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Prison Company's Courtship Provokes New York's Scrutiny February 17, 2003 By CLIFFORD J. LEVY A vehicle provided to Assemblyman Roger L. Green for his personal use was a gray Plymouth Voyager minivan with tinted windows, but the perks from a private prison company called Correctional Services Corporation did not end there, according to interviews and records from a federal investigation into the company's operations. Mr. Green, an influential state legislator in New York, received a driver, a young man named Jorge Avila-Parks, who on many mornings showed up at Mr. Green's home in Brooklyn. There was also the public relations aide for Mr. Green's office, workers for his political campaigns, free meals and a cellphone. All told, the federal investigative records indicate, the package was worth as much as $2,000 a month. When it came to courting the powerful as it won millions of dollars in state contracts, Correctional Services did not hold back. And now its political activities have provoked an array of inquiries. Company records have been turned over to state prosecutors in Albany and Manhattan, executives have been subpoenaed, and the state lobbying commission is determining whether favors for lawmakers were properly disclosed. Correctional Services executives at their headquarters in Sarasota, Fla., including the president, James F. Slattery, who is to be interviewed by the lobbying commission this week, would not comment. An Albany lawyer retained by the company said it had done nothing wrong, and this past weekend Mr. Green denied accepting free transportation from the company. But there appears to be much to examine, according to a review of Correctional Services' ties to politicians that drew on more than 25 interviews with officials and company workers, as well as federal, state and campaign documents. Campaign Duty Company employees said that at election time, Correctional Services required many workers at its state and federally financed halfway houses in New York City to become foot soldiers in the campaigns of many politicians, from former Mayor David N. Dinkins to the Rev. Al Sharpton to lawmakers in Washington, Albany and the city. At one Correctional Services halfway house, 17 of the 22 workers were out on the trail early one November, according to federal records. It might have been familiar duty for some of them: Correctional Services had hired them because they were relatives or friends of United States Representative Edolphus Towns of Brooklyn, State Assemblywoman Carmen E. Arroyo of the Bronx and numerous other officials. Sometimes, Correctional Services, its executives and its workers just donated directly to campaigns. They gave tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions to Democratic lawmakers from the city, and then, when it seemed that Gov. George E. Pataki might scale back the company's contracts because of a shrinking prison population, they turned their attention to him. For Mr. Pataki's 1998 re-election campaign, the company, its executives and its workers gave more than $27,500 to political committees that supported the Republican governor, records show. At least $1,500 of those donations went to his campaign in the names of company workers who said in recent interviews that they themselves had never actually donated the money. Companies interested in doing business with the state have long sought ways to curry favor with politicians, but Correctional Services' activities appear to be striking even by Albany standards. In all, the company, which was once called Esmor, earned more than $22 million from state contracts from 1992 to 2001, when the contracts were ended by the Pataki administration because the space in the halfway houses was no longer needed. The company still holds federal contracts to run halfway houses in the city. "The higher-ups made it very known that if it wasn't for the political leaders and these political favors that we were doing for them - and if we don't keep them in office - then the company would cease to exist," recalled Richard Ruiz, who worked for the company as a case manager and facility manager from 1992 through 1995, just as it began winning state contracts. "They would say that all the time: that we had to look out for those people, for the politicians." Mr. Ruiz said he was dismissed by a senior company official, Franklin Chris Jackson, after he refused to do campaigning, and then became the lead whistleblower in the federal investigation that has now come back to haunt both the company and several state lawmakers. The investigation, by the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Justice Department, determined that there was not enough evidence to bring federal criminal charges, and it was closed by 1997. But state officials, who learned of the investigation only recently, are examining whether its findings, along with new evidence, could warrant the filing of state criminal or civil charges. It is also possible that the ethics committee in the State Legislature could bring charges against lawmakers, though critics have called the committee toothless. Mr. Ruiz, who is now a detective in the New York Police Department, said prosecutors from the Albany County district attorney's office planned to interview him. Allegations, and Denials At the heart of the current inquiries, investigators say, is Mr. Jackson, a former Brooklyn school board member and political aspirant who equipped his Lincoln Town Car with police lights and sirens and decorated his office with photos of himself with Bill Clinton, Mario M. Cuomo, Mr. Dinkins and other leaders. Mr. Jackson, who got his start in politics as an aide to Mr. Towns, ran the company's New York office as a vice president. "He was power-hungry, and with him, it was always the politics first, the job second," said Nephty Cruz, a former facility manager for the company. Mr. Cruz recalled how he was routinely dispatched to help campaigns distribute leaflets or collect signatures for nominating petitions. On several occasions, he said, he and other workers were deployed as security guards for people like Mr. Sharpton and at events like conferences for black and Hispanic lawmakers in Albany. Mr. Jackson was dismissed from the company in 2000. The state lobbying commission has subpoenaed him, but his lawyer has told the commission that he is ill and not available to testify. The lawyer, Gail E. Laser, did not respond to two messages seeking comment last week. The federal report includes testimony from workers that the company's president, Mr. Slattery, knew about the favors that Mr. Jackson was providing to politicians, but an Albany lawyer retained by the company, James Featherstonhaugh, said last week that those accounts were inaccurate. Mr. Slattery and other senior executives "did know that Mr. Jackson and his predecessors were active in their communities, and were working to keep the communities informed of their programs," Mr. Featherstonhaugh said. "But they certainly didn't know the things that are the subject of the inquiries." He added that it appeared that "Mr. Jackson was using the company's resources maybe to advance his own political needs and interests." State lobbying commission officials said they have discussed seeking a record fine of more than $250,000 against the company for Mr. Jackson's activities. The officials said they thought that Mr. Jackson was essentially an unregistered lobbyist who should have disclosed his expenditures on favors for lawmakers. Lawmakers are not subject to the lobbying laws, but rather to separate state ethics laws that prohibit them from accepting meals and other gifts of $75 or more if those gifts are intended to influence decisions. Since its genesis in the late 1980's as Esmor, the company appears to have realized the value of political connections. When one of its first facilities in the city, a halfway house in Brooklyn, came under fire from residents and local politicians who objected to it in their neighborhood, it paid William Banks, a close associate of Representative Towns, hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby them. The halfway house stayed open. Mr. Jackson came to the company in the early 1990's, and a few years later, when one of its detention centers for undocumented immigrants in New Jersey became embroiled in scandal, the company renamed itself Correctional Services and moved its headquarters to Sarasota from New York. Mr. Jackson continued to run the New York operations. One of his closest relationships was with Mr. Green, whom Mr. Jackson got to know after serving as a local Democratic leader in Brooklyn. The federal report quotes Luis Ramos, another Correctional Services executive, as detailing the many favors that Mr. Ramos says Mr. Jackson provided to Mr. Green. They included the minivan, which was leased from a company at 26th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, as well as the public relations aide and driver. Mr. Ramos is quoted as saying that the use of company workers for political favors was covered up by creating what was called a "Community Assistance Project." "Ramos stated that these payments and benefits were provided to Green so that Esmor would retain the state contracts for halfway housing in New York," the report says. State investigators say that among the issues they are exploring is whether Mr. Green and other lawmakers were reimbursed by the state for travel expenses while they were accepting free travel from Correctional Services. An article last month in The New York Post quoted Mr. Green as acknowledging that he had accepted rides from the company between Brooklyn and Albany. But on Saturday, at a gathering of the Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus in Albany, Mr. Green disputed that account. "I never said that," he said, adding that he had never taken free rides from the company. Letters of Support He and others at the conference suggested that minority lawmakers were being unfairly tarnished by the scandal. "I just feel that when it comes to African-American and Latino legislators, there is guilt by association," Mr. Green said. Mr. Jackson's success in building ties to Albany can be measured in letters that more than 25 Democratic state lawmakers sent to the Pataki administration in late 1997 and 1998, praising Correctional Services and requesting that the contracts be continued. Many of the letters, which were similarly worded, indicate that copies were sent to Mr. Jackson. Despite those pleas, the administration began scaling back the contracts as the number of prisoners in the state system declined. The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, responding to requests from Democratic lawmakers from the city, then used a pool of money that he controlled to direct an additional $1.2 million in contracts over the next two years. Mr. Silver and other Assembly members said this decision was made on the merits. In interviews, lawmakers, their aides and lawyers said there was nothing improper about their ties to Correctional Services. Assemblyman Darryl C. Towns of Brooklyn, who sent one of the letters and is the son of Representative Towns, said Correctional Services had an excellent record of reaching out to community leaders and hiring local people for its halfway houses. Mr. Towns said he had not accepted favors from Mr. Jackson. He said he was not sure whether the company or its executives had contributed to his campaigns. Campaign records show that they have given roughly $5,000 since 1996, including a $2,000 donation from Mr. Slattery in 2000. Karen E. Johnson, chief of staff for Congressman Towns, said he had written federal officials on behalf of Correctional Services, but regarding the favors for politicians, "had no idea that any of this was going on." Around the time that state lawmakers were writing the letters, the company, Mr. Slattery and its workers suddenly began donating heavily in support of Mr. Pataki, sending $12,500 to the Republican State Committee, $10,000 to the Conservative Party and more than $5,000 to the Pataki campaign. Among the contributions were a spate of small donations, ranging from $150 to $300, given in November 1998 in the names of company workers, several of whom said they had not given the money. "I'm not even politically affiliated," recalled Jose Moreno, a former worker who is listed as having donated $150. Lisa Dewald Stoll, a spokeswoman for Mr. Pataki, said the Pataki campaign was unaware of any such questionable donations. She said Mr. Pataki had never spoken to either Mr. Slattery or Mr. Jackson about contracts or contributions. She noted that Mr. Pataki had said publicly that any issues involving Correctional Services' lobbying should be fully investigated. With Mr. Jackson largely out of politics and Correctional Services no longer in business with the state, the story of the company's ties to lawmakers might have faded away had it not been for an unrelated incident. A Bronx assemblywoman, Gloria Davis, who was so close to Mr. Jackson that he referred to her as "Mom," was charged last year in an unrelated bribery case. In the course of the inquiry, the Manhattan district attorney's office learned that she had repeatedly accepted free transportation from Correctional Services. Among her drivers was a midlevel Correctional Services personnel manager named Gilbert Jimenez, who said in a recent interview that he drove her between her district and Albany at least 30 times in 1999 alone. He described how he would be called on the telephone or beeped at all hours to pick up Ms. Davis in a Ford cargo van or a Dodge Caravan minivan used to shuttle prisoners. All the while, Ms. Davis was seeking reimbursement from the state for her travel costs, records show. Mr. Jimenez, who left the company over a dispute, later became a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the company. That suit was settled out of court. "Jackson and them - their common phrase was, `We're untouchable,' because of their political connections, because of who they knew," Mr. Jimenez said. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/17/nyregion/17PRIS.html?ex=1046465600&ei=1&en=7829c5f675e2813f HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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