Category Archives: Horror.Stories

Statewide task force set to meet on group home troubles

Source: WBRZ, August 3, 2018

Following a litany of complaints around the state, a task force has been created that will attempt to provide solutions for a problem that has cropped up due to a lack of regulations. State Senator Regina Barrow is passionate about the cause and making sure those who are the most fragile in our communities have safe and clean places to live. In May, the WBRZ Investigative Unit uncovered squalid conditions that residents of a group home were living in. Tonja Myles said her uncle was severely neglected. The coverage sparked raids by Adult Protective Services and the State Fire Marshal. Ultimately, the Prosperity House run by the Davenport family and operating on Greenwell Springs Road was closed down. However, the WBRZ Investigative Unit found the operators were using another location a stone’s throw from that house to operate again. A dust-up occurred this week when Baton Rouge Police were contacted after residents were taken from the Greenwell Springs home. …

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State investigators raid group home over deplorable living conditions
Source: WBRZ, May 30, 2018

A group home that has been operating despite its name being revoked by the Secretary of State for failing to file documents in a timely manner is under the microscope after horrible conditions were exposed by a relative who has a family member there. Wednesday, investigators from the State Fire Marshal’s office paid a visit to the house following a flood of complaints. …

$625,000 settlement approved in wrongful death suit involving Hampton Roads Regional Jail inmate

Source: Tim Dodson, Richmond Times-Dispatch, July 24, 2018

A $625,000 settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit against the Hampton Roads Regional Jail, its medical provider and a number of staff members was approved in federal court Tuesday. The suit was filed in June 2017 by the family of Henry Clay Stewart, an inmate who died Aug. 6, 2016, because of internal bleeding from a perforated stomach ulcer. …..The lawsuit said Stewart was arrested in May 2016 for allegedly violating the terms of his probation related to a 2011 shoplifting charge. He was first held at the Hampton City Jail but was transferred to Hampton Roads Regional Jail in June 2016. The suit alleged that “from mid-July through his death on Aug. 6, 2016, Stewart repeatedly sought medical treatment for severe medical conditions, including chest and abdominal pain, blackouts, inability to keep down water or food, and drastic weight loss, but his pleas for urgent medical care were either ignored or the care provided to him was substandard and did not address his life-threatening medical needs.” Hampton Roads Regional Jail has come under intense state scrutiny in recent years over the quality of its medical care after other inmate deaths, including 24-year-old Jamycheal Mitchell’s in 2015. The state medical examiner found that Mitchell, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, essentially wasted away in plain sight over a 101-day stay at the facility. He had been accused of stealing $5 worth of snacks from a convenience store…..

Omaha fines Waste Management another $78,000 for not picking up yard waste separately in July

Source: Emily Nohr, Omaha World-Herald, August 11, 2018

Mayor Jean Stothert is again penalizing the city’s garbage hauler — this time $78,000 — for service problems. That brings the total penalties against Waste Management to nearly $180,000 this year. Stothert rejected comments made by some Omaha City Council members that the administration should do more to hold Waste Management to its contract with the city. … Waste Management continues to struggle to pick up yard waste separately from trash at residences across Omaha, which the company is supposed to do from about April to Thanksgiving.

… The city pays nearly $500,000 a month for separate yard waste collection. Officials can fine Waste Management, however, if it receives more than 1,000 complaints about garbage and recycling and 700 about yard waste. Stothert fined Waste Management in May and June after the city got enough complaints from residents about service. Fines for both months totaled about $56,000. Additionally, her administration negotiated paying Waste Management $44,000 less in June and the latest $78,000 less in July for not picking up yard waste separately in parts of the city. Stothert said there’s no complaint-driven fine for last month because the city didn’t get enough complaints to warrant one. The city received just 69 complaints about yard waste last month, she said. …

How Trump Radicalized ICE

Source: Franklin Foer, The Atlantic, September 2018

… Since its official designation, in 2003, as a successor to INS, ice has grown at a remarkable clip for a peacetime bureaucracy. By the beginning of Barack Obama’s second term, immigration had become one of the highest priorities of federal law enforcement: Half of all federal prosecutions were for immigration-related crimes. … ICE quickly built a sprawling, logistically intricate infrastructure comprising detention facilities, an international-transit arm, and monitoring technology. This apparatus relies heavily on private contractors. Created at the height of the federal government’s outsourcing mania, DHS employs more outside contractors than actual federal employees. Last year, these companies—which include the Geo Group and CoreCivic—spent at least $3 million on lobbying and influence peddling. To take one small example: Owners of ICE’s private detention facilities were generous donors to Trump’s inauguration, contributing $500,000 for the occasion. … An organization devoted to enforcing immigration laws will always be reflexively and perhaps unfairly cast as a villain. … Still, ICE, as currently conceived, represents a profound deviation in the long history of American immigration. …

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For-profit prison company threatens anti-ICE group with lawsuit for telling world what they do
Source: Alan Pyke, ThinkProgress, August 6, 2018
 
A protest campaign targeting for-profit detention company GEO Group with numerous nationwide actions at facilities connected to President Donald Trump’s ramped-up deportations has been threatened with legal action by the company’s high-powered litigators. …

Why It’s Hard To Hold Contractors Accountable For The Suffering Of Immigrant Children
Source: Susan M. Sterett The Conversation, August 2, 2018
 
….Although federal detention is a government policy, the federal government does not directly run most of the facilities where families are detained or kids end up on their own. Instead, it hands nonprofit groups, for-profit businesses and local governments US$1 billion a year or more to house nearly 12,000 children. This money is dispensed through government contracts that do not always gain much public attention.  But now, amid protests and other forms of public pressure, some contractors are severing their ties to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. This is a new development as oversight by government officials and watchdog groups has historically centered largely on costs, fraud or whether contractors broke laws – not whether there was something inherently wrong with the contracts themselves.  Having studied the politics of accountability for many years, I would argue that the responsibility for these unpopular immigration policies largely lies with the federal government, not its contractors…..

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Murphy administration demands action from major group home operator after safety problems revealed

Source: Susan K. Livio, NJ.com. August 10, 2018

Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration has halted new admissions at New Jersey’s largest group home operator for people with developmental disabilities and demanded “immediate correction of all concerns” involving safety and staffing shortages uncovered in 18 months of inspections. The state Department of Human Services intends to appoint an independent monitor and to continue random unannounced inspections at all 62 properties operated by for-profit Bellwether Behavioral Health, state Department of Human Services spokesman Tom Hester said.

The state stopped referring people to Bellwether on July 12, Hester confirmed, a decision revealed after an Aug. 3 report aired on public radio station WNYC about ongoing problems at a group home in Branchburg. … In addition to having the largest capacity of any group home provider in New Jersey, at 494 beds, Bellwether has also recorded the largest number of allegations of abuse and neglect. According to state data from March 2017 to March 2018, the state investigated 71 complaints, and substantiated 33. Six residents were repeatedly victimized, the data said. …

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Trapped: Abuse and neglect in private care (Podcast)
Reveal News, August 4, 2018

Deep in the backroads of central Florida, hidden between trees dripping with Spanish moss, sits the campus of an infamous center for the developmentally disabled. Its story shows what can happen when families have nowhere else to find care for their loved ones. After years of complaints, Carlton Palms is finally being shut down. But its parent company, Bellwether Behavioral Health, is still running group homes across the country, where new allegations have arisen. WNYC reporter Audrey Quinn investigates the company and speaks to a family whose son was abused at two of Bellwether’s New Jersey facilities. She discovers that, with national spending on autism services expected to increase 70 percent by 2025, the company is owned by a private equity firm.

Read more about Carlton Palms.

The State Lawsuit That Could Set a Precedent for Nationwide Student-Loan Refunds

Source: Natalia Abrams and Senya Merchant, The Nation, August 9, 2018
 
Lawsuits against one of the largest servicers of federal student loans, Navient, have garnered headlines in recent weeks. Following the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s groundbreaking lawsuit against the company in 2017, four additional states have followed suit, including California, in an effort to enforce state consumer laws and protect student-loan borrowers from unscrupulous business practices. Navient, a publicly traded company hired by the Department of Education to service over $100 billion in federal student loans, is the most criticized company in consumer finance. Now, one of the most consumer-friendly states in America is taking the company to court. Should California Attorney General Xavier Becerra prove successful, attorneys general around the country willing to take a stand against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her efforts to decimate state-level student-loan protections would be able to use this as a model to check abusive student-loan companies. …

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Have a student loan? There are some lawsuits you need to watch
Source: Michelle Singletary, Winston Salem Journal, July 8, 2018

If you have a student loan, there are some lawsuits you need to watch. Navient, the country’s largest servicer of student loans, is facing several lawsuits by state attorneys general accusing the company of, among other things, steering borrowers to payment options that cost them more money. Last week, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a lawsuit against Navient and two of its subsidiaries, Pioneer and General Revenue Corp., alleging misconduct that included misrepresenting the order in which the company would apply extra loan payments and failing to properly discharge federal student debt for borrowers with a total and permanent disability. …

Former Rep. Kline Continues Shilling for For-Profit Education
Source: David Halperin, Republic Report, June 20, 2018

Rep. John Kline (R-MN) defended and protected for-profit higher education businesses while chairing the House education committee, even after many companies in the industry were caught engaging in widespread predatory and deceptive practices. Now that he’s retired, Kline is cashing in, serving on the board of Education Corporation of America (ECA), which operates poorly-performing for-profit colleges, and, in a new op-ed in The Hill, arguing that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should drop a lawsuit charging giant student loan company Navient with deceiving and cheating borrowers across the country. …

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White Hat Management Leaves Ohio Charter Industry

Source: Mitch Felan, WKSU, August 8, 2018
 
White Hat Management, the once-prolific Ohio charter school operator and early advocate for school choice in the state, is leaving the charter school business. The company has been steadily losing contracts over the past few years in the competitive market. …

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When it comes to facing down Ohio’s well-heeled charter school lobbyists, will state lawmakers be leaders — or lapdogs?
Source: Brent Larkin, Northeast Ohio Media Group, July 24, 2015

…… In the past 17 years, Ohio’s two largest charter school management companies — David Brennan’s Akron-based White Hat Management and William Lager’s Columbus-based Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) — have funneled more than $6 million to Republican candidates and causes. In the last election cycle, ECOT alone gave more than $400,000. The payoff? About $1.76 billion in taxpayer money has flowed into charter schools run by Brennan and Lager since 1998.

Start the investigation of the state Department of Education
Source: Editorial Board, Beacon Journal, July 18, 2015

Let the formal investigation begin, preferably by David Yost, the state auditor, or an independent investigator tapped by the State Board of Education. The target? The Ohio Department of Education, its director of school choice admitting last week that he removed or ignored failing grades for online and dropout recovery charter schools as part of evaluating the performance of sponsors, those organizations that oversee the publicly funded yet privately run schools.

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Millions Flow to Pentagon’s Banned Contractors Via a Back Door

Source: Sam Skolnik, Bloomberg Government, August 6, 2018
 
Some of the world’s largest companies have benefited from a little-known law that lets the Defense Department override decisions barring contractors accused or convicted of bribery, fraud, theft, and other crimes from doing business with the government.  International Business Machines Corp., Boeing Co., BP Plc, and several other contractors have received special dispensation to fulfill multimillion-dollar government contracts through “compelling reason determinations.” That process allows the Defense Department in rare cases to determine that the need to fulfill certain contracts justifies doing business with companies that have been suspended from government work.  The 22 determinations were released by the General Services Administration at the request of Bloomberg Government, allowing for the first collective examination of the cases and the system that allowed them. …

… The determinations, also referred to as waivers or overrides, included contracts to provide food services for Defense Department personnel at an Army base in Afghanistan, “vital” web-hosting services for an agency that serves the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community, and aviation fuel sold to the Defense Logistics Agency. In some instances, contracting officials said the overrides were matters of life or death. Companies receiving waivers included some accused or convicted of major fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, ethical bidding violations, and in the case of fuel-seller BP, an overall “lack of business integrity.” In the most recent waiver case—issued just several weeks ago—an affiliate of one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates was suspended for allegedly bribing an Army contracting official and another man to deliver a $420 million contract involving expansion of a U.S. base south of Seoul. …

Memphis cancels trash collection contract with Inland Waste

Source: David Royer and Andrew Ellison, WREG, July 19, 2018

After months of complaints over trash piles and missed pickups, Memphis is cutting ties with contractor Inland Waste. Mayor Jim Strickland announced Thursday that will end the city’s contract with Inland in 30 days, saying the company had underperformed. “We are in the process of contracting with a new provider to fill the remainder of the Inland contract, and we’ll be putting the long-term contract out for bid later this year,” Strickland said. While city garbage crews service most Memphis homes, Inland services about 30,000 addresses in the city, mostly in areas like Cordova and Hickory Hill. In April, some residents in those areas began complaining they hadn’t had garbage pickup in weeks. The company blamed a critical driver shortage, but the city began exploring options to replace the contractor. … Memphis had been contracted to pay Inland more than $4 million a year for service through 2019.

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Memphis City Council talks trash
Source: Justin Hanson, WMC-TV, March 20, 2013
(includes video)

Memphis City Council members were talking trash Tuesday. They discussed how to keep trash from piling up on city streets like it did during a recent strike. Within the next month, Memphis Mayor AC Wharton and AFSCME leaders will get together and talk about trash collection here in the city, specifically trash collection in newly annexed areas. The trash collection issue came to a head when garbage piled up in recently annexed areas like Cordova and Hickory Hill. That pileup was because of a strike at privately contracted Republic Services Allied Waste, which picks up in those areas. City leaders asked AFCSME to come in and pick up, but they were not willing to cross the picket line. …. AFCSME leaders say they have been trying for five years to move all trash collection back in-house. “If we can do it all along, then let’s do it. Not just when it’s convenient,” added AFCSME Executive Director Chad Johnson.

Audit at Texas Health and Human Services Commission finds latest in long line of problems

Source: Robert T. Garrett, Dallas News, July 18, 2018

Texas’ sprawling bureaucracy for regulating health care and providing social services is vulnerable to a “perception of impropriety” because it routinely lets individual contracting personnel open bids on their own, without any witnesses, a new internal audit says. The Health and Human Services system also unwisely allows program managers and division leaders who control billions of dollars of spending to ask for the same contracting specialist every time, the audit said. That potentially creates a coziness that could harm taxpayers’ interests, it said. Problems highlighted in the audit, which was released to state GOP leaders last week, are the latest in a long line of problems at the Health and Human Services Commission. Six officials have stepped down since early April, when Gov. Greg Abbott called revelations of sloppiness and mistakes in scoring of bids “unacceptable.” …

… Another audit released Tuesday by an independent arm of the Legislature looked at nearly 70 percent of the $6.7 billion worth of contracts that the commission awarded in a recent 27-month period. There were problems with every single one of the 28 separate calls for bids or grant proposals that the State Auditor’s Office examined. … Both the commission’s internal audit and the State Auditor’s Office review sharply criticized sloppy handling and scoring of bids for billions of dollars worth of work for the Medicaid program for the poor and other health and social services programs. …

Related:
Pain & Profit series from the Dallas Morning News, published June 2018

  • The preventable tragedy of D’ashon Morris
    Doctors described him as “happy and playful” and told his foster mother he would be healthy by the time he went to kindergarten. That was before a giant health care company made a decision that saved it as much as $500 a day — and cost D’ashon everything.
  • As patients suffer, companies profit
    Imagine being trapped in a bed for more than a year because you can’t get the medical equipment you need. Years of poor oversight by the state have allowed health care companies to skimp on essential care for sick kids and disabled adults.
  • Texas pays companies billions for ‘sham networks’ of doctors
    The state tells foster parents that hundreds of psychiatrists will see their kids. We found only 34. Managed-care companies overstate the number of physicians available to treat the state’s sickest patients.
  • ‘Glossover of the horror’
    A whistleblower says taxpayers are not getting their money’s worth and sick people are not getting the care they need. Texas fails to act when health care companies put patients in peril.
  • Parents vs. the Austin machine
    “You can tell that he’s crying or screaming, but nothing comes out.” Texas families take fight for medically fragile children to the Legislature.

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