Category Archives: Horror.Stories

Big US detention center sued for paying detainees $1 a day

Source: Phuong Le, Associated Press, September 20, 2017

Washington state on Wednesday sued the operator of one of the largest private immigration detention centers in the United States, claiming thousands of detainees were paid $1 per day for the work they performed but should have received the state’s much higher minimum wage. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed the lawsuit claiming The GEO Group made millions of dollars and profits by illegally exploiting the workers. The Florida-based company owns and operates the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Detainees since 2005 did laundry, cooked, cleaned and performed other work but were only paid $1 per day and in some cases did not receive that much because they were paid in food or snacks, the lawsuit said. …

The GEO Group Signs Contract for the Continued Management of Northwest Detention Center
Source: MarketWatch, October 1, 2015

The GEO Group GEO, +0.85% (“GEO”) announced today the signing of a new contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) for the continued management of the company-owned, 1,575-bed Northwest Detention Center (the “Center”) in Tacoma, Washington. The contract for the continued management of the Center will have a term of nine years and six months inclusive of renewal options. The Center is expected to generate approximately $57 million in annualized revenues at full occupancy. … GEO’s worldwide operations include the ownership and/or management of 104 facilities totaling approximately 84,000 beds, including projects under development, with a growing workforce of approximately 20,000 professionals.

Why Immigrant Detainees Are Turning to Civil Disobedience
Source: Max Blumenthal, The Nation, May 23, 2014

Reform legislation has stalled, and the private-prison industry is making obscene profits from a captive population….

….As soon as she appeared at the court to pay her husband’s $1,000 bail, Noriega was told that he would not be leaving prison anytime soon. Though a judge had cleared him of driving under the influence of alcohol, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) placed an immigration hold on his case. That meant that Mendoza Pascual would be immediately transferred to the Northwest Detention Center, a vast immigration detention facility in Tacoma operated by a private prison firm called GEO Group. Eight months later, Mendoza Pascual still languishes in the jail. He has not been charged with any crime, yet he has no idea when he will be released. He has been indefinitely detained for living in the United States without documentation, and deportation to Mexico is a looming possibility…..

…Starting in early March, undocumented migrants locked in the Northwest Detention Center battled back against their jailers with empty stomachs, launching a hunger strike that spread across the prison in a peripatetic but increasingly strategic fashion. The strikes spread to the GEO Group’s Joe Corley Detention Facility in Conroe, Texas, another privatized vessel of cruelty, where detainees have endured reprisals including solitary confinement and being shackled to steel beds. At the Northwest Detention Center, GEO Group and ICE stand accused of attempting to suppress the protests through a draconian regime of intimidation, locking strikers in solitary and even threatening them with Guantánamo Bay–style force-feeding sessions if they refuse to relent. Those confined to solitary have been relegated to cells for twenty-three hours a day with no reading material, television, radio or other diversions that might stave off the borderline insanity that accompanies sustained deprivation….

…The year after DHS introduced this startling proposal, the Northwest Detention Center opened on a badly contaminated Superfund site in Tacoma’s Tideflats area. Over vehement public opposition, the Tacoma City Council approved the jail on the grounds that it would create “hundreds of family-wage job opportunities.” It was to be operated by the Florida-based Correctional Services Corporation (CSC), a private prison contractor eager to offset construction costs through public funding. An in-depth joint investigation by the Tacoma-based News Tribune and the nonprofit InvestigateWest found that CSC collaborated with local lawmakers to ensure that city taxpayers covered the bulk of costs associated with building the jail. In the end, only forty-five jobs arose from the prison’s construction—far less than the hundreds initially projected….

Federal Labor Lawsuit Accuses LAZ of Failing to Pay Overtime

Source: Robert Storace, The Connecticut Law Tribune, September 15, 2017

A Georgia man has filed a prospective collective action lawsuit claiming Connecticut-based LAZ Parking company violated federal labor laws when it failed to pay for overtime. The federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. district court claims Hartford-based LAZ Parking regularly does not pay assistant managers overtime in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. …

… The company has been the target of several lawsuits including at least one class action. Most recently, LAZ agreed to pay $5.6 million to settle a lawsuit with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. LAZ was accused of failing to detect and stop the theft of millions of dollars in cash belonging to the MBTA. Separately, the parking company agreed to pay $1.1 million to Massachusetts to settle allegations it failed to implement contractually-required revenue controls and auditing tools at 13 MBTA parking lots. LAZ is also a defendant in a February 2017 class action claiming the ParkChicago app resulted in false parking tickets. That suit is still pending. And, in 2010, LAZ paid $46,000 to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission religious discrimination lawsuit. …

Disabled Iowans could be exempted from private Medicaid management

Source: Tony Leys, Des Moines Register, September 13, 2017

Iowa might resume direct oversight of care for people with serious disabilities instead of having private Medicaid-management companies continue doing it, the state’s human-services director said Wednesday. Many of the most serious complaints about Iowa’s privatized Medicaid system have come from disabled Iowans and their families. Numerous families have reported having their services cut and their hassles multiplied by the management companies. Their plight has sparked a federal lawsuit against the state. “We are examining patients that may not be the right mix” for managed care-companies to oversee, Department of Human Services Director Jerry Foxhoven told an advisory council for his agency Wednesday. …

As complaints pile up, lawmakers overseeing Medicaid privatization haven’t met this year
Source: Jason Clayworth, Des Moines Register, August 20, 2017

A legislative committee tasked with oversight of the for-profit companies that manage Iowa’s Medicaid system hasn’t met this year, undercutting the state’s contention that the companies are being held accountable, critics say. The Legislature’s Health Policy Oversight Committee was tasked in 2015 with evaluating the state’s privatization of its Medicaid system, specifically to ensure the effective administration of the program, which provides health care to 568,000 poor or elderly Iowans. But despite a record number of complaints and a federal lawsuit alleging Medicaid services are being illegally or improperly cut, the 10-member legislative committee has yet to convene in 2017. …

Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on the table in closed-door Medicaid haggling
Source: Tony Leys, Des Moines Register, July 3, 2017

The three companies running Iowa’s $4 billion Medicaid program contend they need millions more dollars from taxpayers, starting this month — but there’s been no public hint of how much more money the state will have to fork over. Iowa hired the companies last year to manage the state’s Medicaid program, which covers health care for about 600,000 poor or disabled residents. The shift has been intensely controversial, with critics complaining it has led to tangles of red tape for care providers and cuts in services for Medicaid recipients. Supporters, including Gov. Kim Reynolds, say the new system is saving money for the state by leading to more efficient, effective care. …

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Michigan Gambled on Charter Schools. Its Children Lost.

Judge: IBM Owes Indiana $78M For Failed Welfare Automation

Source: Associated Press, August 7, 2017

A judge has ruled that IBM Corp. owes Indiana $78 million in damages stemming from the company’s failed effort to automate much of the state’s welfare services. … Indiana and IBM sued each other in 2010 after then-Gov. Mitch Daniels cancelled the company’s $1.3 billion contract to privatize and automate the processing of Indiana’s welfare applications following numerous complaints. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled last year that IBM breached its contract. The justices affirmed a lower court’s award of nearly $50 million to IBM in state fees, but that ruling allowed Indiana to seek more than $172 million in damages from IBM.

IBM contests judge’s removal petition in welfare-privatization suit
Source: Dave Stafford, Indiana Lawyer, May 25, 2016

The state’s petition to remove a trial court judge who oversaw the civil lawsuit over the canceled $1.3 billion contract with IBM to overhaul Indiana’s welfare system is “factually incorrect,” according to an attorney representing IBM. Andrew Hull of Hoover Hull Turner LLP said in a statement that Marion Superior Judge David Dreyer did nothing to merit removal and didn’t violate Indiana Trial or Appellate Rules in an order issued on remand from the Indiana Supreme Court, as Barnes & Thornburg LLP lawyers representing the state argued in briefs filed Monday. Their petitions and brief seeking writs from the Supreme Court argue Dreyer overstepped his authority by issuing the order without proceedings, called into question his impartiality in the matter, and asked the court to vacate his order on remand and bar him from issuing further orders in the case.

Indiana Seeks New Judge After No Damages Awarded in IBM Case
Source: Rick Callahan, Associated Press, May 10, 2016

Attorneys for the state are challenging a judge’s decision not to award Indiana damages in its long-running fight with IBM Corp. over the company’s failed effort to privatize state welfare services, saying a new judge should be appointed to handle the case. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled in March that IBM had breached its $1.3 billion contract to automate much of Indiana’s welfare system. The high court directed the trial court judge to determine what damages IBM owed the state, opening the door for Indiana to seek up to $175 million. But on Friday, that judge, Marion County Superior Court Judge David Dreyer, ruled that “the costs for which the State seeks reimbursement were not adequately proven, and thus cannot be recovered as damages.” The state’s private attorneys in the case quickly filed a motion seeking a new judge to oversee the case. … The resulting lawsuits between Indiana and IBM were assigned to Dreyer, who found in 2012 that Indiana had failed to prove IBM breached its state contract and awarded the New York-based company about $50 million in state fees. Indiana appealed that ruling, and the state Court of Appeals found in February 2014 that IBM had committed a material breach of its contract by failing to deliver improvements to the state’s welfare system. But it also found IBM was entitled to nearly $50 million in state fees.

Mediation coming in IBM, Indiana contract dispute
Source: Associated Press, December 10, 2014

IBM Corp. and the state of Indiana are turning to mediation in hopes of settling their dispute over IBM’s failed attempt to privatize Indiana’s welfare services. The two parties said in a Monday court filing with the Indiana Supreme Court that they have agreed to mediation and chosen John R. Van Winkle of Indianapolis-based Van Winkle-Baten Dispute Resolution to hear their differences at a Feb. 25 mediation session. The state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the welfare-privatization contract dispute on Oct. 30. The following week, Chief Justice Loretta Rush suggested that the parties consider mediation “to seek a mutually agreeable resolution of their dispute.” Rush’s order also said that if mediation failed, the court would move ahead to reach a decision in the long-running dispute.

Appeal of IBM-deal fees heard
Source: Niki Kelly, Journal Gazette, November 26, 2013

The fallout from the failed $1.3 billion IBM welfare modernization contract continued Monday as the Indiana Court of Appeals heard arguments over $100 million in disputed fees. … Attorney Peter Rusthoven, representing the state, said the system was plagued with problems from the outset and IBM refused to hire more people to add to the “human dimension.” …. But attorney Jay Lefkowitz, on behalf of IBM, pointed out that Indiana was trying to hire IBM to run the new hybrid system up until the day the company was terminated.

IBM, state in court Monday
Source: Tim Evans, Indianapolis Star, November 20, 2013

The Indiana Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments Monday in the legal battle over a $52 million judgment the state has been ordered to pay IBM over the failed attempt to privatize public welfare services under former Gov. Mitch Daniels. …. The state is appealing a Marion Superior Court judge’s 2012 ruling awarding $52 million to IBM after the state canceled a contract Daniels had hailed in 2006 as the solution for fixing one of the nation’s worst welfare systems. …. “Neither party deserves to win this case,” he wrote in his 65-page ruling. “This story represents a ‘perfect storm’ of misguided government policy and overzealous corporate ambition. Overall, both parties are to blame, and Indiana’s taxpayers are left as apparent losers.”

Related:
Part of food stamp website offline for two weeks
Source: Tony Cook, Indianapolis Star, November 6, 2013

Earlier this year, state contractor RCR Technology wrongly released the private information of Indiana welfare recipients. Now, part of the state’s benefits website administered by the company is broken. …. The problems come just four months after revelations that RCR wrongly revealed private data of FSSA clients, including Social Security numbers. … RCR was initially an FSSA subcontractor, but was later elevated to prime contractor after Gov. Mitch Daniels fired IBM over a botched 10-year, $1.37 billion deal to overhaul the state’s welfare system, Gavin said.

Ind. court sets hearing on IBM welfare lawsuit
Source: Associated Press, September 3, 2013

The Indiana Court of Appeals has set a November hearing in the state’s legal fight with IBM Corp. over a failed attempt to overhaul Indiana’s welfare system. The state is appealing a Marion County judge’s ruling last year awarding $52 million to IBM after then-Gov. Mitch Daniels canceled what was a 10-year, $1.37 billion contract to process applications for food stamps, Medicaid and other programs….

The Unequal State of America: Indiana’s rocky road to welfare reform
Source: David Rohde and Kristina Cooke, Reuters, December 20, 2012

In 2006, Gov. Mitch Daniels privatized the management of the welfare-benefits system with a project led by IBM. Two-thirds of Indiana’s social-service agency’s staffers became employees of IBM and its partners. In a process dubbed “welfare modernization,” recipients would apply for benefits online and by phone rather than meeting social workers face to face. It was, by Daniels’s own admission, a failure…..

JEditorial: Human toll of FSSA deal laid bare
Source: Journal Gazette, July 24, 2012

Editorial: Decision to privatize state welfare system a mistake from start
Source: Evansville Courier & Press, July 22, 2012

Judge denies Indiana claim over failed IBM project
Source: Charles Wilson, Associated Press, July 18, 2012

A judge on Wednesday spurned Indiana’s efforts to recoup roughly $170 million from IBM Corp. over its failed effort to overhaul the state’s welfare system as part of a broader privatization push that was an early hallmark of Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels’ tenure. Marion County Judge David Dreyer said in a 75-page order that neither side deserved to win the dispute, and awarded IBM only a small fraction of what it was seeking. … Dreyer blamed “misguided government policy and overzealous corporate ambition” for the failure of the system, which he called an “untested theoretical experiment.” … Dreyer said Indiana failed to prove that IBM breached its contract, and he denied the state any of the money it sought.

IBM questions Daniels’ resistance to deposition
Source: Carrie Ritchie, IndyStar.com, December 19, 2011

In court, state and IBM spar over welfare system’s design
Source: Carrie Ritchie, Indianapolis Star, March 9, 2012

IBM to begin making case in welfare trial
Source: Indianapolis Star, March 21, 2012

IBM: Indiana canceled deal because of budget woes
Source: Associated Press, April 3, 2012

IBM, state in final arguments at welfare system trial
Source: Carrie Ritchie, Indianapolis Star, April 3, 2012

Judge orders Gov. Daniels be deposed in IBM lawsuits
Source: Carrie Ritchie, IndyStar.com, December 16, 2011

A judge has ordered Gov. Mitch Daniels to share his knowledge of a canceled $1 billion contract with IBM to help resolve a legal battle between the state and the company.

Attorneys for the state had said a law protects Daniels and other high-ranking state officials from testifying….

Private Prison GEO Group to Pay $60,000 To Settle EEOC Sexual Harassment And Retaliation Lawsuit

Source: EEOC Press Release, August 25, 2017

The GEO Group, Inc., operator of the Central Arizona Correctional Facility (CACF) in Florence, Ariz., will pay $60,000 and furnish other relief to settle a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, GEO allowed its employees and managers to sexually harass Roberta Jones since June 2007. For example, the agency alleged that certain male superior officers and coworkers would frequently stand around bragging about their sexual exploits. At least two superior officers were alleged to have put their hands on Jones in an unwanted manner. GEO failed to adequately respond to Jones’s complaints of sexual harassment, the EEOC said. The lawsuit also alleged that Geo assigned Ms. Jones to less desirable posts, disciplined, and terminated her after she complained about the harassment and participated in protected activity under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. …

Florence Private Prison GEO Group Sued a Second Time by EEOC for Sexual Harassment and Retaliation
Source: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), September 25, 2015

The GEO Group, Inc., operators of the Central Arizona Correctional Facility in Florence, Ariz., violated federal law by sexually harassing a female correctional officer and then retaliating against her for having participated in a prior lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against GEO alleging systemic sexual harassment, EEOC charged in a lawsuit it filed today. According to EEOC’s lawsuit, GEO allowed its employees and managers to sexually harass Roberta Jones since June 2007. …

Low Staffing Levels at Arizona Prisons Could Lead to Big Fines

Source: Jimmy Jenkins, KJZZ, August 9, 2017

A federal judge will appoint an outside expert to address low health care staffing levels in Arizona prisons and could soon issue economic sanctions against the state. For years the state has failed to comply with performance measures from a settlement between the state and the inmates. The main reason for the failures is staffing, and Judge David Duncan said economic currents are to blame. At a status hearing Wednesday, Duncan said the state’s private contractor, Corizon, has made the decision to simply pay fines instead of paying for full staffing at state prisons. … Duncan became increasingly incensed when hearing of the state’s failure to comply with measures that guarantee inmates access to their prescribed medicine. He repeated his threat that the state is facing steep fines and suggested economic sanctions to counter Corizon’s profit motive. …

Indiana bond sale to complete P3 takeover financing

Students Who Took Private Loans Through Corinthian Colleges Eligible for Relief

Source: Melissa Korn, Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2017

Former Corinthian Colleges Inc. students who took out 46,000 private loans through the now-defunct school will be eligible for $192 million in loan relief, based on a settlement announced Thursday by 13 state attorneys general and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The settlement is subject to approval by a federal court in Oregon that is overseeing the receivership of the investment firm that owned the loans, Aequitas Capital Management LLC. Roughly 41,000 students took out what Corinthian called Genesis private loans, coordinated through Aequitas’s Campus Student Funding affiliate. …

Corinthian Colleges Loses Federal Lawsuit As Education Department Faces Reckoning
Source: Shahien Nasiripour, Huffington Post, October 28, 2015

Defunct for-profit college chain Corinthian Colleges Inc. violated federal law by using false job placement rates to deceive 115,111 former students into taking out student loans, a federal district court judge ruled on Tuesday. In a lawsuit brought last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleged that Corinthian duped prospective students into enrolling and taking out loans by falsely advertising future job prospects. The company, which declared bankruptcy in May, operated for-profit schools under the Everest, Heald and Wyotech brands and had previously denied wrongdoing. The ruling by Judge Gary Feinerman in Chicago could force the Department of Education to forgive the former students’ federal student debt, thanks to a provision in federal law that gives student debtors the right to apply for total debt forgiveness if schools mislead them into taking out federal student loans. Former Corinthian students have taken out nearly $4 billion in loans from the Education Department over the last five years.

Corinthian Colleges Secretly Funded D.C. Think Tanks, Dark Money Election Efforts
Source: Lee Fang, The Intercept, May 4, 2015

….The filing doesn’t list amounts, but shows that Corinthian made payments to Crossroads G.P.S., a group co-founded by Karl Rove that has raised over $300 million to elect Republican members of Congress through campaign advertising. Crossroads G.P.S., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, does not disclose any of its donors…. APCO Worldwide, a lobbying firm, is among the Corinthian creditors, though the firm never registered to represent Corinthian under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. The listing reveals a number of payments to influential D.C. groups that have battled regulations on the for-profit college industry. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is listed multiple times as a Corinthian creditor. The Chamber has run campaign advertisements on behalf of opponents of the Department of Education’s “gainful employment” regulation, which would measure the performance of vocational programs. The Chamber made defeating the rules a top priority. The American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit that helps corporate interests draft model legislation, is listed as a creditor. As Republic Report reported, although for-profit colleges are far more expensive for programs offered by community colleges and other public institutions, ALEC drafted a resolution calling for state officials to “recognize the value of for-profit providers.” Another gainful employment regulation opponent, the American Enterprise Institute, is listed as a Corinthian creditor. AEI scholars have repeatedly attacked the rules, calling them an example of the Obama administration’s “crusade against for-profit colleges.” Last October, Andrew Kelly, AEI’s resident scholar on higher education reform, specifically defended Corinthian and criticized the “Obama administration’s bloodlust for such schools.”….