies. Names of the bidders were not released
because their abilities have not been verified. "We're excited, but still
a little nervous," Danberg said. "The
hard part is going to be putting this contract together." Danberg said it is too soon to know if the state will
save money under the new bidding format. Meetings with the bidders will be
held later this month. "Ultimately, the proof of whether or not this
whole new system works is going to be in whether or not the provision of
medical health care works," Danberg said.
Bullock said he would like to see local vendors used, as long as they have a
proven record. It also is important that there not be too many companies for
the correction department to handle. "We need a healthy balance to fix
an unhealthy system," he said. Delaware entered an agreement with the
federal government to improve prison health care in 2006 following stories by
The News Journal that uncovered problems and high inmate death rates,
especially from AIDS and suicide. The 2005 series also pointed to poor
medical treatment for cancer, meningitis, hepatitis and other communicable
diseases and bacterial infections.
October 14, 2009 The News Journal
After years of criticism and a federal investigation, state officials
announced today they will let their contract with Correctional Medical
Services expire and try to find a new provider. The Department of Correction
announced it will take bids for a new contract with modifications it hopes
will provide better care, including breaking the contract into smaller pieces
to allow multiple companies to provide more specialized service. The new
contract will also have a “shared risk,” with the DOC paying for certain
costs in order to prevent medical providers from limiting inmate care in
order to maximize their profits. “The Department of Correction has used the
last few months to prepare for and make an informed decision about this
[Request for Proposals],” Commissioner of Correction Carl Danberg
said. “We have reviewed the best practices from other states and interviewed
medical experts from around the country in an effort to develop a better
contracting model for prison health services. In addition, the department has
interviewed correctional health-care professionals to identify and eliminate
the impediments to competition, which existed in previous contracts.” In
January, Danberg extended the contract with CMS
from a 2009 expiration date to June 30, 2010. At the time Danberg
said rebidding the contract would cost the state an additional $4 million on
top of the $39 million it’s already paying for health care. The Department of
Correction has come under scrutiny for its care of inmates in Delaware
prisons. Delaware entered into the agreement with the federal government
following a series of articles in 2005 by The News Journal that pointed to
problems with prison health care and high inmate death rates, especially from
AIDS. Other findings by the newspaper's six-month investigation included an
outbreak of flesh-eating bacteria and an inmate's massive brain tumor –
largely ignored by staff – which led to his death. Independent reports as a
result of the agreement with the federal government repeatedly pointed out
that CMS suffers from a "lack of stable and effective leadership."
Independent monitor Joshua W. Martin III said in his most recent report that
the department made some strides in complying with the memorandum of agreement,
or MOA. Martin found the state failed to comply with six of 217 provisions,
and was in substantial compliance with 64 of them. The state was said to be
in partial compliance with the remaining requirements. Among the improvements
was better organization of health records, as well as up-to-date filing of
health documents. Training for guards in suicide prevention has expanded and
the department created a Bureau of Correctional Health-Care Services to
supervise and audit medical programs. However, Martin also said it is
unlikely that the state will be in full compliance when the agreement
expires. In addition to leadership problems with the medical contractor,
other problems cited include shortages of mental health counselors and
psychiatrists, incomplete annual staffing plans, poor treatment plans and a
continued lack of space that results in inadequate privacy.
September 30, 2009 The News Journal
After spending more than $130 million over three years, Delaware's prison
system continues to provide health care to inmates that falls short of
federal requirements, according to a report issued Tuesday by an independent
monitor. Because of that, the state Department of Correction is at risk of
remaining under U.S. Justice Department supervision when an agreement it
signed in 2006 expires later this year. While the federal agency declined to
comment Tuesday, it can take the more drastic measure of suing for control of
the state's prison system. When it did that in California, the penal system
was taken over by the federal government, which ordered the release of
prisoners because of overcrowding. In Delaware, prisoners who cannot get
adequate health care could be ordered released if there is a takeover, said
Stephen A. Hampton, a Dover attorney who represents inmates and their
families in lawsuits against the department. Delaware entered into the
agreement with the federal government following a series of articles in 2005
by The News Journal that pointed to problems with prison health care and high
inmate death rates, especially from AIDS. Other findings by the newspaper's
six-month investigation included an outbreak of flesh-eating bacteria and an
inmate's massive brain tumor -- largely ignored by staff -- which led to his
death. "Unfortunately, I'm beginning to accept that we're not going to
be in substantial compliance by the end of the year," said Carl Danberg, Department of Correction commissioner. "We
are still working very hard to meet that deadline, but I'm beginning to
accept that we'll not make it." The state has until Dec. 29 to comply
with 217 provisions mandated by the agreement, which was signed by Danberg, who was then Delaware's attorney general, and
former Correction Commissioner Stan Taylor. It called on the state to revamp
its prison health care system and report its progress regularly to the
Justice Department. Independent monitor Joshua W. Martin III said in his
report that the department made some strides in complying with the memorandum
of agreement, or MOA. Martin found the state failed to comply with six of 217
provisions, and was in substantial compliance with 64 of them. The state was
said to be in partial compliance with the remaining requirements. Among the
improvements was better organization of health records, as well as up-to-date
filing of health documents. Training for guards in suicide prevention has
expanded and the department created a Bureau of Correctional HealthCare
Services to supervise and audit medical programs. However, Martin also said
it is unlikely that the state will be in full compliance when the agreement
expires. Problems listed in the 210-page report include a "lack of
stable and effective leadership" by the company contracted by the state
to provide medical services, an ongoing problem Martin listed on previous
reports. Other problems cited include shortages of mental health counselors
and psychiatrists, incomplete annual staffing plans, poor treatment plans and
a continued lack of space that results in inadequate privacy. Danberg, who previously said there were problems with the
medical vendor, St. Louis-based Correctional Medical Services (CMS), extended
the group's $39 million contract for another year because it would cost the
state an additional $4 million to seek a new vendor. Danberg
said he has penalized CMS for not complying with its contract. "Last
year alone, we forfeited over a million dollars from them," Danberg said, adding the money was used on the prisons'
medical facilities." We have improved the physical plant space at Howard
Young [Correctional Institution], Baylor [Women's Correctional Institution]
and [Sussex Correctional Institution]." CMS officials said in an e-mail
they are reviewing the monitor's findings and recommendations. "While we
are proud of the accomplishments our team has achieved in partnership with
the DOC, we remain fully committed to working with the state to do more to
strengthen the health care program in Delaware prisons," CMS spokesman
Tony Zagora said. 'Lapses in medical treatment' -- Robert Kern, 69, wonders
how much longer the problems will continue and how many lives will be
affected. "I don't see where any major changes have been affected
because the same organization is there," said Kern, whose 41-year-old
son, Daniel, died earlier this month while serving a one-year sentence for
drunken driving at Wilmington's Plummer Community Corrections Center. Kern
said the state Medical Examiner's Office told him his son died of
pancreatitis inflammation or infection of the pancreas. The younger Kern
complained to prison officials, but the illness went undiagnosed until he was
taken to St. Francis Hospital and died, Robert Kern said. "Apparently
their profitability is somewhat related on what they spend" on inmate
health care, Kern said about CMS. "Right there the incentive to treat
people versus having a higher profitability is just in contrast. I'm afraid
the patient will lose nine times out of 10." John Painter, department
spokesman, said that while the state is prohibited under federal law from
disclosing specifics, Daniel Kern's death is "being reviewed in the same
manner that all inmate deaths are addressed. Specifically, the Delaware
Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death and, as of now, no cause
has been determined." He also said the case will be reviewed by the
independent monitor and others. "To the extent lapses in medical
treatment are identified, DOC will be take prompt corrective action," he
said.
May 27, 2009 St Petersburg Times
Gov. Charlie Crist has made it a priority to run the "most open and
transparent" administration in state history. But a former adviser to
Crist is suing the state, claiming the Department of Corrections broke the
Sunshine Law by mishandling a contract to provide mental health services to
inmates. Attorney Chris Kise of Foley &
Lardner, who served as a counselor and climate change advisor to Crist, filed
the suit in state court in Tallahassee Tuesday on behalf of MHM Correctional
Services, a Virginia firm that pitched a proposal to provide mental health
care in the agency's South Florida Region IV prisons. Kise's
suit alleges that he obtained public records showing that agency staffers
began "secret negotiations" with a competing vendor, Correctional
Medical Services (CMS), almost two weeks before competing vendors learned
that their proposals were rejected. Kise also said
the deal the state negotiated with CMS would cost taxpayers $5.5-million more
than MHM's proposal. Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil said he was confident
the agency would prevail. We are fully confident that we didn't do anything
that would be a problem to the state," he said. "I think the facts
will bear that out to be not true." By law, McNeil said, he can't
discuss the details of a contract that is "still in the throes of
procurement."
November 7, 2007 Financial Times
Madison Dearborn is preparing a sale of Valitas, a
company that provides medical care to prison populations, three sources told mergermarket. An auction for the company will probably
kick off early next year, and the company is working on putting together a
staple financing package at the moment, according to one of the sources. UBS
has been mandated to run the process, the second source said. Valitas’ EBITDA is around USD 50m, according to an
industry banker. The company’s main subsidiary, Correctional Medical
Services, reached USD 750m in revenues in 2007, according to its website. The
company is likely to draw interest from private equity buyers only, as there
are no natural strategic buyers for the asset, the banker added. Valitas could draw interest from Maximus, a listed
provider of healthcare services to the US government, a second industry
banker said. Madison Dearborn backed a management buyout of the
Missouri-based company in 1997 from Aramark, the company that provides food
service and uniforms to institutions, according to news reports. Under
Aramark the division was called Spectrum Healthcare, and included a business
that provided contract healthcare services to the US military. That business,
however, was sold to Team Health, another Madison Dearborn portfolio holding,
in 2002. Team Health itself was sold to the Blackstone Group, in 2005. The
company is one of the oldest healthcare investments in Madison Dearborn’s portfolio,
the industry banker said. A company spokesperson declined comment, and a
Madison Dearborn official did not return calls.
November 8, 2001
Gregory Jennings, Jacqueline Reich, Lorenzo Ingram, Sr., Henry Simmons,
Calvin Moore, Billy Roberts and Kathy S. Kearns didn't know each other in
life, but they shared a common bond in death: All died in U.S. prisons, the
victims not of the death penalty, or at the hands of fellow inmates or
guards, but in the allegedly negligent care of a single provider of privatized
health services. Correctional Medical Services (CMS) is a St. Louis,
Missouri-based for-profit corporation that contracts to provide health care
services to over 270,000 inmates at more than 330 prison sites in 29
states. A 1998 in-depth investigative report done by the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, its hometown newspaper, shed light on the downside of prison
care privatization. The Post-Dispatch's investigative team spent five months
"visiting prisons and jails; gathering hundreds of police, court and
medical records and other documents; and interviewing doctors, nurses,
inmates, lawyers, scholars, prison and health experts and families of inmates
who died behind bars." Published in September 1998, "Death,
Neglect and the Bottom Line: Push to Cut Costs Poses Risks," found that
while CMS successfully reduced the cost of health care to several states,
there were "more than 20 cases in which inmates allegedly died as a
result of negligence, indifference, understaffing, inadequate training or overzealous
cost-cutting." At the ACLU web site, the civil liberties
organization posts a late-January 2001 letter it sent to the Connecticut
Department of Correction (CDOC) that claims CMS's health care services --
medical, mental health and dental care -- at the Wallens
Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Virginia is woefully
"inadequate." The ACLU writes: "The health care provided
by Correctional Medical Services, the contract provider at [Wallens Ridge], was considered so grossly inadequate that
[Virginia Department of Corrections] recently fined CMS nearly one million
dollars. The Virginia State Auditor specifically found that CMS did not
provide a dentist at [Wallens Ridge] for over three
months, and never provided an optometrist. Medical privacy and confidentiality
is non-existent at [Wallens Ridge]; as a matter of
policy, prisoners are required to discuss their most private medical and
mental health issues in the presence of security staff and other
prisoners." In 1998, the Minnesota Department of Corrections
contracted with CMS for health care services in its state's prisons.
According to the Twin Cities Independent Media Center, the NAACP called a
press conference in mid-October to publicize a lawsuit "over the death
of Gregory Jennings, who died in Stillwater prison on April 6, 2001 because
the medical staff were indifferent to his complaints of symptoms of
diabetes." Should Calvin Moore, in custody for less than a month
at the Kilby Correction Facility in Alabama, have died from being ignored while
he lost fifty pounds and exhibited severe symptoms of mental illness,
dehydration and starvation? Should Diane Nelson, a 46-year-old mother of
three, have died because her request to receive her heart medicine prescribed
by her doctor was refused? And what of Charles Guffey, who died of a
perforated ulcer because nurses at the Tulsa County Adult Detention Center in
Oklahoma refused to pay attention to his complaints of severe abdominal pain?
If these folks were around today they'd have a lot to say about the human
cost of the growing privatization of prison health care services. Hopefully,
privatization will begin to receive the close scrutiny it deserves. That is
the least we can do. The deaths of these men and women, while tragic, should
not have been in vain. (AlterNet.org)
Corizon
Jun 29, 2022 lawstreetmedia.com
Corizon Health Sued for Allegedly Defaulting on $12M in Hospital Claims
A suit filed by The Curators of the University of Missouri and Capital
Region Medical Center (collectively, the Hospital) was removed to Missouri
federal court on Monday by defendants Corizon Health, Inc. and Corizon, LLC
(collectively, Corizon). The suit alleges that Corizon has over $12 million
in overdue claims with the hospital, constituting a breach of the existing
contract between the two parties. In late 2016, the state court complaint
says, the plaintiffs entered into an agreement with Corizon specifying the
hospital would provide health care services to patients in exchange for
compensation from Corizon. Corizon agreed that they would reimburse the
plaintiffs for any health care services they administered to patients who
were brought to the hospital by the direction of Corizon. The hospital was
then responsible for sending completed claims to a specified Corizon address
within 120 days of the service in order to be
reimbursed. Further, the hospital had to use up-to-date procedural codes on
their reimbursement forms. Corizon then had to pay the claim within 60 days.
The agreement notes that if a payment is not made on time, an interest charge
of 1% of the claim per month will be added to the total claim. The complaint
explains that the hospital provided health care services to patients and
"submitted completed claims to Corizon Health on approved hospital
billing forms within one hundred and twenty days of the date of service
rendered to patients." However, beginning in 2020, the plaintiffs claim
that the defendants failed to pay the hospital for all of
the completed claims they submitted. The hospital notified Corizon of the
overdue payments, and they responded by affirming that they would pay the
outstanding completed claims along with the 1% interest rate per month.
Despite the reassurances from the defendants, the plaintiffs contend that
Corizon still has not paid their outstanding completed claims, which total
$12,000,000.00 in addition to the aforementioned 1%
interest rate. The complaint mentions that the defendants have since admitted
to the hospital that they are in default in regard to
the overdue claims. The complaint cites breach of contract and breach of
covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The plaintiffs are seeking favorable
judgment on each count against Corizon Health, damages, pre- and
post-judgment interest, litigation fees, a trial by jury, and any other
relief deemed just by the Court. The plaintiffs are represented by Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP.
Independence, Missouri
January 13, 2009 NBC Action News
A developer withdrew an application to build a private jail in
Independence. Turkey Ridge Development was seeking permission from the city
of Independence to build a detention center near 23rd and Blue Ridge
Boulevard. John Carnes, an attorney for the developer, says they decided to
pull the idea after he led an informational meeting with the public on
Saturday. Many neighbors were opposed to the jail citing safety concerns and
declining property values. Carnes says they will likely build an apartment
complex on the lot.
January 10, 2009 KMBC
Some Independence residents are voicing concerns about a private jail that
may be built near their homes. Scores of people gathered on Saturday to learn
more about the proposal to move the Metropolitan Detention Center to a site
north of 23rd Street and Blue Ridge Boulevard. While the $7 million project
would bring a strong tax base to the area, neighbors are worried about
safety. Frank Smith, of the Private Corrections Institute, said he drove 200
miles to voice his opposition. "People think they're going to get jobs
out of this, construction or guard jobs," he said. "The
construction is almost never there. They say they're going to make all of the
purchases locally, but that's almost never true. Then, they say they're going
to hire the guards locally, but people could work at Wendy's and get the same
kind of money." Supporters of the idea counted Smith's arguments and
said the project would bring construction and guard jobs. The Independence
Planning Commission will take up the issue on Tuesday evening at City Hall.
January 9, 2009 Fox 4 News
Some residents in Independence are upset over a proposed private prison
being built near 23rd Street and Blue Ridge Boulevard. They say that the
prison would affect their safety and property values, but the developer says
that facility will be secure and will bring jobs to the area. FOX 4's Monica
Evans has the report.
Integrity Correctional Centers
Holden, Missouri
April 20, 2010 AP
Inmates have been removed from a western Missouri private jail near Holden
and all but three staff members have been laid off. The general manager of
the Integrity Correctional Center said the inmates were moved to another
private jail in Bethany and to other facilities. More than 20 staff members
at the Holden jail were laid off and the employees remaining are temporary.
The Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal reported Tuesday that county officials
have discussed buying the Holden jail from Brice Detention. The company
wanted $5 million. But negotiations hit a snag because an architect’s review
says the facility needs $5 million in renovations. An escape at the Holden
facility prompted state lawmakers last year to enact new rules for Missouri’s
two private jails.
April 6, 2010 Daily Star-Journal
The county will not be able to insure Integrity Correctional Center as a
county jail without modifications, insurance agent Mike Keith said. ICC, a
private jail located between Centerview and Holden,
is managed by Brice Detention and Services. ICC and Brice officials
approached the County Commission in February with an offer to sell or lease
the facility to the county. Commissioners said buying the 240-bed facility
would be about half the cost of building a 100-bed jail. They said the price
-- which includes an admitting building, three dormitories, a gym, sewer
treatment plant, generator building and fencing -- is in the $5 million
range. Keith said a representative of Savers Property & Casualty toured
the facility and said the company "would not insure the facility as it
currently sits. We cannot recommend the current setup as adequate for a
county jail." Changes Sheriff Chuck Heiss
proposed would make the facility acceptable for insurance, Keith said. Heiss told the commission last month that the facility
needs modifications to meet state and federal requirements for separating
inmates by classifications.
June 16, 2009 AP
The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled that a private jail in western
Missouri must pay taxes on food, clothes and other products for inmates. ICC
Management Inc. is a for-profit company running a jail in Johnson County that
contracts with local governments. ICC Management claimed it doesn’t need to
pay a sales tax on supplies used by inmates because it essentially resold
jail supplies to local governments. Missouri sales tax is not charged on
items to be resold and later taxed. The state Supreme Court sided against the
private jail, concluding that it must pay sales taxes. That’s because local
governments are not subject to sales taxes and allowing the jail to avoid
sales taxes would mean no tax is levied on the goods.
March 13, 2009 Columbia Missourian
With nearly unanimous support, the state Senate passed a bill Thursday that
would, for the first time, make private jails in Missouri subject to state
oversight. The bill would also require jails to notify local police officials
when an inmate escapes, a reaction to a September incident in which two
prisoners fled a private jail near Kansas City and the sheriff's office was
not informed for hours. Missouri's two private jails, located in Bethany and
Holden, house out-of-state inmates moved because of overcrowding. The Holden
facility was the site of last year's escape. Bill sponsor Sen. David Pearce,
R-Warrensburg, says his legislation would ensure that all jails housing
convicted felons are held accountable for reporting incidents like the one in
Holden. "Right now, with these jails there is no accountability, no
regulation, no oversight," he said. "What this bill tries to do is
at least set standards and not have these sort of rogue
prisons that are not part of society." The bill seeks to hold
private jails to the same standards as county jails and state prisons. It
also authorizes the state to fine jails that do not report escapes in a
"timely" manner, which Pearce said was designed to avoid a repeat
of last year's escape. In September, two prisoners from Kansas City, Kan.,
escaped from the Holden facility, located in Pearce's district. They escaped
at about 5 a.m., according to news reports, but the Johnson County sheriff's
office was not notified until 1 p.m. that day, and local residents were not
informed until even later. According to Pearce, it was not a crime for the
prisoners to flee, something he said makes no sense. "It's not a crime
to escape from a private jail," he said. "Once the prison told
Johnson County about the escape, the sheriff's office said there was nothing
they could do because no crime was committed, and Kansas had to re-introduce
charges to arrest them. That's crazy and shouldn't happen again."
February 27, 2009 KSHB TV
The Missouri Catholic Conference is critical of a proposed private jail
bill they believe falls short of protecting citizens. The Missouri Senate is
poised to debate Senate Bill 44 and the Missouri Catholic Conference is
seeking additional protections in the private jail bill. The bill, sponsored
by Sen. David Pearce (R-Warrensburg), proposes to regulate private jails. The
bill was filed in response to an escape of two inmates with violent records
from Integrity Correctional Center, a private jail in Johnson County. The
inmates apparently escaped through an unlocked door and then tunneled under a
fence in the prison recreational area. Integrity officials did not notify the
Johnson County Sheriff’s department until 15 hours after the escape. The MCC
believes several areas should be strengthened in the bill. “While the bill
calls for notifying authorities of any escape, the requirements are
incomplete and do not currently apply as written to all counties and cities,”
noted Deacon Larry Weber, Executive Director of Missouri Catholic Conference.
The bill’s provisions only require reporting of escapes in 3rd and 4th class
counties, but not in 2nd class counties like Johnson County, Missouri where
the escape took Missouri currently has two private jails in operation in the
state, yet there are no state laws regulating the operation of these facilities.
SB 44 proposes to establish guidelines for the operation of private
correctional facilities. “The provisions in SB 44 are a very small step in
the right direction, but they go nowhere near far enough to protect the
public from danger and liability,” says Weber.
October 4, 2008 Herald-Tribune
State Representative David Pearce, R-121 and candidate for the Missouri
State Senate District 31, is proposing legislation that will require private
jails to report certain incidents to local law enforcement. The legislation
would require private jails to notify local law enforcement immediately upon
the escape of prisoners. Also a reasonable effort must be made to notify
local landowners and residents. The legislation is prompted by the recent
escape of two prisoners at the ICC private jail in western Johnson County
near Holden. The Sheriff's office was not notified until 15 hours after the
escape. The legislation has the complete support of Johnson County Sheriff
Charles Heiss. "We welcome legislation that will
help protect our citizens. We applaud Rep. Pearce on this proposed
legislation and look forward to working with him to make this happen," Heiss said. "The Department of Corrections is
supportive of Representative Pearce's proposal, it will ensure that the
safety of citizens in the community is the number one priority," said
Larry Crawford, Director of the Department of Corrections. Also showing
support for the proposal was Cass County Sheriff Dwight Diehl, Vernon County
Sheriff Ron Peckman, Executive Director of the
Missouri Sheriffs Association Mick Covington, President of the Missouri
Deputy Sheriffs Association Dave Boehm, Johnson County Prosecuting Attorney
Lynn Stoppy, Holden Police Chief Rick Martin and
Holden Mayor Mike Wakeman. The legislation would
also require private jails to notify local law enforcement of all incidents
of assaults, injuries and death. Penalty provisions could include fines and
possible criminal penalties for those individuals who knowingly violate the
law.
September 29, 2008 FOX 4 News
Prompted in part by a series of FOX 4 stories, a Missouri lawmaker is
announcing legislation aimed at private jails that would demand oversight
where none currently exists. The move comes one month after two inmates
escaped from a private jail near Holden, Missouri. Surveillance video showed
two inmates escaping through a back door at the Integrity Correctional
Center, but the jail said it didn't realize the men were gone until the next
afternoon. The sheriff said it was nearly four hours later that he was
notified and even later for surrounding neighbors. "This would be one of
the first pieces of legislation I would file on December 1," Rep. David
Pearce said. Now State Rep. Pearce, surrounded by law enforcement leaders,
said he's filing a bill to hold private jails accountable. Long before the
escape, FOX 4 told you about an inmate who died at ICC, and a guard who was
attacked, but whose assault was never reported to the sheriff by the
privately owned jail. "When you're in that profit driven business and
your overhead begins to grow and your profit margin begins to shrink, you
begin to take short cuts and people get hurt," Johnson County, Missouri
Sheriff Charles Heiss said. That's why the sheriff
says ICC needs oversight, something the jail's own director, David Burris,
said he embraces. He wouldn't consent to an on-camera interview but said the
jail already does nearly everything the legislation would mandate. Integrity
Correctional Center likes to advertise itself as a minimum level detention center,
but the two man who escaped last month were both maximum level inmates.
"You don't want to house a maximum level security person right next to a
minimum security person so that will certainly be something we
consider," Rep. Pearce said. Rep. Pearce said the jail could face fines
and legal penalties if it doesn't report crimes and jail escapes in a timely
manner. He said the goal isn't to put private jails out of business, just to
regulate them like any other business. As for the two men who escaped: one
was caught in Kansas City, Kansas and the other remains on the loose. The
jail admits that it's still not sure how they escaped.
September 1, 2008 FOX 4 News
A jail break by two inmates at a privately run jail has the sheriff and
neighbors in Johnson County, Missouri furious. It appears the two escapees
had a huge head start before anyone was notified. There is still no sign of
the escapees who were last seen at the Integrity Correctional Center at about
5 a.m. Sunday in Centerview, about 50 miles southeast
of Kansas City. The sheriff wasn't notified until 1 p.m. and neighbors found
out even later. Anthony Eisele and Rob Mills were both awaiting trial in
Wyandotte County, Kansas for serious felonies. Eisele is accused of
aggravated kidnapping, robbery and burglary. Mills was charged with
assaulting a police officer and is a listed sex offender in Kansas. "I
was very upset, upset with the jail for not notifying us," neighbor
Katherine Clifton said. Clifton can see the jail from her backyard. Sheriff
deputies knocked on her door 6 p.m. Sunday, some 12 hours after the escape
might have happened. "Could have been in my car without me expecting it.
At least if I'd have known there was something going on I could have been
aware," Clifton said. The 200 bed jail doesn't answer to the sheriff or
even the state. It's privately run and claims it's Christian based. FOX 4
Problem Solvers first reported on the jail two years ago after former guards
told us the place was a disaster waiting to happen: lax security and understaffed,
charges the jail disputed. The sheriff said at the time of the escape one
female, unarmed, was in charge of nearly 50 male inmates at the dorm where
the escape began. The two escapees would have had to crawl under or over two
fences to get out. "If they had time to climb the fence there's not
enough guards to watch," Mike Bolyard said.
The sheriff admits he has not had a search crew looking for the men on
Monday. He assumes they left the area. Neighbors wonder if the two men might
have hopped a train because tracks run right next to the jail. "I mean
you just never know where they're at right now. I mean the train slows down
and sometimes it even stops there," Bolyard
said. Neighbors said the jail promised six years ago, when it first opened,
to notify them immediately if there was ever an escape. Instead the jail's
director Dave Burris is keeping quiet, ignoring neighbors and us. "I
think it should be shut down," Clifton said. Neighbors tried to stop
this jail from moving in six years ago but Johnson County, Missouri had no
zoning to stop it. The sheriff believes the two escapees could be heading to
Kansas, where they are from. He said they should be considered extremely
dangerous.
October 27, 2006 AP
For those who knew and cared about Angela Lockridge, this much was clear:
she could be difficult. At 42, she was mentally retarded, epileptic and
dependent on medication to treat her borderline personality disorder. But
nothing prepared her family and friends for the way Lockridge died: alone in
a segregated cell in one of Missouri's private jails, which are run without
state oversight or standards. Operators of the Integrity Correctional Centers
in rural Johnson County were told the cause of death was epilepsy, a
neurological condition that causes seizures. But Johnson County Sheriff
Charles Heiss, who led the investigation into
Lockridge's death and has found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing,
nevertheless has been angered by the prison's "guarded" response to
his probe and obstacles blocking his way to potential witnesses. Heiss, an outspoken critic of private jails and prisons,
blames those obstacles on the manner in which private jails are operated and
at least in part on the lack of state standards and oversight. "Am I
surprised she died? No," Heiss said. "Am
I upset and concerned about her death? Yes." Bernie Zarda,
president of ICC, defends his "Christian-owned and operated"
prison. He says although there is no state or federal oversight of his
facility, oversight of ICC rests with the cities and counties that send their
inmates there. He also questioned the motives for the investigation. "I
am not really sure why there has been an ongoing investigation," Zarda said. "The sheriff is giving information that
makes us look not so great. We run a very top-notch, first-class facility
with some 20 jurisdictions in Kansas and Missouri, and we have never had a
death before. Sharon Dolovich, a law professor at
UCLA who has written extensively about private prisons, said while there are
several concerns about private prisons just as there are about government-run
prisons, a major problem in private facilities is staffing. The median annual
earnings for prison guards in 2004 was $33,750 at state prisons, $33,080 at
local jails and $21,490 at private prisons, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. "The one meaningful difference is the dramatic
under-investment in labor (in private prisons)," Dolovich
said. "The way private prisons make their money is by spending less on
their labor; they pay them less, they train them
less and they give them fewer benefits. "There are predictable effects
of doing that." She pointed to a study from the U.S. Department of
Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance that compared inmate assaults in public
prisons over a year with that of private facilities over the same period. The
survey found 25.4 incidents for every 1,000 inmates in public prisons,
compared with 35.1 incidents in private facilities. "I would put what we
know about the profit incentives together with what we know about the
failures of monitoring and other forms of oversight," Dolovich said in an e-mail. "When we do that, it
seems to me, we have both an explanation for the greater levels of violence
in private prisons suggested by the older studies, and reason to continue to
expect greater levels of violence in private prisons going forward." But
Paul Doucette, spokesman for the Association of Private Corrections and
Treatment Organizations, says private facilities are a necessary alternative
to overcrowding in the public prisons and have become more popular with the
federal government, largely because of the influx of immigrants and refugees.
"Research would indicate a quality of operations in private prisons
every bit as good or better than the government-run facilities,"
Doucette said. "There's no cutting of corners and diminishing of
services. Lockridge was confined to a segregated cell in a male dorm at ICC
on Aug. 1 because she had been making herself throw up. "She was
sticking her finger down her throat, and they asked her to stop and help
clean it up and some other things," Zarda
said. She was found dead in the cell the next morning. Neer
had never known his sister to make herself vomit. If Lockridge was throwing
up, he said, it was because she was sick. Neer also
wondered if Lockridge had received any of her medications while incarcerated.
The prison did not respond to requests for Lockridge's medical records. Most
inmate death investigations involving county jails last about a week, Heiss said. This one took him more than a month to wrap
up. He said ICC policies and procedures slowed him down. When he tried to
interview inmates who were witnesses, ICC told him he needed the approval of
the county or city that sent those inmates to ICC. Some jurisdictions complied
immediately. Wyandotte County, Kan., did not respond to his calls. "We
should have been able to get to these inmates in a matter of days," Heiss said. "And some of the inmates I wouldn't even
begin to know where they are now." Heiss found
other problems as well, including prison logs that showed Lockridge had not
been checked on hourly as ordered after she was put in segregation. Zarda called it a clerical error. "We have an
officer who failed to log her checks every time," Zarda
said. "But she was checked every hour."
Jefferson
City Correctional Center
Sep
23, 2021 newstribune.com
Iberia woman indicted for allegedly having sex with JCCC
An
Iberia woman is facing multiple charges after authorities claim she had a
sexual relationship with an inmate at the Jefferson City Correctional Center.
Amy Murray, 43, is charged with one count of first-degree sexual abuse and
three counts of offender abuse. The Cole County Grand Jury indicted Murray,
finding there was enough evidence to send her case onto the circuit courts
for possible trial. A Missouri Department of Corrections probable cause
statement states Murray was employed as a nurse in September 2018; she was
working through Corizon Health, a private company that provides health care
at the state's prisons. She was later fired from the company. Authorities
said Murray met and eventually had a sexual relationship with an inmate in
the unit where Murray worked. She created an email account and began to send
and receive "romantic emails" with the inmate. She later provided
the inmate with a phone number, and the two began to allegedly engage in
conversations of a romantic nature. In late September 2018, Murray and the
inmate engaged in sexual intercourse on three different occasions and in
different locations, authorities said. Murray's last shift at JCCC was in
October 2018. The two contacted each other by phone in January 2019 and in
one call, authorities alleged that Murray and the inmate expressed their love
for one another and planned to get married. Investigators later interviewed
the inmate who allegedly admitted to having a relationship with Murray.
Investigators then tried to talk with Murray in the Miller County Jail in
February 2019, but she invoked her Miranda Rights and refused to talk. This
investigation was initiated because Murray has been charged with the murder
of her husband in December 2018 in Miller County. Murray pleaded not guilty
in September 2020 to first-degree murder, armed criminal action,
second-degree arson and tampering with physical evidence, all felonies, for
the death of her husband, Joshua Murray, who died in a fire at the couple's
home. Her case is scheduled to be back in court in October, with the trial
scheduled to start in January. Joshua's body was found after the fire on Dec.
11, 2018. The Missouri Fire Marshal's Office and the Miller County Sheriff's
Department determined the fire was a result of arson. It originated in the
master bedroom, and an accelerant had been used to start the fire. An autopsy
concluded Joshua had been dead before the fire and had died of poisoning,
with indications he had been poisoned with antifreeze. Cellphone records
indicate Murray was at the residence a half-hour before the fire was reported
to 911, according to a Miller County Sheriff's Department probable cause
statement. She later told investigators she had left the residence with her
11-year-old son and two dogs, and drove to
McDonald's in Osage Beach. After listening to recordings of phone
conversations at the prison, investigators said they learned Murray had told
the inmate she didn't want to be around her husband and wanted to divorce
him. She later told the inmate they could get married because her husband was
dead. The two also talked about getting the inmate an attorney so he could be
released from prison early.
Joplin
City Jail
Joplin, Missouri
GRW
August 11, 2008 Joplin Globe
Joplin will take over operations of the city jail and a transportation
service instead of contracting the services to outside vendors, the City
Council decided Monday night. The decision was based on a projection that the
city could save more than $800,000 over the next five years by taking over
the operations. The council made the decision at a work session that preceded
a “City Hall in the Park” informal session at the Wildcat Glades Conservation
and Audubon Center in Wildcat Park. Budget director Leslie Jones told the
council that the Metro Area Publictransit System
contract was bid out last year, and the contracted operator, Access Transit,
recently notified the city that it cannot honor the contract beyond Oct. 31
because of the increased cost of fuel. The jail contract with GRW, of
Brentwood, Tenn., expires Oct. 31.
May 14, 2007 Joplin Globe
A Joplin city jail inmate is dead after he was found hanging from the
ceiling of the jail about 7:34 a.m. today. According to Lt. Geoff Jones of
the police department, attempts to revive the man were unsuccessful. He was
being held in a two-person cell by himself awaiting court in Joplin and
possible extradition to Greene County. Detectives with the Joplin Police
Department are investigating the death and an autopsy is scheduled for later
today. The name of the vicitm is being withheld
pending notification of family members. The Joplin City Jail is operated by
GRW Corporation, a private security company. Jones said this is the first
in-custody death at the Joplin jail since 1997, when GRW took over day-to-day
operations.
Medium
Security Institute
St. Louis, Missouri
Corizon (formerly CMS)
August 30, 2012 ACLU Press Release
The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri’s civil suit against
the city of St. Louis and Correctional Medical Services, the medical provider
for the city jails that is now known as Corizon, was dismissed today.
Originally filed in 2010 on behalf of an HIV-positive inmate at the Medium
Security Institute in St. Louis, the ACLU-EM’s lawsuit cited life-threatening
deliberate indifference to a serious medical condition. The inmate, known as
John Doe to protect his privacy, was incarcerated in early 2010 and for the
first 20 days of his stay was denied the life-saving medication for which he
had a daily prescription. During that period he was given only Tylenol,
despite repeated attempts by him, a friend and his doctor to re-establish his
prescribed medical regime. “No one awaiting trial should ever be denied
medical care,” says Brenda L. Jones, executive director of the ACLU-EM. “But,
this case was especially egregious because people who are HIV-positive can
quickly build resistance to medications that are not taken consistently.”
Tony Rothert, the ACLU-EM’s legal director, said
“This gross violation of our client’s constitutional rights caused him
suffering, mental and emotional distress, and great fear of physical harm.
Even worse is the gross incompetence displayed by Corizon, the company that
also provides medical services to the state of Missouri’s prisons.” The case
was dismissed as part of a settlement agreement. A condition of the
settlement prevents the disclosure of the amount of settlement funds paid to
Doe.
Midwest Security Housing
Pattonsburg, Missouri
Midwest Security
May 30, 2007 Des Moines Register
An escaped Missouri convict was captured in Des Moines today, said Neil
Shultz of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. Abdul Jackson had been missing since
Friday from the Midwest Security Housing in Pattonsburg,
Mo. He was arrested at 3422 S.W. Eighth St. Shultz said he understood
Jackson’s mother lives at the house. Shultz said Jackson, who was considered
dangerous by authorities, was arrested without incident. Jackson is a Polk
County inmate who was in Missouri due to jail crowding, Shultz said. He was
being held on possession with intent to deliver crack cocaine, burglary,
traffic and a plethora of other charges. Shultz said Jackson will now also be
charged with escape from custody. Midwest Security Housing is a privately
operated prison in Missouri, used frequently by Polk County to house inmates.
Shultz said the facility is "secure" but "sometimes, things
happen. We’re glad we have him in custody again.” Jackson is currently being
held in the Polk County Jail. "I don't anticipate we'll be sending him
back to Missouri," Shultz said.
Missouri Department of Corrections
Jan
19, 2022 kshb.com
Kevin
Strickland sues medical provider over medical care in prison Lawsuit claims
denial of competent health care
KANSAS
CITY, Mo. - Kevin Strickland, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 43 years, is
suing Missouri's contracted medical provider for the prison system for
depriving him of essential medical care. Attorneys for Strickland filed a
federal lawsuit against Corizon LLC, a private prison health-care contractor,
and four Corizon employees for damages related to his medical care while in
prison. The lawsuit alleges that, while Strickland was confined to Crossroads
Correctional Center and the Western Missouri Correctional Center, "he
was denied timely access to adequate and competent medical care for
evaluation and treatment of serious medical conditions."
"Missouri's contracted medical provider, Defendant Corizon, added to
(Strickland's) suffering by depriving him of essential medical care for an
obvious and serious medical condition" the lawsuit said. "That
deprivation of constitutionally required medical care resulted in
(Strickland) losing much of his mobility and now having to use a
wheelchair." While Strickland was in prison, Corizon was under contract
with the Missouri Department of Corrections to provide health care services
for all inmates confined in state-run correctional facilities. Strickland was
diagnosed in February 2017 with musculoligamentous back pain and possible
mild tight hamstring syndrome. The doctor recommended a low stress/low impact
activity, exercise and Capsaicin cream. At a
follow-up appointment in May, Strickland said he had difficulty walking from
the housing unit to the dining room and said the pain and numbness was
getting worse. The doctor prescribed the same regimen as well as an
antidepressant. Strickland had another follow-up appointment on June 15,
2017, during which the doctor saw no improvement in his condition and upped
his dosage of the antidepressant. Strickland then had two self-declared
emergencies on July 13, 2017. During the first emergency, Strickland
complained of worsening pain and numbness in his lower back and legs that
made it hard for him to walk. "His condition was determined not to be emergent and he was instructed to follow the MSR (Medical
Services Request) process," the lawsuit said. Later that day, Strickland
had another self-declared emergency and was taken to the Medical Unit in a
wheelchair because he was unable to walk. "Although his condition was
determined to be a medical emergency, the nurse noted that he had not
declared an emergency within the previous 72 hours and that she would contact
the on-call physician, who ordered a Toradol injection," the lawsuit
said. "Strickland was returned to his Housing Unit and instructed to
return to Medical if his symptoms worsened." Two days later
on July 15, Strickland had another self-declared emergency because of
pain in his back and numbness and tingling in his legs. The nurse noted that
Strickland could not bend over and that he had limited ability to perform
"activities of daily living." Strickland was given another Toradol
injection and was told to return if his symptoms worsened. He was also
diagnosed Sept. 14, 2017, with paresthesia, a burning or tingling sensation
usually in a person's extremities, in his legs. Clinical personnel at the
Western Missouri Correctional Center, or WMCC, were not able to provide all medical
treatments on-site, so Strickland asked for a referral request for an
electromyography test by an off-site specialist on Nov. 24, 2017. The
physician's notes said that he had him stand in the exam room. Strickland
said after four minutes the pins and needles sensation became so severe that
he needed to sit down. The referral request was denied. Strickland again
asked for a referral request on Dec. 7, 2017, for an MRI to rule out spinal
stenosis. That request was denied because "advanced imaging should be
reserved for cases that do not respond to conservative management."
Eventually, Strickland was issued a ground floor/lower bunk, handicap shower
use and a wheelchair with a pusher on Jan. 12, 2018. He was also prescribed
an opioid for the pain. "The same patterns of denial and deferral of
off-site evaluation and specialty care for Strickland's severe back pain and
numbness in his lower extremities in favor of site-based conservative
treatment modalities and alternate treatment plans not only persisted throughout
2018-2021, but they also rendered him unable to ambulate independently or
perform ADLs (activities of daily living) as he did before his condition was
allowed to deteriorate," the lawsuit said. "These patterns also
culminated in multiple related grievances that Strickland waged from Informal
Resolution Request ('IRR') to Grievance Appeal." The lawsuit alleges
that Corizon's policies and practices resulted in a "deliberate and
systemic disregard" for all inmates health and
safety and were the main reason for Strickland's injuries. The lawsuit also
said that there is a "widespread pattern of official misconduct"
that shows a "deliberate indifference to the health and safety of all
inmates confined to the WMCC." The lawsuit details four alleged violations
of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution - deliberate indifference to
serious medical need and failure to provide medical care and treatment;
failure to train/inadequate training; failure to supervise, direct and
control/inadequate supervision, direction and
control; and deliberate indifference to serious medical need and failure to
provide medical care and treatment. The attorneys who filed the lawsuit on
behalf of Strickland are asking for a jury trial in the case.
Nov
5, 2021 missouriindependent.com
Corizon
loses challenge to Missouri prisoner medical care contract award Centurion
Health, a subsidiary of Centene, will take over health care for inmates on
Nov. 15
A
lawsuit alleges a Virginia company has knowingly polluted the well water of Springfield
families for years (Creative Commons photo via WeissPaarz.com ). The company
providing health care to state prisoners failed to prove a competitor misled
state purchasing officers to win the $1.4 billion contract, Cole County
Circuit Judge Daniel Green ruled Thursday. Corizon Health, which has been the
state's vendor for prisoner medical needs since 1992, accused the state
Purchasing Division of giving the contract to Centurion Health despite
problems with its bid that should have disqualified it. Green did not agree
and issued his ruling after Corizon finished its case and without a formal
presentation from assistant attorney general Craig Jacobs, who represented
the state, or attorney Chuck Hatfield, who represented Centurion. Green asked
the attorneys to file a statement of facts that he can use to write a formal
opinion, which he said would come next week. By the time any appeal can be
heard, Centurion will be providing health care for the Department of
Corrections. Centurion's proposal was chosen as the best of five bids
submitted for the contract, which could last up to seven years. Corizon
protested the award in mid-June, about two weeks before the contract was
scheduled to begin. The start of the contract has been delayed while the
court case was pending and is now set to begin Nov. 15. In the protest, and
the lawsuit, Corizon focused on whether Centurion could deliver the
experienced managers it promised after firing a key member of its corporate
team and whether failing to tell the state about the firing was misconduct
that should void the award. "They have not established the
misrepresentations they claim were made," Jacobs said to Green as he
asked for the verdict. Under the Missouri contract, Centurion will be paid
$1.4 billion to care for the state's approximately 23,000 inmates if the
contract runs for the full seven year term. The
challenge from Corizon arose from material uncovered in Tennessee, where
Centurion also bested Corizon for a behavioral health services contract in
that state's prisons. Corizon sued Centurion in federal court in Tennessee
and found emails from Wesley Landers, the chief financial officer for the
Tennessee Department of Corrections, to Jeff Wells, a vice president of
Centurion, providing internal documents about the contract. Landers was hired
by Centurion, but after discovery of the communication, the company fired
both Landers and Wells. Tennessee announced in May that it would seek new
bids for the contract. Scott King, general counsel for Corizon, said the company
will wait until it sees Green's written judgment before deciding whether to
appeal. "We felt we put on a very good case," King said. " We
felt we showed a great deal of corruption in the process in Tennessee, which
led to false and misleading submissions. Unfortunately
it appears you can do that in the state of Missouri and it really doesn;'t matter. It is very concerning to us."
During testimony Thursday afternoon, Karen Boeger,
director of the purchasing division, said that everything Centurion submitted
in its proposal was true when it was received. If there are changes in the
corporate team, she said, there is a process for substituting key personnel.
"People do get fired," Boeger said.
"People do leave. People do die." Failure to replace key personnel
could be a breach of contract, she said, but there are often changes in who
handles the state's business at its vendors. "The problem is if there is
no substitution," she said. "They would be in breach of what they
committed to me." Many of Corizon's arguments focused on the final
document presented to the state, known as a best and final offer. The
decision to fire Wells, and the problems that led Tennessee to rebid that
state's contract, should have been disclosed, the company said. Boeger, in her testimony, said the best and final offer
document is intended to answer specific questions from purchasing officers.
It is not intended as a way to resubmit the entire
proposal, she said. The key to the case, Hatfield said, is that state
purchasing rules allow substitution of personnel. "In this case,
Centurion made a proposal to use a person, absolutely intended to do it, it
was absolutely true," Hatfield said. "Later, he's no longer with
the company. This is not an unusual situation. Frankly it is kind of a usual
situation."
Nov
3, 2021 missouriindependent.com
Trial
set to begin in dispute over $1.4 billion Missouri prison health care
contract Current provider Corizon is suing to block loss of business after 30
years as state vendor
Corizon Health, which has held the
Department of Corrections contract since 1992, filed a lawsuit in Cole County
alleging unfair treatment and improper scoring gave the contract to Centurion
Health, a Virginia subsidiary of St. Louis-based managed care company Centene
As both sides of a dispute over Missouri's $1.4 billion prison health care
contract prepare to face off in court Wednesday, the current provider is being
accused of bad faith in its lawsuit seeking to hold on to the contract.
Long-term contractor Corizon Health is accusing the winning bidder, Centurion
Health, of failing to disclose it lost a contract in Tennessee under a cloud
of suspicion. But Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt's office, which is
defending the state, wrote in a brief filed last week that Corizon didn't
notify the state it lost a bid to continue as the Michigan contractor. That
gives it "unclean hands" in this case, wrote Craig Jacobs,
assistant attorney general. "Just as plaintiff has alleged that
Centurion failed to notify the defendants that it lost a contract with
Tennessee, plaintiff similarly failed to notify the defendants in its (Best
and Final Offer) that it had lost a contract in the state of Michigan since
the submission of its original proposal to the RFP," assistant attorney
general Craig Jacobs wrote. Unclean hands is a legal
term meaning a party engaged in conduct that disqualifies it from suing. Cole
County Circuit Judge Daniel Green will preside over the trial that starts
Wednesday. It is scheduled for three days but the attorneys anticipate it
will be finished Thursday afternoon. In a September hearing, Green said he
would rule by Monday. Corizon is seeking to protect the Corrections
Department contract it has held since the state privatized prisoner health
care 30 years ago. Unless Green blocks it, the new contract, originally
scheduled to begin July 1, is set to begin on Nov. 14. Centurion's attorney
Chuck Hatfield also accuses Corizon of having unclean hands, but for a
different reason. He filed a brief noting that the state turned down
Corizon's demand for more money to treat prisoners with COVID-19.
"Plaintiffs attempted to pressure the state into amending its contract
for additional funds and was unsuccessful," Hatfield wrote. "To
then challenge the state's right to refuse to amend plaintiff's contract and
jeopardize intervenor's contract is not acting in good faith." Corizon
is suing the state Division of Purchasing, which handles the evaluation and
award of most state contracts. Centurion intervened in the case to protect
its interests in the lawsuit. Corizon's record as the state's prison health
care provider is mixed. It is the largest for-profit prison health care
provider in the country, and has been sued numerous
times by inmates alleging substandard care in Missouri and other states where
it operates. It has struggled to maintain its contracts in recent years. In
addition to the Tennessee and Michigan contracts, Corizon lost the Kansas
Department of Corrections contract to Centurion in April 2020. The trial will
focus on two issues: whether Centurion should have been disqualified for
submitting false information in its proposal and whether it engaged in misconduct
during the bidding process. Corizon, represented by attorney Jennifer
Griffin, on Monday dismissed two of its claims - that bid scoring was biased
against Corizon because of a "strained relationship" with the
Department of Corrections and that Centurion wasn't penalized enough for
having the highest-cost proposal. Corizon, which received the second-lowest
score of the five companies that submitted proposals, wants Green to order
the Purchasing Division to start over, with Centurion disqualified. "We
believe that the procurement process was unlawful because Centurion provided
significant false and misleading information as part of the (Request for
Proposals) process," Corizon spokesman Charles Seigel wrote in an email.
"That information was relied upon by the state of Missouri in making an
award to Centurion. We believe as a
matter of law that the award to Centurion should be cancelled and a new RFP
issued." Corizon first laid out its objections to Centurion's award in a
protest filed in late June, a month after the contract was awarded. In
addition to questioning how the bids were scored, the protest focused heavily
on the Tennessee contract. In that case, Centurion won the contract to
provide behavioral health services in Tennessee prisons. Corizon, which was
the loser in that bid process as well, sued and
uncovered communication between key officials of the Tennessee prison system
and top executives at Centurion. Wesley Landers, the chief financial officer
for the Tennessee Department of Corrections, had ongoing communication with
Centurion senior executives, providing confidential information including
drafts of the bidding documents. In the middle of the bidding process,
Centurion hired Landers as a vice president. But it fired him, and one of his
principal contacts in the company, Jeffrey Wells, in February, because of the
revelations in Tennessee. In May, Tennessee announced it would rebid the
contract because of the insider dealing. Wells is named in the Missouri bid
as the corporation's team member with primary responsibility for the Missouri
contract. Corizon argues that Centurion knew it had fired Wells when the best
and final offer document was submitted and knew it was about to produce
documents in the lawsuit that would likely cost it the Tennessee contract.
"Intervenor made a conscious choice to conceal its misconduct from
Tennessee and Missouri, and to name a wrongdoer in its proposal as the member
of its corporate leadership team with primary responsibility for performing
the Missouri contract," Griffin wrote in the lawsuit. In response to the
state's argument that Corizon made similar omissions in its final document,
Griffin said the two situations are not comparable. While the Tennessee
contract was tainted by misconduct, she wrote, Corizon's submissions
"accurately stated that it had the Michigan contract." Corizon's
contract with Michigan ended Sept. 30. However, that state made its decision
March 3, two weeks before final bid documents were submitted in Missouri.
Centurion's argument that Corizon should be barred from suing because it
demanded additional money under the current contract has nothing to do with
its objections to the award of the new contract, Griffin wrote.
Aug
31, 2021 newstribune.com
Lawsuit filed over Missouri prison healthcare contract The dispute about
the $1.4 billion contract to provide prisoner health care in Missouri is
moving into the courts
Corizon
Health, which has held the Department of Corrections contract since 1992,
filed a lawsuit Monday in Cole County alleging unfair treatment and improper
scoring gave the contract to Centurion Health, a Virginia subsidiary of St.
Louis-based managed care company Centene.The
existing contract was set to expire July 1 but has been extended to Oct.1.
Corizon filed a protest June 14 over the contract, which was turned down July
30. The lawsuit names as defendants the state Office of Administration and
the Division of Purchasing. "Defendants have engaged in multiple unfair
and unlawful practices that rendered the procurement process unfair,
unlawful, unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious, and denied Corizon a fair
and equal chance to compete for a re-award of the contract," the lawsuit
alleges. A hearing on a temporary restraining order to block the change to
Centurion is set for Thursday before Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green.
Corizon wants an order blocking the change to avoid having to close its
central offices in Jefferson City and lose 700 clinical and operational
employees at prisons. "If this contract is transitioned before this case
is resolved in Corizon's favor, then Corizon will also incur substantial
re-start-up costs plus re-employment of personnel issues," the lawsuit
states. Neither the Office of Administration, Centene nor Centurian
responded to email requests for comment on the lawsuit. In its protest,
Corizon accused the state of treating it unfairly in the scoring of its bid.
The company also alleged Centurion failed to report problems that cost it a
Tennessee contract May 10 - including that key personnel involved in its
Missouri bid were fired over their involvement in a bid-rigging scandal. The
Department of Corrections wanted to get rid of Corizon, the company contends
in the lawsuit, because of a "strained relationship." The strains,
the lawsuit states, resulted from Corizon's agitation for higher per capita
payments due to COVID-19 costs and because prisoner totals declined, leaving
an older population with more health care needs. "Because of Corizon's
reasonable requests for amendments of the current contract to include the
unforeseeable increased service costs that the DOC did not and does not want
to pay, its relationship with the current DOC leadership became
strained," states the lawsuit filed by Jennifer Griffin on behalf of
Corizon. Centurion Health beat out four other bidders for the contract
awarded May 28. Under the terms of the contract, Centurion would be paid
$174.6 million for the year starting July 1. The initial contract term is
three years, with four optional years, and Centurion's bid totals $1.4
billion over the full period. Lawmakers appropriated $152.8 million for
prison medical services in the coming year, the third year where the amount
has been unchanged. The actual cost in fiscal 2020 was $149.9 million. In the
protest, Corizon contended the scandal involving the Tennessee contract is
important to the Missouri award because key personnel named in the offer to
Missouri have been fired because of their involvement. Centurion did not
notify Missouri of the changes in key leadership and did not alert the state
it had lost the Tennessee contract under a cloud. Corizon also noted it had
found numerous instances of improper communication between Centurion and
Tennessee officials and that similar communications may be a factor in
Missouri. The July 30 response to the protest dismissed those concerns,
finding that Centurion's filings with Missouri were accurate at the time and
the company had no obligation to make amendments unless it won the contract.
The division also looked for communications about the bid that violated
purchasing rules, Karen Boeger, director of the
division of purchasing, wrote in the response. "After extensive
research, neither the division nor (the Department of Corrections) have
identified any inappropriate communications that have transpired relative to
the procurement process from time of requirement drafting through contract
award," she wrote. Boeger also rejected claims
the bid scoring was unfair or that the overall cost of Centurion's bid
disqualified it because it was more than the state appropriated. The scoring
is consistent across all bids, she wrote, and bids were not evaluated against
each other until the final scores were reviewed. The cost of the contract is
not an issue, she wrote, because lawmakers regularly make supplemental
appropriations and have done so for prison health care in nine of the last 20
fiscal years. The Missouri Independent is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news
organization covering state government and its impact on Missourians.
Aug
4, 2021 dailyjournalonline.com
Corizon
Health out; Missouri officials reject appeal of massive prison health care
contract
JEFFERSON
CITY - In a decision affecting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, Gov.
Mike Parson's administration moved to bring on a new company to provide
health care to Missouri's prison inmates. The ruling, issued Friday but not
made public until Tuesday, rejects an appeal of a bidding process that saw
the long-time prison medical vendor lose its contract to a competing firm.
The decision, which could be appealed, means Corizon Health likely will be
replaced by Virginia-based Centurion Health when it comes to who supplies and
oversees doctors and nurses behind the prison walls. Centurion, which is a
subsidiary of Clayton-based managed care company Centene, was chosen over
four other firms in late May for the state's lucrative prison healthcare
contract. The company's bid of $174 million per year puts them on track to be
paid over $1.3 billion if the contract is fully renewed on an annual basis by
the state. But Corizon, which has held the contract for nearly three decades,
protested the award, suggesting that Centurion had made "prohibited
communications" with the administration in order to
gain an upper hand in winning the contract. Corizon said it would offer its
services for $159 million per year. Two other companies also bid on the work.
Writing in a 16-page decision, Karen Boeger, who
oversees contracts and purchasing for the Office of Administration, said
Corizon had no basis for that accusation. "After extensive research,
neither the division nor (the Department of Corrections) have identified any
inappropriate communications that has transpired relative to the procurement
process from time of requirement drafting through contract award," Boeger wrote. Corizon also alleged that Centurion
misrepresented its experience in providing prison health care because it had
fired one of its top managers amid a scandal in Tennessee. But,
Boeger also struck that down, saying the change in
status came after Centurion had submitted its initial bid. "Despite
Corizon's protest contentions to the contrary, the evaluation of Centurion's
proposal as a responsive proposal appears to be appropriate," Boeger wrote. Boeger also
rejected Corizon's claim it was a Missouri-based company, saying the
signature page of their proposal to the state, as well as their registration
with the Secretary of State's office, show they are a Tennessee-based
business. The opening of the contract resulted in big business for some Jefferson
City lobbying firms. Centurion, which provides prison health care in 17
states, hired the Gamble and Schlemeier lobbying
firm in July 2020. They have 10 registered lobbyists assigned to Centurion.
Corizon has lobbyists Richard McIntosh and David McCracken on board. In
addition to standard medical care, the contract also calls for the vendor to
provide dental, behavioral health and pharmacy services to the state's 20
prisons.
tennesseelookout.com
Jun 22, 2021
Missouri
prison healthcare contract won by company accused of bid-rigging in Tennessee
By Rudi Keller
The
long-time contractor for medical services in Missouri's prisons is protesting
the state's decision to award the business to a company that will charge more
than lawmakers appropriated and is accused of bid-rigging to obtain a
contract in Tennessee prisons. Centurion Health, a Virginia subsidiary of St.
Louis-based managed care company Centene, beat out four other bidders -
including current provider Corizon Health - for a contract awarded May 28.
Under the terms of the contract, Centurion would be paid $174.6 million for
the year starting July 1. The initial contract term is three years, with four
optional years, and Centurion's bid totals $1.4 billion over the full period.
Lawmakers appropriated $152.8 million for prison medical services in the
coming year, the third year where the amount has been unchanged. The actual
cost in fiscal 2020 was $149.9 million. In the formal protest filed last
week, Corizon wrote that it was treated unfairly in the scoring and that
Centurion failed to report problems that cost it a Tennessee contract on May
10 - including that key personnel involved in its Missouri bid were fired
over their involvement in the Tennessee scandal. "While Corizon realizes
it will not always be the successful bidder, it expects and is entitled to a
fair bidding process and that did not occur here," the company wrote in
the protest filed with the state Purchasing Division. In Tennessee, Corizon
sued Centurion after the award of that state's $123 million contract for
prison mental health services to the Tennessee Department of Corrections. The
protest will be investigated by the Office of Administration, which handles
contracting for the state. A determination, including findings and an analysis
of the allegations, will be made, and if the protest is sustained, the
contract could be cancelled, the agency spokesman said. Both Centurion and
Corizon declined to comment on the allegations contained in the protest or on
the bidding process when contacted by The Independent. Corizon's protest
states that the scandal involving the Tennessee contract is important to the
Missouri award because key personnel named in the offer to Missouri have been
fired because of their involvement. In Tennessee, Corizon sued Centurion
after the award of that state's $123 million contract for prison mental
health services. Records requests and evidence uncovered in the Tennessee
lawsuit found that Wesley Landers, the chief financial officer for the
Tennessee Department of Corrections, had ongoing communication with Centurion
senior executives, providing confidential information including drafts of the
bidding documents. In the middle of the bidding process, Centurion hired
Landers a vice president. But it fired him, and one of his principal contacts
in the company, Jeffrey Wells, in February. Tennessee canceled the contract
in May after the details of the arrangement were made public through the
Corizon lawsuit. Despite being fired a month earlier, Wells was still listed
in Centurion's final offer document "as the corporate team member with
primary responsibility for delivery of the Missouri contract," Corizon's
protest states. The offer document also states Centurion claimed
"it had never lost a contract for a negative reason when it knew a
contract was about to be cancelled for misconduct," the protest states,
"and later failed to disclose that the contract was cancelled for
misconduct." Both are misrepresentations that should disqualify
Centurion, the Corizon protest states. The improper communication is
troubling, the protest alleges, because it shows Centurion's willingness to
break the rules to obtain public business. "Corizon fears that Centurion
may have attempted or engaged in similar conduct relating to this (request
for proposals)," the protest states. "Corizon's investigation is ongoing and it reserves the right to amend its protest to
assert as needed to include newly-obtained information." After the bid
award, the protest states, Corizon sent records requests to the Missouri
Department of Corrections and the state Division of Purchasing. The
purchasing division stated it could not fulfill the request before the
deadline for a protest. The protest accuses the corrections department of
violating the Sunshine Law by failing to respond in the time required and
directing requests to the purchasing division rather than looking for records
in its possession. In response to an inquiry from The Independent, Department
of Corrections spokeswoman Karen Pojmann declined to
address the allegations from Corizon. "Because the contract is still in
protest and because the contract is an Office of Administration contract
rather than a Department of Corrections contract, I'm afraid we aren't able
to comment," Pojmann wrote in an email. In the
protest, Corizon cites the high costs as a reason for the state to cancel the
contract. The price far exceeds the appropriation level for prison medical
services in the coming year, the protest states, and violates state law that
directs contracts to the "lowest and best" bid. Centurion's bid
carried the second-highest cost of the five proposals, $21.8 million more
than state lawmakers appropriated. Wexford Health Sources, a Pennsylvania
company, offered the lowest price, $154.7 million, while Corizon offered to
handle the work for $159 million. Over the full seven years, Corizon's offer
was $183 million less than Centurion and Wexford Health was $232 million
below Centurion. As part of determining whether a vendor can deliver at the
price quoted, proposals are scored by a committee on a variety of factors
including experience, work plan, team qualifications and other criteria.
Corizon Health and its predecessor companies have provided prison health
services in Missouri since it became a contracted service 29 years ago. It
received a score of 109.44 out of a possible 218 points, fourth lowest, while
Centurion was given a score of 171.18. The other scores were Wellpath, a Tennessee company, scored at 154.46; Wexford
Health, given 145.1 points, and InGenesis, a
company with no prison health experience, scored at 99.36. "The similar
scoring of Corizon's proposal to InGenesis',"
the protest states, "and the extreme disparity between scoring of
Corizon's proposal compared to Centurion's and Wellpath's
demonstrate unfair bias against Corizon in the evaluation process."
Corizon's record as the state's prison health care provider is mixed. It is
the largest for-profit prison health care provider in the country,
and has been sued numerous times by inmates in Missouri and other
states where it operates. It has struggled to maintain its contracts in
recent years. Corizon lost the Kansas Department of Corrections contract to
Centurion in April 2020.
Missouri
Legislature
March 13, 2009 Columbia Missourian
With nearly unanimous support, the state Senate passed a bill Thursday that
would, for the first time, make private jails in Missouri subject to state
oversight. The bill would also require jails to notify local police officials
when an inmate escapes, a reaction to a September incident in which two
prisoners fled a private jail near Kansas City and the sheriff's office was
not informed for hours. Missouri's two private jails, located in Bethany and
Holden, house out-of-state inmates moved because of overcrowding. The Holden
facility was the site of last year's escape. Bill sponsor Sen. David Pearce,
R-Warrensburg, says his legislation would ensure that all jails housing
convicted felons are held accountable for reporting incidents like the one in
Holden. "Right now, with these jails there is no accountability, no
regulation, no oversight," he said. "What this bill tries to do is
at least set standards and not have these sort of rogue
prisons that are not part of society." The bill seeks to hold
private jails to the same standards as county jails and state prisons. It
also authorizes the state to fine jails that do not report escapes in a
"timely" manner, which Pearce said was designed to avoid a repeat
of last year's escape. In September, two prisoners from Kansas City, Kan.,
escaped from the Holden facility, located in Pearce's district. They escaped
at about 5 a.m., according to news reports, but the Johnson County sheriff's
office was not notified until 1 p.m. that day, and local residents were not
informed until even later. According to Pearce, it was not a crime for the
prisoners to flee, something he said makes no sense. "It's not a crime
to escape from a private jail," he said. "Once the prison told
Johnson County about the escape, the sheriff's office said there was nothing
they could do because no crime was committed, and Kansas had to re-introduce
charges to arrest them. That's crazy and shouldn't happen again."
February 27, 2009 KSHB TV
The Missouri Catholic Conference is critical of a proposed private jail
bill they believe falls short of protecting citizens. The Missouri Senate is
poised to debate Senate Bill 44 and the Missouri Catholic Conference is
seeking additional protections in the private jail bill. The bill, sponsored
by Sen. David Pearce (R-Warrensburg), proposes to regulate private jails. The
bill was filed in response to an escape of two inmates with violent records
from Integrity Correctional Center, a private jail in Johnson County. The
inmates apparently escaped through an unlocked door and then tunneled under a
fence in the prison recreational area. Integrity officials did not notify the
Johnson County Sheriff’s department until 15 hours after the escape. The MCC
believes several areas should be strengthened in the bill. “While the bill
calls for notifying authorities of any escape, the requirements are
incomplete and do not currently apply as written to all counties and cities,”
noted Deacon Larry Weber, Executive Director of Missouri Catholic Conference.
The bill’s provisions only require reporting of escapes in 3rd and 4th class
counties, but not in 2nd class counties like Johnson County, Missouri where
the escape took Missouri currently has two private jails in operation in the
state, yet there are no state laws regulating the operation of these
facilities. SB 44 proposes to establish guidelines for the operation of
private correctional facilities. “The provisions in SB 44 are a very small
step in the right direction, but they go nowhere near far enough to protect
the public from danger and liability,” says Weber.
October 4, 2008 Herald-Tribune
State Representative David Pearce, R-121 and candidate for the Missouri
State Senate District 31, is proposing legislation that will require private
jails to report certain incidents to local law enforcement. The legislation
would require private jails to notify local law enforcement immediately upon
the escape of prisoners. Also a reasonable effort must be made to notify
local landowners and residents. The legislation is prompted by the recent
escape of two prisoners at the ICC private jail in western Johnson County
near Holden. The Sheriff's office was not notified until 15 hours after the
escape. The legislation has the complete support of Johnson County Sheriff
Charles Heiss. "We welcome legislation that
will help protect our citizens. We applaud Rep. Pearce on this proposed
legislation and look forward to working with him to make this happen," Heiss said. "The Department of Corrections is
supportive of Representative Pearce's proposal, it will ensure that the
safety of citizens in the community is the number one priority," said
Larry Crawford, Director of the Department of Corrections. Also showing
support for the proposal was Cass County Sheriff Dwight Diehl, Vernon County
Sheriff Ron Peckman, Executive Director of the
Missouri Sheriffs Association Mick Covington, President of the Missouri
Deputy Sheriffs Association Dave Boehm, Johnson County Prosecuting Attorney
Lynn Stoppy, Holden Police Chief Rick Martin and
Holden Mayor Mike Wakeman. The legislation would
also require private jails to notify local law enforcement of all incidents
of assaults, injuries and death. Penalty provisions could include fines and
possible criminal penalties for those individuals who knowingly violate the
law.
Northwest Missouri State University
Maryville, Missouri
Aramark
September 14, 2011 Maryville Daily Forum
Northwest Missouri State University's Board of Regents has wasted little time
in addressing findings delivered in a state audit declaring that the school
violated the Missouri Constitution by failing to solicit competitive bids
from its food service, facilities maintenance and bookstore vendors. Instead
of bidding out the contracts as required by state law, Northwest extended
arrangements with Aramark and Barnes & Noble for years in exchange for
$1.5 million in donations to the Northwest Foundation to fund football
stadium improvements. In a formal response to the State Auditor Tom
Schweich's findings, Northwest President John Jasinski
committed the university to a competitive bidding process that would end with
the awarding of new vendor contracts within 24 to 36 months. The regents,
however, moved that deadline forward last week, pledging to begin the
request-for-proposal process as soon as October with a goal of having new
facilities management and bookstore contracts in place by the end of next
summer. Awarding a new food service contract will take a bit longer, but
Northwest finance chief Stacey Carrick said she expects a deal to be in place
by May 2013. Getting its fiscal house in order could be expensive for
Northwest. Current contracts provide for prorated refunds of vendor donations
if contracts are not extended through 2017. However, Carrick said such
penalties will not be a factor as Northwest moves forward with new bid
requests. University Counsel Scott Sullivan said staggering the contract
awards is necessary in order to avoid logistical problems associated with
making major changes in connection with key student services all at once.
Negotiating three major vendor deals at the same time, he said, could create
"real conflicts with a very short amount of time to deal with
them." Sullivan added that completing the contract award process in
about 18 months ― as opposed to two or three years ― should serve
as a strong statement that Northwest is acting in a timely fashion to address
audit findings that suggest sloppy fiscal management on a number of fronts.
In addition to trading contracts for stadium money, Northwest is also said to
have committed fiscal improprieties by using $3.3 million over three years to
subsidize the non-profit Northwest Foundation, another constitutional
violation. Also, following his retirement, former university President Dean
Hubbard apparently received more than a quarter-million dollars in cash
payments and other benefits for which few or no services were rendered
― yet another violation of state law.
Phelps County Jail
Rolla, MO 65401
May 28, 2022 stltoday.com
Federal jury in St. Louis awards $8.5 million in jail health care case
Advanced
Correctional Healthcare is the largest privately owned provider of health
care services to county jails in the country. It has contracts with more than
320 jails in 18 states, mostly in the Midwest, including several in Missouri
and Illinois. On its website, it used to brag that it had never had a lawsuit
"result in a judgment" against the company or its doctors. That's
no longer true. On May 24 a federal jury in St. Louis awarded the sister of
Bilal Hill $8.5 million in damages relating to Hill's death. The Columbia,
Missouri, man died of lung cancer at the age of 43 after a
several-months-long stay in the Phelps County Jail. He complained of pain and
a growth in his neck from early in his stay there. His pleas were ignored by
the company and its doctors contracted to provide health care to inmates at
the jail, jurors found. "The jury saw the same things that we saw,"
said Hill's sister, Lady Maakia Charlene Smith. She
lives in North Carolina and was on the phone with the jail regularly
advocating for her brother. He was being held while awaiting trial on federal
charges for alleged possession of marijuana, K-2, and guns. "People are
treated differently if they get outside care versus care inside the
facility," Smith said. "They basically let him deteriorate and
waste away for more than three months. He was in excruciating pain. The nurse
and the doctor were very dismissive of his complaints. It was inhumane. I've
seen animals treated better than my brother did in jail." After Hill
went nearly 80 days without medical care, Smith was eventually successful in
convincing jail officials to send her brother to the Phelps County Hospital
for care. Physicians there immediately saw a man with serious medical needs
and transferred him to CoxHealth Medical Center in
Springfield. There, he received a terminal cancer diagnosis. He was released
from federal custody and sent home to die, with his sister and his son. The
case, filed in 2020, should open the eyes of counties that contract with
private health care companies, say the family's attorneys, Brandon Gutshall, Charlie Eblen and
Lindsey Heinz of the Shook, Hardy, and Bacon law firm. "You see a lot of
bad actors," in this industry, Eblen says.
"We think they have a business model that really seeks to minimize
inmate care. They really try to do as little as they can get away with."
Like so many things related to jails and prisons in the U.S., privatized
health care is a multibillion-dollar industry, with several big players, such
as Wellpath and Corizon. The companies started
springing up in the 1970s after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that
"deliberate indifference" to a detainee's care was a violation of
the Eighth Amendment protections against "cruel and unusual
punishment." But as the privatized health care industry grew, so did
jail deaths, Reuters found in a 2020 report on the poor treatment of jail
detainees. Search any state's court records and there are dozens of wrongful
death and other similar lawsuits against privatized jail health care
companies. At least 10 have been filed in Missouri state courts against
Advanced Correctional Healthcare, and another dozen or so in federal court.
One case out of Buchanan County, filed in 2017 against both Advanced
Correctional Healthcare and Corizon, is headed to trial later this summer.
The company faces a class action lawsuit over alleged poor jail care in St.
Francois County. The size of the verdict in Hill's case was a shock to the
company, said its St. Louis attorney, Tad Eckenrode.
The company is considering an appeal. The case was surely tragic, Eckenrode said, but "there was no testimony at trial
that the purported delay in care impacted his cancer treatment or
life-expectancy." That's not how Hill's sister, or her attorneys, saw
the case unfold. "The facts in this case are egregious," Gutshall says. Hill was in pain from almost the moment he
entered the jail. "He was crying and begging for help. Toward the end,
his pain was so bad he couldn't even get out of bed. He was just
ignored." It is the sort of comment that comes up frequently when people
die in jail, and that's why Smith says it's important for family members to
do their best to be advocates for their loved ones when they end up behind
bars. "If you don't have families that will advocate for you, they'll
feel like they can sweep it under the rug," Smith says. "People
need to check on their family. I know people get frustrated and upset when
people are incarcerated. If my brother had laid down and died in that jail,
we would have known nothing."
Potosi Correctional Center
Potosi, Missouri
Correctional Medical Services
January 1, 2006 Daily Journal
A former nurse for Correctional Medical Services has been charged for
allegedly stealing prescriptions from the Potosi Correctional Center. Lisa
Peery, 41, of Farmington, was recently charged with one Class A misdemeanor
count of stealing. If convicted, she could be sentenced to a year in the
county jail or fined $1,000. Peery worked as a nurse for Correctional Medical
Services under a contract with the Missouri Department of Corrections.
According to court records, Peery stole prescription medications and medical
supplies from the unit and took them to her house. The thefts reportedly occurred
between January and June of this year. The medications that were removed
include a dosage of Vistaril, used for the treatment of anxiety and tension,
that was prescribed to an offender at Potosi and a dosage of Cogentin, which
is used in the treatment of Parkinson's Disease, that was prescribed to
another offender there.
Prisoner Transport
Dec 23, 2018 idahostatesman.com
Inmate suicide leads county to end contract with transporter
The southwest Missouri sheriff's office has stopped doing business with a
privately owned inmate transport company after an inmate fatally shot himself
with an unsecured handgun. The Greene County Sheriff's Office went so far as
to file a probable cause statement against the guard who left the gun on the
floorboard of an Inmate Services Corporation van, the Springfield News-Leader
reports . But no charges were filed over the death
of 50-year-old Dennis Shaner, who used the weapon
to kill himself in May after the van stopped at the entrance of the county's
jail to drop off another inmate. Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott says he has
contracted with another private transport company because of Shaner's death. When Shaner was
led out of a Florida jail cell to be transported to the Taney County Jail
earlier this year, he was dressed in a blue anti-suicide smock. His wrists
and throat had fresh sutures, according to Justin Hayes, a Greene County
inmate who was on the transport van at the time and who was allowed to go
inside the Florida jail to use the bathroom while Shaner
was being processed. Hayes said that Shaner changed
out of the smock and into regular clothes before he was handcuffed and led
onto the transport van. According to Hayes, Shaner
repeatedly and loudly talked about wanting to kill himself over the next
three days as they zigzagged across the country, picking up and dropping off
inmates. "He said he wanted to die," Hayes said in a jailhouse
interview. "He said he didn't want to live." Randy Dunn, who was
picked up at a federal prison by the transport company two days after Shaner, also recalled the stitches and said during an
interview with the News-Leader at the Christian County Jail that Shaner was determined to kill himself. Documents obtained
by the News-Leader from the Greene County Sheriff's Office investigation into
Shaner's death confirm Hayes' and Dunn's
description of Shaner's recently slashed neck and
arms. Inmate Services Corporation president Randy Cagle said in May that the
guards had no idea Shaner was suicidal. He said Shaner wouldn't have been put in the van if they'd known
because the company's "protocol is to deny transport of any inmate
designated to be currently or recently on suicide watch." "We were
unaware that he was suicidal," Cagle said in the email. "Medical
information is provided prior to the custody exchange and his report did not
disclose this." Cagle hasn't responded to recent phone and email
messages. As is standard with inmate transport companies, guards are not
allowed to bring weapons into the jails. Instead, there is a lock box in the sally
port where guns must be placed. The guard told Greene County investigators
that he owned the gun and was told by his boss that he was not supposed to
carry a gun in the first place. The guard said he got the gun out of his
vehicle before his shift began and attached it to his pants anyway, according
to documents related to Shaner's death
investigation. Dunn and Hayes said that the guard left the gun on the
floorboard rather than walk to the lock box and secure the weapon properly.
Then, as Tyler escorted Hayes inside to be booked, Shaner
began complaining about being sick and asked to be let out of the van to get
some fresh air. Though he was handcuffed, Shaner
was able to open the passenger door and grab the gun. Dunn and Hayes both
expressed anger that the gun wasn't secured. "If that guy would have
been homicidal instead of suicidal," Dunn said, "we would all be
dead."
10 prisoners hurt in Pike County prison van wreck
Nearly a dozen prison inmates are recovering from
injuries after a transport van accident in northeast Missouri. The accident
happened about 2:15 a.m. Tuesday on Highway 161 in Pike County. The Missouri
State Highway Patrol says the private prison van driver, 36-year-old Luis Dos
Santos of Ocklawaha, Florida, fell asleep at the wheel, causing the van to
run off the road. Ten inmates and a guard suffered minor to moderate
injuries. All were treated and released at Pike County Memorial Hospital in
Louisiana. Sheriff Stephen Korte told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the
van was not badly damaged, and all were back on the road later Tuesday. Korte
says the van had been heading to the Montgomery County Jail to drop off one
of its passengers. The inmates ranged in age from 19 to 53 and were from
Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.
Ray
County
Ray County, Missouri
Correctional Medical Services
January 13, 2004
A
man who escaped from a private jail in Ray County turned himself in early
today after being missing for several hours. Officers said Frank Randal Lumley, 42,
escaped about 4:20 a.m. from a private jail in Henrietta, Mo. Lumley attacked
a security guard and stole the man's keys, said Ray County Sheriff Sam
Clemens. (The Kansas City Star)
Reality
House
Nov
28, 2020 abc17news.com
A third man who escaped from a private jail this month is now in the Boone
County Sheriff's Department's custody.
The
Boone County Jail's inmate roster on Friday showed Lawrence M. Johnson, 35, of
Columbia had been booked on an escape from jail charge. The charge carries no
bond. Lawrence is also charged with burglary, resisting arrest, failure to
appear and domestic assault in separate cases. The Columbia Police Department
said in a news release that officers arrested Johnson Friday morning in the
3400 block of I-70 Drive S.E. after getting an anonymous tip. Johnson was one
of three men the sheriff's department said escaped from the private Reality
House jail this month. Boone County had been contracting with Reality House
to keep some prisoners because of overcrowding. After the escape, the
sheriff's department said it pulled its inmates out of Reality House. Two
other men who escaped have already been arrested. Columbia police arrested Jamale Marteen, 37, on
Thursday. Tyrone McClain Jr., 28, turned himself in Saturday, the sheriff's
department said. Marteen was previously jailed on a
warrant for failure to obey a judge's orders and McClain was jailed on
charges including misdemeanor drug paraphernalia possession and resisting
arrest, along with warrants for disobeying a judge's order and failure to
appear.
Nov
27, 2020 krcgtv.com
Authorities
capture inmate who escaped from private jail facility
BOONE
COUNTY — A second of three inmates that escaped a private jail facility has
been arrested, according to the Boone County Sheriff's Department. At
approximately 1:10 p.m. on Thursday, Columbia police arrested Jamale Marteen, 37, of
Columbia, who had an active no bond warrant for first-degree flight escape.
Three Boone County prisoners escaped from the private jail facility. Two are
still on the loose, according to information provided by the Boone County
Sheriff's Department. (Boone County Sheriff's Office) Marteen
and Tyrone McClain Jr. both escaped on Nov. 16 from Reality House, a private
jail that houses overflow prisoners for other entities, which is located at
1900 Prathersville Road. Both Marteen
and McClain Jr. have been taken into custody since escaping. McCLain Jr. turned himself in to the Boone County Jail on
Nov. 21, according to the Boone County Sheriff's Office. Tyrone McCLain Jr. turned himself into the Boone County Jail on
Nov. 21, according to the Boone County Sheriff's Office. (Boone County Jail)
Boone County Jail) Marteen and McClain Jr. were the
second and third prisoners to escape. The first was 35-year-old Lawrence Marquelle Johnson, of Columbia, who escaped two days
prior to Marteen and McClain Jr.
Nov
19, 2020 krcgtv.com
CrimeStoppers offers $1,000 reward
for information on three Boone County escapees
by
Megan Smaltz Wednesday, November 18th 2020
COLUMBIA
— A $1,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest of
three Boone County prisoners who escaped from a private jail facility on
Saturday and Monday. The Columbia/Boone County Crime Stoppers announced
Wednesday it's offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest
of the three inmates who escaped from Reality House, a private jail that
houses overflow prisoners for other entities, which is located at 1900 Prathersville Road approximately a mile from the Boone
County Jail. 35-year-old Lawrence Marquelle
Johnson, of Columbia, was the first of the three to escape. Johnson ran away
from an outdoor recreation area toward Crescent Meadows Trailer Park. Although
there were Boone County deputies in the area at the time, they did not see
Johnson. Then, Monday afternoon at about 1:40, deputies were once again
dispatched to Reality House where two more Boone County inmates had
apparently escaped. The two, identified as 37-year-old Jamale
Ewayne Marteen, of
Columbia, and 28-year-old Tyrone Darell McClain
Jr., of Columbia, also escaped from the outdoor recreation yard and ran
toward Crescent Meadows Trailer Park. Crime Stoppers said anyone with
information should call 573.875.TIPS to remain
anonymous.
Richard Bolling Federal Building
Kansas
City, Missouri
Aramark
November 5, 2009 InfoZine
Matt J. Whitworth, United States Attorney for the Western District of
Missouri, announced that the former food service director at the Richard
Bolling Federal Building in Kansas City, Mo., pleaded guilty in federal court
to assisting an illegal alien who was using a false Social Security number in
order to work in the cafeteria. Christopher Wenell,
44, waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. District
Judge Greg Kays this afternoon to a federal information that charges him with
Social Security fraud. Wenell was the Food Service
Director for Aramark Services, Inc., the contractor which operates the
cafeteria in the federal building. Wenell admitted
that he recruited Luis Carreon, an illegal alien from Mexico, to work for
Aramark. Between Dec. 9, 2005, and Sept. 25, 2007, Wenell
assisted Carreon in using false Social Security cards by re-employing him,
knowing that the Social Security cards were false. In a separate but related
case, Carreon was sentenced to two years of probation after pleading guilty
to Social Security fraud and identity theft. In other related cases, former
Aramark employees Felipe Carreon and Francisco J. Munoz-Carmona, also illegal
aliens from Mexico, and Nilda A. Franco and Fania
L. Garza, both illegal aliens from Guatemala, also pleaded guilty and were
sentenced on similar charges contained in a series of indictments returned on
Nov. 6, 2007.
St
Louis Justice Center
St Louis, Missouri
Corizon (bought Correctional Medical Services)
May 24, 2012 Post-Dispatch
About an hour after a doctor instructed St. Louis jail staff to send inmate
Courtland Lucas to a hospital immediately, medical records show, the
31-year-old prisoner collapsed in a cell and soon died. The lapse is among a
variety of medical missteps alleged in a wrongful-death and malpractice
lawsuit against the private contractor that provides medical care for the St.
Louis Justice Center. Medical records obtained by lawyers for Lucas' family
also contain a nurse's notes indicating a belief at the time that his
episodes were 'staged." Lucas died May 25, 2009, from complications of a
heart problem, congenital aortic valve stenosis while under the care of
Correctional Medical Services Inc. CMS merged last year with PHS Correctional
Healthcare to form Corizon. It provides medical coverage to more than 400,000
inmates at 400 correctional facilities across the country, including St.
Louis, where its operational headquarters is located. A company spokesman,
Pat Nolan, said: "Corizon and its employees work hard every day to
provide quality care to thousands of inmates across the country." Mayor
Francis Slay's spokeswoman, Kara Bowlin, would not comment on specific allegations. She
noted that the city spends nearly $7 million each year on inmate health care
and "takes seriously its obligation to provide health care services to
the people it confines, many of whom come to us with serious medical problems."
The suit, filed this month by the St. Louis Lawyers Group on behalf of Lucas'
minor son, Trayon Lucas-McNairy, seeks unspecified
damages over $25,000 from CMS but does not name the city as a defendant.
Burton Newman, one of his attorneys, said in an interview: "We found
several individuals who were quoted on the record as recognizing the care
that this gentleman needed, but other individuals seem to have failed to
recognize the care needed, or ignored the care needed." It is the second
attempt at compensation in the case. A prior wrongful-death suit, filed by
the American Civil Liberties Union against the city and the health care
provider, was voluntarily dismissed last year on a legal technicality.
DETERIORATING HEALTH -- Lucas, the youngest of 14 children, was a jokester
who wrote poetry and announced a new commitment to God, his family told the
Post-Dispatch in 2010. He had been a restaurant manager but struggled with
drugs, including heroin, for the last four years of his life. Medical records
show Lucas long suffered from serious heart problems, which required several
valve replacements and a hospitalization in 2009 for swelling and an
irregular heartbeat. He was diabetic, suffered from hypertension and had a
pacemaker. When he was arrested by St. Louis police May 20, 2009, on a parole
violation — he had a record of drug and traffic offenses — he was taken to
St. Alexius Hospital, complaining of chest pain. Doctor's orders from that
visit set out a plan for checking his blood sugar and administering insulin.
Later orders from a jail physician offered a similar schedule. But Lucas'
lawyers, one with a medical degree, say evidence shows the orders were not
consistently followed. The suit refers to medical records it says reflect
neglect. The plaintiff's lawyer provided a Post-Dispatch reporter with CMS
documents that show: • May 24, afternoon: Lucas, in a narcotics
detoxification unit, shows signs of trouble. His blood sugar level is
elevated, at 228. Nurses administer insulin but don't record another blood-sugar
check until the next day. • May 24, 7:15 p.m.: Lucas complains of a fast
heartbeat and hallucinations, talking of "little people" in his
room. A nurse notes he is agitated and perspiring. A jail physician has asked
to be called about any changes in Lucas' mental status but there is no record
of such a call; Lucas' lawyers maintain it wasn't made. • May 25, 4 a.m.:
Lucas asks to go to a hospital and says he doesn't want to die in the jail.
He is taken by wheelchair to an examining room. Nurses try to draw blood but
note that it's too thick. Existing hospital orders call for a doctor's care
if his blood sugar rises above 300; it is now 325. There is no note of any
insulin being administered. • May 25, 1:10 p.m.: A nurse notes Lucas' altered
mental status and also writes that "all episodes appear to be staged as
(Lucas) easily comes back to normal conversation." • May 25, 5:30 p.m.:
Lucas is found lying in his cell in a 'stuporous condition" and answers
questions 'sluggishly," according to a nurse's notes. Insulin is
administered but there is no note of his sugar being checked. Nurses have
trouble detecting his pulse and blood pressure, but ultimately find his heart
rate is high, at 160. • May 25, 5:45 p.m.: The on-call physician orders Lucas
taken to a hospital emergency room immediately. • May 25, about 7 p.m.: Lucas
is still waiting for transport. A sheriff's deputy reports that Lucas has
collapsed while sitting in a wheelchair. Records indicate a lost minute while
medical staff struggles to have the doors to the holding unit opened by
master control. • May 25, 7:10 p.m.: Paramedics arrive and take Lucas to St.
Louis University Hospital. • May 25, 7:54 p.m.: Lucas is pronounced dead.
OTHER CLAIMS OF NEGLECT -- CMS which has worked for Missouri's prison system
since 1992 and has for decades been one of the biggest inmate health care
contractors, has been a target of criticism before. It was the main subject
of a 1998 Post-Dispatch investigation, which showed that inmates died in more
than 20 cases due to negligence, indifference, understaffing, inadequate
training or cost-cutting. Such concerns rose again in 2007 after the death of
LaVonda Kimble, 30, from an asthma attack at the
St. Louis Justice Center. A fire department report, obtained by a lawyer for her
family, showed paramedics encountered delays and apathy when trying to get
into the jail. Autopsy findings showed no trace of a drug that jail nurses
said they repeatedly administered to ease Kimble's breathing. "The
discovery in this case showed they did little to nothing for her. They just
watched her die," according to her family's attorney, John Wallach. A
confidential settlement of that suit was reached last year and fulfilled in
the past few weeks. Wallach said that "justice was done to the extent
that the law would allow..." In 2010, the ACLU alleged in federal court
that an HIV-positive John Doe plaintiff was deprived of medications for 17
days, even though he told jail staff of his condition and his physician faxed
information about his medicines and dosages. Also that year, Vanessa Evans,
37, died hours after she complained to staff about having trouble breathing.
Jail officials said she appeared fine a half hour earlier. Evans' family
complained that the company failed to take her claims seriously despite her
history of asthma. Newman said Lucas' case is another chapter in a sad
history. He complained: "It's tragic that a man with known medical
conditions was incarcerated in the city jail and did not receive any of the
medical care that he was not only entitled to, but ... the medical officials
at the jail knew he needed."
November 19, 2010 Post-Dispatch
Medical care in city jails, already the subject of wrongful-death lawsuits,
was challenged again on Thursday with an ACLU claim that an HIV-positive
inmate was deprived of his medications for 17 days and got only sporadic care
thereafter. A lawsuit filed in federal court by the American Civil Liberties
Union of Eastern Missouri alleges that the John Doe plaintiff was deprived of
his rights at both the Justice Center downtown and the Medium Security
Institution on Hall Street. "It's inexcusable, and it's serious,"
said Tony Rothert, legal director for the ACLU
here. The ACLU says this case and others reflect a pattern of failures at the
lockups. It made specific allegations in a 2009 report that accused the jails
of inadequate medical attention, inmate abuse, falsification of reports and
unsanitary conditions. The latest suit names the city and a contractor,
Correctional Medical Services, as defendants, along with the jail
superintendent, Eugene Stubblefield, and two CMS physicians, Drs. Brenda
Mallard and Susan Singer. Deputy City Counselor Nancy Kistler responded,
"Contrary to the claims of the ACLU, the records of the inmate in
question reflect that he received adequate medical care consistent with his
constitutional rights." CMS issued a statement saying it provides
quality care, saying it cannot comment on specifics because of
confidentiality laws.
October 27, 2010 Post-Dispatch
The 31-year-old collapsed from heart failure at the St. Louis Justice
Center on May 25, 2009, five days after he was arrested for a probation
violation. His family said he had been taken into custody because he missed a
meeting with his probation officer. After he collapsed, he was transported to
St. Louis University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Lucas had
chronic heart disease and used a pacemaker. In a wrongful death lawsuit filed
this month against the city and the jail's health care provider on behalf of
Lucas' family, the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri
contends jail officials failed to provide Lucas with adequate medical care or
the necessary medications to treat his condition. "I'm just upset and
angry because the system failed him," said one of Lucas' sisters, Landa Poke. The private contractor that provides medical
care at the jail says the lawsuit's version of how Lucas died has
inaccuracies and insists its staff is "experienced and
well-trained." But ACLU officials in St. Louis say Lucas' death is the
result of what they see as a series of breakdowns at city jails, including
inadequate medical care.
October 12, 2010 AP
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a wrongful death lawsuit over
the death of a jail inmate in St. Louis, claiming he did not get proper care
for a heart condition. The ACLU filed suit Tuesday on behalf of Landa Poke. Her brother, 32-year-old Courtland Lucas,
died at the St. Louis City Justice Center in May 2009, five days after he was
jailed on a probation violation. The ACLU says Lucas had chronic heart
disease and was wearing a pacemaker when taken into custody. The suit
contends Correctional Medical Services failed to provide proper medications
or care for Lucas. A spokesman for CMS says the company has not yet seen the
lawsuit and cannot comment on the allegations. A message left with a
spokeswoman for the city of St. Louis was not returned.
December 4, 2008 St Louis Post-Dispatch
The family of a woman who died of an asthma attack while being held at
the St. Louis City Justice Center filed a wrongful death lawsuit Thursday
against the medical company providing care at the jail. LaVonda
Kimble, 30, died April 11, 2007 of an acute asthma attack. She was supposed
to have been released on bond posted hours earlier in Bel-Nor, which had a
traffic warrant against her. But her release was delayed by a paperwork mixup. The suit alleges that health workers with
Correctional Medical Services failed to properly evaluate Kimble, provide
adequate care, call for emergency help in a timely manner and use an electric
defibrillator to restore her heart rhythm. Kimble's mother, Annie Kimble, is
asking for more than $25,000 in damages on behalf of her grandson. Documents
in the case include a sizzling complaint by one of the St. Louis Fire
Department paramedics called to the scene , who noted that it took up to
eight minutes to get to the patient after arrival at the jail, and that jail
nurses failed to use a defibrillator . The medic also complained in writing
that jail staff distracted medics, and that firefighters who arrived ahead of
the medic crew said they found someone doing CPR by pressing Kimble's stomach
instead of her chest. A St. Louis Corrections Department report of the
incident found no violation of policies or procedures. Officials at
Correctional Medical Services, a national company based in St. Louis, could
not be immediately reached.
June 8, 2007 St Louis Post-Dispatch
As city officials dig into a paramedic's claim that poor jail medical
care contributed to the death of a woman held on a traffic charge, they enter
a realm that has vexed comptrollers and courts alike. How do jails and
prisons give inmates the help to which they're legally entitled on what the
taxpayers are willing to pay? Problems most often stem from tight budgets and
poor management, according to industry experts, who say the care nationally
is dramatically better than in decades past. "We've made huge
improvements, but there are still a lot of places that have problems," said
Edward Harrison, president of the National Commission on Correctional Health
Care. "The problems that we encounter are often tied into management and
personnel issues, both directly affected by budgets." St. Louis
typically pays more than $5 million a year to a private contractor,
Correctional Medical Services Inc. An official of the Creve Coeur-based
company insisted Thursday that it provides quality care. City Public Safety
Director Sam Simon, whose oversees the city's corrections and fire
departments, promised this week to reconcile their very different conclusions
on what happened the night of April 10. His boss, Mayor Francis Slay, said on
his website Thursday: "An internal investigation was conducted by the
Division of Corrections. However, I am disturbed by the fact that the report
showed the young woman was given treatment for her asthma but none of the
medicine was found in her bloodstream during the initial autopsy
report." That discrepancy has not been explained. LaVonda
Kimble, 30, died April 11 of an acute asthma attack at the St. Louis Justice
Center. She was supposed to have been released on bond posted hours earlier
in Bel-Nor, which had a traffic warrant against her. But her release was
delayed by a paperwork mix-up. Documents gathered by a lawyer for her family
included a sizzling complaint by one of the Fire Department paramedics, who
noted that it took up to eight minutes to get to the patient after arrival at
the jail, and that jail nurses failed to use a defibrillator to try restart
her heart. The medic also complained in writing that jail staff distracted
medics, and that firefighters who arrived ahead of the medic crew said they
found someone doing CPR by pressing Kimble's stomach instead of her chest. A
Corrections Department report of the incident found no violation of policies
or procedures. City officials promised further action after the conflicting
accounts became public. They said the health care contract was first awarded
during Mayor Clarence Harmon's administration, before Slay took office in
2001. A spokesman for Slay said the mayor's office doesn't know the identity
of the five-member panel that selected CMS, because there are always a number
of panels, made up of different people, charged with handling myriad city
contracts. The mayor's office has asked Simon for the names. Simon told a
reporter late Thursday he doesn't know but was working to find out. One of
the nurses on duty when Kimble died, Leamorn D.
Wiegert, was disciplined by the state just four days before the incident,
according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Wiegert
is a licensed practical nurse; her license is on probation and she is
included on the state employee disqualification list, which means the state
found that she committed an act of abuse, neglect, misappropriation or
falsification. Discipline is extremely rare for licensed nurses in Missouri.
In the past year, only two-tenths of 1 percent were issued any type of
disciplinary action — from censure to license revocation. Details of the complaint
against her were not available. She could not be reached for comment
Thursday. Ken Fields, a spokesman for Correctional Medical Services, said
Thursday he could not talk about the details of the Kimble case. But he
faulted the paramedic's report, saying it included contradictions and
unsubstantiated hearsay.
June 7, 2007 St Louis Post-Dispatch
A delay in letting paramedics into the city jail and "substandard"
emergency care by staff there may have doomed an inmate who suffered an
asthma attack, according to a blistering report by the fire department. One
of the paramedics who treated LaVonda Kimble early
April 11 wrote of commonly encountering delays and apathy on calls to the St.
Louis Justice Center, at 200 South Tucker Boulevard. And autopsy findings
obtained Wednesday showed no trace of the drug that jail nurses said they
repeatedly administered to ease Kimble's breathing. The reports were obtained
with a court order by John Wallach, a lawyer representing Kimble's family in
considering a wrongful death lawsuit. He shared them Wednesday with the
Post-Dispatch. "People don't generally die of an asthma attack when they
go to the hospital," Wallach said. "I fully believe our evidence
will show if she was treated properly, she would have been fine." Sam Simon,
the city director of public safety, pledged to learn more about what
happened, and about the medical care provided under contract for more than $5
million a year by Correctional Medical Services. The Creve Coeur-based
private company has come under heavy criticism in Missouri and elsewhere for
years. Kimble, 30, the single mother of a 12-year-old child, wasn't supposed
to be in jail in the first place. Her boyfriend had posted bond for her about
6:30 p.m. on April 10 in Bel-Nor, which had a traffic warrant against her.
That was about four hours after her arrest by St. Louis police. But a release
order went to the wrong jail, a mistake that wasn't corrected until she was
already dying. Kimble fell ill about 10:20 p.m. According to jail records,
she received three separate treatments of Albuterol, a medication to ease
breathing, before she collapsed at 1:25 a.m. Firefighters from nearby Engine
Co. 2 arrived at 1:40 a.m. and began CPR. Medic 5 was five minutes behind,
but spent seven or eight minutes thereafter waiting to get in, according to a
report by fire department paramedic Chastity Girolami.
The delay was "detrimental to the patient's outcome," Girolami wrote. She said firefighters told her they had
arrived to find nurses trying to perform CPR by compressing Kimble's stomach
instead of her chest. Girolami noted that when
medics asked a nurse if she had used an automatic defibrillator to try to
restore Kimble's heartbeat, "She just looked at us and asked what we
were talking about." The jail care was "substandard at best," Girolami wrote in her report. She also wrote that a
corrections officer distracted paramedics with questions about their ID
numbers while they struggled to save Kimble's life; the medics twice asked
jailers to back off. "She kept persisting and finally my partner
informed the staff that this patient was in cardiac arrest and basically
dying, and they would have to wait," Girolami
wrote. "The staff was surprised at this. They didn't know the patient
was in cardiac arrest." Kimble was rushed to St. Louis University
Hospital, where she died at 2:44 a.m. "This experience at the Justice
Center was by far my worst," Girolami wrote.
She complained, "Every time I've been to the Justice Center, it takes 10
to 15 minutes to even get to the patient. There is never anyone to guide us
and never any sense of urgency." Her report was one of a variety of
documents Kimble's family has gathered in preparation of a wrongful-death
lawsuit. The autopsy report shows that corrections officials asked for and got
a special toxicology test for Albuterol, and that none was detected. Wallach
said the medical examiner plans to send samples to an outside laboratory for
further testing. "If, in fact, she was not given Albuterol, then the
official records are false," the lawyer said, "If that's the case, LaVonda's civil rights were blatantly violated and it led
to her death." An internal investigation concluded, "There was no
evidence that the Division of Corrections violated any policies or
procedures." But Simon, the public safety director, said Wednesday there
will be an investigation to reconcile reports from the fire department,
corrections department and medical examiner. "We need to conclude our
investigation and determine what happened," Simon said. "What I
know is these are just allegations at this point." Ken Fields, spokesman
for Correctional Medical Services, said he could not comment on a specific
patient. However, he insisted that the jail's medical staff is trained to
properly administer life support techniques, including CPR and use of
automated external defibrillators. "Our services and equipment are in
keeping with the standards of care in the community," Fields said.
"All nurses at CMS are licensed by the appropriate entity and are qualified
to provide the care they are asked to provide."
St Louis Medium Security Institution
St Louis, Missouri
Correctional Medical Services
November 19, 2010 Post-Dispatch
Medical care in city jails, already the subject of wrongful-death lawsuits,
was challenged again on Thursday with an ACLU claim that an HIV-positive
inmate was deprived of his medications for 17 days and got only sporadic care
thereafter. A lawsuit filed in federal court by the American Civil Liberties
Union of Eastern Missouri alleges that the John Doe plaintiff was deprived of
his rights at both the Justice Center downtown and the Medium Security
Institution on Hall Street. "It's inexcusable, and it's serious,"
said Tony Rothert, legal director for the ACLU
here. The ACLU says this case and others reflect a pattern of failures at the
lockups. It made specific allegations in a 2009 report that accused the jails
of inadequate medical attention, inmate abuse, falsification of reports and
unsanitary conditions. The latest suit names the city and a contractor, Correctional
Medical Services, as defendants, along with the jail superintendent, Eugene
Stubblefield, and two CMS physicians, Drs. Brenda Mallard and Susan Singer.
Deputy City Counselor Nancy Kistler responded, "Contrary to the claims
of the ACLU, the records of the inmate in question reflect that he received
adequate medical care consistent with his constitutional rights." CMS
issued a statement saying it provides quality care, saying it cannot comment
on specifics because of confidentiality laws.
June 17, 2009 St Louis Post-Dispatch
The family of a nurse who worked at the St. Louis Medium Security
Institution filed a lawsuit Friday claiming she suffered permanent injury
when she was not given prompt medical attention after collapsing at the jail
on Hall Street in March. The suit accuses the city of St. Louis, Correctional
Medical Services, St. Louis Public Safety Director Charles Bryson and two
correctional officers for failing to provide adequate care. Karen Thomas lost
consciousness from an irregular heart rhythm and suffered brain injury,
according to the suit. Her daughter, Jeniece
Henderson, claims a properly working defibrillator could have prevented the
injury.
St Louis MetroLink
St Louis, Missouri
Wackenhut (Group 4)
May 21, 2008 River Front Times
Less than two months into a three-year, $13.1 million contract to provide
armed security at MetroLink stations, Metro and the
Wackenhut Corporation abruptly parted ways. Another security company, the
Swedish-based Securitas, has taken over the contract. Its guards began work
at Illinois MetroLink locations last month and at
all Missouri stations this past Monday. "The contract is being
terminated with NO FAULT," states the March 25 letter that was written
by Metro's vice president of procurement, Larry Jackson, and cosigned by
Wackenhut's president of security services. The letter was meant to insure
that neither side would sue the other. Whelan Security, based in St. Louis,
handled Metro's security since the late 1990s, but when its contract expired
at the end of 2007, "we wanted to upgrade the level of experience as
well as the percentage of armed guards," says Metro spokeswoman Dianne
Williams. (Twenty percent of Whelan's guards were armed.) Although crime on
the city's light rail system is low, Williams adds, "most folks have
armed security guards when guarding people and property." Last August,
five security companies bid on the contract, including Whelan and Securitas.
Though Wackenhut was not the lowest bidder, Larry Salci,
then Metro's CEO, chose the international company headquartered in Palm Beach
Gardens, Florida, on the basis of technical merits. Under the terms of the
agreement, Wackenhut promised to have 150 armed guards in place on MetroLink's 22 platforms by February 1. Winning the Metro
contract was a piece of good luck for Wackenhut, which last year lost one of
its largest clients, the Exelon Corporation, after several of its guards at
the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania were discovered
sleeping on the job. In the wake of the embarrassment, Wackenhut's CEO
resigned. But the company faced additional problems, including an August 2006
audit by Miami-Dade County, which revealed that Wackenhut over-billed the
county's transit authority $1.6 million over a three-year period. The security
firm is also bracing to hear the results of an audit in Milwaukee for not
providing proper security on buses. Metro was aware of Wackenhut's problems
when it entered into the contract, but representatives from the world's
largest security firm allayed Metro's concerns about those issues, says
Williams. Metro has weathered its share of adversity in recent months,
culminating in the loss of a $26 million lawsuit against the original
designers of the Shrewsbury MetroLink line. The
public-relations nightmare caused Larry Salci to
resign. He was replaced last December by retired United Van Lines chief
Robert Baer. The Wackenhut contract began to leave the tracks when the
company realized it would be unable to meet the February 1 deadline they
agreed to during December negotiations. Clarence Harmon, director of
Wackenhut's St. Louis office, wrote Metro executives in January, informing
the transit agency that it was going to take longer than they'd expected to
get its guards — many of whom had been imported from other locations —
licensed to carry firearms in Illinois and Missouri. "It takes three
weeks to get an arms license," explains Leo Fincher, operations manager
of Florissant's Brinkmann Security, Wackenhut's local subcontractor. (Because
Metro is funded by taxpayer money, Wackenhut was required, by law, to share
14 percent of its contract with a small or minority-run business.) The
licensing process, Fincher says, requires classes and marksmanship tests.
Wackenhut didn't receive the official go-ahead from Metro until January 16,
which left only two weeks to get the guards in place. "That made it kind
of impossible," argues Fincher. On January 21, Harmon, a former St.
Louis mayor and police chief, wrote to Metro executives: "We have
attempted to act in good faith by purchasing the necessary uniforms,
firearms, ammunition, and beginning the pre-hire process. We have incurred
thousands of dollars in expenses by doing this." Metro grudgingly
granted Wackenhut a monthlong extension after learning the company had only
45 guards ready for duty on February 1. In all, Wackenhut spent $275,000 to
get its guards outfitted and trained, and another $4,000 in advertising to
recruit new employees, according to Fincher. Brinkmann, a much smaller
company, spent between $500 and $700 to prepare each of its eighteen guards.
Neither company, says Fincher, was reimbursed. "Why would they have been
[reimbursed]?" asks Dianne Williams. "They were contractors and
they were responsible for hiring their own employees." Throughout the month
of February, tensions began to build between Metro and Wackenhut, via a
series of increasingly testy letters and e-mails, obtained in a Sunshine Law
request by Riverfront Times. Terry Lyles, Metro's director of procurement,
became exasperated by what he considered Wackenhut's slowness in hiring
sufficiently qualified guards. "Mr. Harmon," he wrote on February
15, "we have reached the point where we either move forward properly and
in accordance with the contractual requirements, or we sever the relationship."
To that end, Lyles demanded that Harmon submit to Metro, within a week, a
list of guards and the necessary paperwork that proved they were qualified to
carry weapons in Illinois and Missouri. Meanwhile, Metro officials grew
dissatisfied with the guards already on duty. Willie McCuller,
Metro's director of security and fare enforcement, wrote a stern letter to
Harmon complaining about the performance of his guards. "During the past
two weeks," McCuller wrote on February 20,
"I have personally observed several Wackenhut officers at the Laclede's
Landing and Grand MetroLink Stations who were not
performing as expected. They were not checking tickets, nor were they
engaging the traveling public in any fashion. I brought this to the attention
of Wackenhut's management and was informed this would be addressed both in
person and via the monthly newsletter. To date, I have seen little or no
improvement." Harmon promised he'd supervise the guards more closely,
while Wackenhut's regional vice president, Carl Page, said he would
thoroughly examine the qualifications of his personnel. Metro still was not
satisfied. On February 28, two days before it was to assume control of MetroLink security, Wackenhut still had not produced the
list of guards and the paperwork to verify their qualification for the job.
Terry Lyles informed Page by letter that Metro believed Wackenhut failed to
live up to its end of the bargain and wished to cancel the contract.
Brinkmann's Fincher says Wackenhut does not deserve complete blame for the
contract's derailment. "MetroLink can be
impossible to work with," says Fincher. "I don't know if they would
have been happy with anyone. I'm not privy to upper management, but what
filters down is ridiculous." Brinkmann guards were more than happy to
provide examples. "There was no place for us to park," claims Jared
Smith. "We had to pay for our own parking." "There was a lack
of restrooms," says Michael Mendenhall, who sometimes worked at the
Grand MetroLink station, one of the two McCuller complained was poorly staffed. Mendenhall claims
only Metro employees had keys to the bathrooms on the platforms and that he
and other Wackenhut and Brinkmann guards were forced to leave their stations
to use public bathrooms outside, a clear violation of the Metro-Wackenhut
contract. "When I worked at Grand," Mendenhall adds, "I had to
ride to another station." Metro's Williams denies that Wackenhut and
Brinkmann guards were not issued bathroom keys. "That's not true,"
she says. "Some of the keys got lost. As soon as we had them remade, we
handed them out with the radios." Wackenhut spokesman Marc Shapiro
declined to comment for this story, as did Clarence Harmon. Securitas
spokesman Luke Hutsell says his company is willing to hire guards who
previously worked for Wackenhut. "But that's dependent upon whether
incumbent officers meet our qualifications." While Wackenhut considers a
criminal justice degree sufficient, Securitas only accepts guards with five
years of experience, a military background or police academy training. That
means now many guards, including Mendenhall, will be out of a job. Hutsell
estimates that Securitas will likely retain 20 of the 150 guards presently on
Wackenhut's payroll. Brinkmann will find other positions for its guards, says
Fincher, but few of them will be paid $11.30 per hour as Wackenhut did.
"I could find work for $9 an hour," Mendenhall says, "but my
wife and I are buying a house and we're having a baby. I don't want to step
backwards."
April 26, 2008 St Louis Post-Dispatch
Leaders of the Metro public transportation agency said Friday that a
Florida-based security firm was not able to deliver enough trained security
guards to meet deadlines in a MetroLink security
contract. So Metro and the Wackenhut Corp. agreed to part ways late last
month, transit agency President Robert Baer told reporters after Friday's
Board of Commissioners meeting. Metro had heretofore not shed much light on
why the three-year, $13.1 million contract was terminated after only a few
months. "It was around the availability of personnel," Baer said.
"The training of personnel. The certification. Licensing of personnel.
Nothing deliberate. It was just a matter of logistics and timing. We thought
that we had laid out a very specific, step-by-step game plan. There was some
dispute about that." Baer said there will be no financial penalty for
ending the contract early. Wackenhut spokesman Marc Shapiro said he could
provide no further details on what led to the mutual agreement in late March.
Securitas Security Services will finish the three-year contract — and has
already assumed responsibility in St. Clair County. Securitas, which
unsuccessfully sought the contract that ultimately was awarded to Wackenhut,
will honor its original bid price of $11.5 million. Baer said Wackenhut is
cooperating in the transition. Clarence Harmon, the former St. Louis mayor
and police chief, is the St. Louis general manager for Wackenhut. Meantime,
Baer stressed that there have been no lapses in security. "That was not
the issue," he said. "It was an issue of availability of
people."
Tarkio
Academy
Tarkio, Missouri
Correctional Services Corporation
August 3, 2004
Tarkio Academy, which provides residential treatment for juvenile offenders
ages 13-19 who were court-ordered into the system, will be closing its doors
on Sept. 19. The decision was handed down by Maryland-based Youth
Services International (YSI) last Friday. Facility administrator Victor Hogan
announced the decision on Monday, July 19, to the 157 employees at the
academy. "We're all pretty disappointed and bent out of shape
about it," Hogan said. "We basically had to start over again. We
were making such great progress toward this becoming a better facility and
meeting our requirements. We just don't understand why the decision was made
to close the academy before we could accomplish all of our goals."
Hogan recalled that when he was introduced as the academy administrator, he
knew there were a number of things that had to be accomplished to satisfy the
corporate office's requirements: the population of students, number of staff
members and improved programming were among the things that were on their
list of items to work on. (Maryville Daily Forum)
Women's Eastern Reception,
Diagnostic and Correctional Center
Vandalia, Missouri
Correctional Medical Services
November 26, 2004 AP
The family of a state prison inmate who complained of blinding headaches in
the days before her death has filed a wrongful death suit against the state
and the prison's health-care provider. Al'Deana Simmons,
who was incarcerated for forgery, died in July 2003 at the women's prison in
Vandalia of a ruptured brain aneurysm. She was 33. Her mother, Virginia
Terry, and three minor children through their father are seeking actual and
punitive damages, as well as compensation for attorney's fees. The defendants
include Correctional Medical Services, the Missouri Department of Corrections
and several of their employees. The suit alleges the defendants "were
deliberately indifferent in failing to provide medical care to the decedent
in that they were aware of the serious pain that decedent was experiencing
and the blindness she was experiencing, from which an inference could be
drawn that a substantial harm to decedent existed."
September 2, 2003
Virginia Terry was thankful when her daughter, a drug addict suffering from
bipolar disorder, got locked up at the women's prison in Vandalia, Mo., for a
forgery conviction. "I thought, at least she'd be safe,"
Terry recalls. That changed when Terry's daughter, Al'Deana
Simmons of Camdenton, began complaining, in letters and phone calls home,
about the type of health care she was getting behind bars. She said
prison doctors changed her anti-depression medication. She cried about
blinding headaches. And Terry will never forget what Simmons said in their
phone conversation July 1, the day before she died of an apparent
aneurysm. "She said her head was sizzling and that she was going
blind," Terry recalls. "The prison doctor saw her for 10 minutes
and said nothing was wrong." The case of Simmons, 33, is one of
many being explored this summer by investigators with the U.S. Justice
Department's Civil Rights Division in Washington. Investigators have been to
the prison three times and interviewed 127 inmates about the medical treatment
provided by St. Louis-based Correctional Medical Services. They also
have met in St. Louis with inmates' relatives, including Terry. She provided
them with her daughter's letters and medical records. CMS won its first
Missouri contract in 1992 under then Gov. John Ashcroft, who now as U.S.
attorney general heads up the Justice Department. Yet, in a move rarely
seen by the Justice Department, Missouri's prison system has denied the
investigators the access they want. The investigators have wanted to see the
infirmary and talk to prisoners and staff at the prison, about 70 miles
northwest of St. Louis. Prison officials wouldn't allow it, instead telling
federal investigators they could talk to prisoners only in the visitation
area during normal visiting hours. That kind of restriction to a prison
setting is rare, happening only a handful of times in the Justice
Department's 23 years of work using the Civil Rights of Institutionalized
Persons Act. The act was passed by Congress in 1980. It empowers the
attorney general to investigate the conditions at these institutions and file
lawsuits to remedy "a pattern or practice" of unlawful
conditions. A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to
comment. Tim Kniest, spokesman for the
Missouri Department of Corrections, said investigators weren't permitted to
"walk around unescorted" because of safety concerns. Kniest said that, if the investigators make arrangements
with the Missouri attorney general's office, they can have a tour. The
investigators work with the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights
Division. That section's job is to protect constitutional rights of people
confined to institutions such as state-run nursing homes and prisons. $80
million a year Correctional Medical Services is the nation's largest
prison health care provider. It has contracts to provide medical care for
about 228,000 inmates and prisoners in 27 states. In Missouri, CMS'
current five-year contract, renewed in late 2001, covers medical and mental
health care for the 29,500 prisoners in Missouri's 21 prisons. The cost to
the state is about $80 million a year. It is based on a fixed per-day price
(now at $7.50) for each housed inmate. That cost pays for everything from
Band-Aids and aspirin to inmates' prescriptions and catastrophic health
care. There are about 1,700 female prisoners in the Vandalia prison.
There are women prisoners in Chillicothe, but the federal investigators have
not visited that prison. CMS has been the subject of controversy in
recent years. A five-month investigation by the Post-Dispatch in 1998 found
more than 20 cases nationwide in which prison and jail inmates died as a
result of alleged negligence, indifference, understaffing, inadequate
training or cost cutting by private health care companies. Many of the cases
involved CMS. (STL Today)
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