Aire Filter Products, Arizona
Federal agents arrested nine Mexican nationals Tuesday and accused them of working illegally at a Mesa plant that manufactures military helicopters.  The workers, whose names were not released, were contract employees of Aramark and Aire Filter Products, subcontractors at the Boeing plant.  (The Arizona Republic, September 1, 2004

Aramark, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
February 24, 2008 Naperville Sun
A company hoping to win another contract at the DuPage County Jail has donated thousands of dollars to elected county officials. Aramark, a Philadelphia-based company that has provided the jail's food service for 21 years, has poured $14,770 into campaign coffers of State's Attorney Joe Birkett, Sheriff John Zaruba, County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom and others since 1999, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections. County Board members Brien Sheahan, Debra Olson and Mike McMahon have received several hundred dollars each. In a bidding process fraught with ambiguity and conflict, Aramark has been fighting for more than a year to continue serving food to jail inmates. When the bid was redone for the third time in December, the company submitted a $949,616 bid that was $6,000 lower than that of its competitor, Minnesota-based A'viands. But after the state's attorney's office said Aramark submitted a menu that didn't meet requirements, officials recommended the bid be awarded to A'viands. Aramark's menu diverged slightly by offering breaded fish patties rather than the specified fish fillets and 12-ounce instead of 8-ounce oatmeal servings, Assistant State's Attorney Tom Downing said. Potential savings -- However, County Board members are giving Aramark another shot at the contract, opting for a fourth bid instead of awarding the contract to A'viands. They say the county can save thousands of dollars by changing bidding requirements. Instead of stipulating a specific menu, board members want to mandate only certain nutritional requirements, as was done during the second round of bidding. Allowing bidders to submit their own menu resulted in a bid from Aramark that was $120,000 less than when it followed a menu mandated by the county. That cost difference is enough to justify yet another bid, said Sheahan, calling the whole process "ridiculous." "We're basically having a $120,000 argument over whether milk and oatmeal will fit on a tray, and I think we owe it to taxpayers to make sure we are getting the best value for their money," he said. "We're not interested in spending extra every year so people at the County Jail can eat fish fillets instead of fish sticks." Nothing to hide -- Sheahan said a $500 contribution from Aramark to his primary campaign had nothing to do with his support for a fourth bid. "I really don't care whether Aramark gets it or not," he said. "I want the lowest bid to get it. I think the interest of the committee is just to get the best value for taxpayers." Saying she believes Aramark has submitted responsible bids, Olson, of Wheaton, said she supports a fourth bid to potentially save the $120,000. "This is about saving taxpayers money," said Olson, who noted that she has supported extending the temporary contracts to A'viands. "Any implications that my motivations are other than in the best interests of taxpayers is insulting." Birkett, who has received $3,600 from Aramark, said the campaign contributions played no role in the opinion rendered by his office, which ruled Aramark's bid noncompliant. "If I'm asked for opinion or legal guidance, I give it, free from any political support I've received," Birkett said. The recipient of $4,500 from Aramark, Schillerstrom sided with the state's attorney, saying Aramark failed to meet the menu requirements. "I believe A'viands is the lowest responsible bidder," he said. "I think it's clear that Aramark did not comply with the bid." Zaruba did not return a phone call seeking comment. Nutrition requirements -- Disputes about nutrition requirements have plagued the bidding process, which began last March. After the county declared A'viands the winner of the first bid, Aramark filed a lawsuit claiming its submitted menus were deficient. Schillerstrom upheld the protest, finding that both companies failed to meet requirements and declared a second round of bidding. For the second bid, the county outlined more specific nutrition standards. But both companies fell short, saying it was impossible to meet sodium requirements. In the third bid, the county hired a nutritionist to create a specific menu. While A'viands said the menu gave clear and specific requirements, Aramark disagreed. "It was crystal clear to us that we were to submit a menu that exactly met those requirements, and that's what we did," said Perry Rynders, CEO of A'viands. Rynders expressed "significant disappointment" at the county's decision to hold another bid, saying no one had disputed that A'viands did meet requirements. Temporary contract -- To keep prison inmates fed, the county has issued a string of temporary contracts to A'viands since July. But it's difficult to attract and hire good workers at the jail while the contract remains in limbo, Rynders said. "It's very difficult for us to find staff to work on a temporary basis," he said. "Each time this comes up, they're wondering if their job is on the line. I don't think the County Board understands how difficult this is on us." Aramark spokesman Tim Elliot said the county should return to a nutrition-based bid instead of one based on a menu. That is standard procedure for most of the 700 correctional facilities the company services worldwide, he said. Aramark is a private company that is the 19th-largest employer on the Fortune 500, employing 240,000 workers in 19 countries. Hospitals, eldercare centers, schools, corporations and sports stadiums are among the company's clients. Board member Jim Healy of Naperville agreed with Aramark that the county's "ambiguous" menu should be thrown out in favor of nutritional requirements. "We don't care what you serve as long as you meet the nutritional standards," he said. The county should have stuck with very basic nutritional requirements as it had done until last year, said board member Jim Zay. "This is insane ... the more people we get involved, the worse it gets," Zay said. "This has been costing us hundreds of thousands more because we've been screwing around with it."

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.

March 18, 2007 The Oregonian
Federal court statistics show that plaintiffs filed nearly 4,200 cases under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs pay practices, in fiscal 2006, which ended Sept. 30. That's up from 4,040 cases in fiscal 2005 and 2,751 in 2003. In Portland this month, Richard Bird filed a class-action lawsuit against his ex-employer, Aramark Correctional Services Inc. He alleges the nationwide prison-service provider broke Oregon laws by failing to properly pay him and co-workers when they worked overtime, took rest periods and put in for their final paychecks. An Aramark spokeswoman said Friday that the company does not comment on pending litigation. Those claims surfaced in a state court -- Multnomah County Circuit Court, specifically. And although Oregon doesn't track civil cases by cause, attorneys say wage-and-hour claims are numerous in state venues. Why the flood of cases? It's easy for employers to make a mistake and relatively easy for employees to make them pay for it, said Nancy Cooper, an attorney with Bullivant Houser Bailey in Portland. Wage-and-hour rules are complicated and vary across state lines, making national firms such as Philadelphia-based Aramark vulnerable. Oregon, for instance, requires employers to provide paid 10-minute breaks, Cooper said. Arizona does not.

February 3, 2007 AP
The first time Joseph Neubauer took Aramark Corp. private in 1984, the deal was worth $889 million. When he and other managers led a leveraged buyout of the nation's largest food services company a second time, the price tag zoomed to $6.24 billion. And the biggest winner among shareholders at Aramark, which Friday completed its first week as a newly private company? Neubauer and his family, whose holdings soared in value to almost $1 billion. That puts Neubauer, 65, who came to the United States from Israel alone at the age of 14 and said he learned English from John Wayne movies, near the top of the list of beneficiaries from a wave of leveraged buyouts that has swept corporate America in the past year.

August 14, 2006 In These Times
While New Mexico’s landscape may make the state the Land of Enchantment, its rapidly growing rates of incarceration have been utterly disenchanting. What’s worse, New Mexico is at the top of the nation’s list for privatizing prisons; nearly one-half of the state’s prisons and jails are run by corporations. Supposedly, states turn to private companies to cope better with chronic overcrowding and for low-cost management. However, a closer look suggests a different rationale. A recent report from the Montana-based Institute on Money in State Politics reveals that during the 2002 and 2004 election cycles, private prison companies, directors, executives and lobbyists gave $3.3 million to candidates and state political parties across 44 states. According to Edwin Bender, executive director of the Institute on Money in State Politics, private prison companies strongly favor giving to states with the toughest sentencing laws—in essence, the ones that are more likely to come up with the bodies to fill prison beds. Those states, adds Bender, are also the ones most likely to have passed “three-strikes” laws. Those laws, first passed by Washington state voters in 1993 and then California voters in 1994, quickly swept the nation. They were largely based on “cookie-cutter legislation” pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), some of whose members come from the ranks of private prison companies. Florida leads the pack in terms of private prison dollars, with its candidates and political parties receiving almost 20 percent of their total contributions from private prison companies and their affiliates. Florida already has five privately owned and operated prisons, with a sixth on the way. It’s also privatized the bulk of its juvenile detention system. Texas and New Jersey are close behind. But in Florida, some of the influence peddling finally seems to be backfiring. Florida State Corrections Secretary James McDonough alarmed private prison companies with a comment during an Aug. 2 morning call-in radio show. “I actually think the state is better at running the prisons,” McDonough told an interviewer. His comments followed an internal audit last year by the state’s Department of Management Services, which demonstrated that Florida overpaid private prison operators by $1.3 million. Things may no longer be quite as sunny as they once were in Florida for the likes of Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the former Wackenhut, now known as the GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla. But with a little bit of spiel-tinkering—and a shift of attention to other states—the prison privatizers are likely to keep going. The key shift, Bender explains, is that “the prison industry has gone from a we-can-save-you-money pitch to an economic-development model pitch.” In other words, says Bender, “you need [their] prisons for jobs.” If political donations are any measure, economically challenged and poverty-stricken states like New Mexico are a great target. In this campaign cycle, Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson has already received more contributions from a private prison company than any other politician campaigning for state office in the United States. The Institute of Money in State Politics, which traced the donations, reported that GEO has contributed $42,750 to Richardson since 2005—and another $8,000 to his running mate, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish. Another $30,000 went from GEO to the Richardson-headed Democratic Governors Association this past March. Richardson’s PAC, Moving America Forward, was another prominent recipient of GEO donations. Now, its former head, prominent state capitol lobbyist Joe Velasquez, is a registered lobbyist for GEO Care Inc., a healthcare subsidiary that runs a hospital in New Mexico. But don’t get the idea that GEO has any particular love for Democrats: $95,000 from the corporation went to the Republican Governors Association last year alone. What companies like GEO do love are the millions of dollars rolling in from lucrative New Mexico contracts to run the Lea County Correctional Facility (operating budget: $25 million/year), and the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility ($13 million/year), among others. CCA also owns and operates the state’s only women’s facility in Grants ($11 million per year). To make sure that those dollars keep flowing, GEO and CCA have perfected the art of the “very tight revolving door,” says Bender, which involves snapping up former corrections administrators, PAC lobbyists and state officials to serve as consultants to private prison companies. In fact, the current New Mexico Corrections Department Secretary Joe Williams was once on GEO’s payroll as their warden of the Lea County Correctional Facility. Earlier this year, Williams was placed on unpaid administrative leave after accusations surfaced that he spent state travel and phone funds to pursue a very close relationship with Ann Casey. Casey is a registered lobbyist in New Mexico for Wexford Health Sources, which provides health care for prisoners at Grants, and Aramark, which provides most of the state’s inmate meals. In her non-lobbying hours, it turns out that Casey is also an assistant warden at a state prison in Centralia, Ill. It appears that even for a prison industry enchanted by public-private partnership, Williams and Casey may have gone too far.

August 9, 2006 Toledo Blade
Food-service company Aramark Corp. agreed yesterday to a $6.3 billion buyout by a group of investors including Joseph Neubauer, the company's chairman and chief executive officer. The buyers will also assume $2 billion in debt. The deal is the latest in a series of management-led buyouts. Others recently include the $21 billion offer to take hospital chain HCA Inc. private and the $13.4 billion offer for oil and gas pipeline operator Kinder Morgan Inc. Aramark said yesterday that shareholders will get $33.80 in cash for each share, an improvement on the $32-a-share initial bid made by the same group in May. Shares fell 47 cents to $32.58 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Aramark has approximately 240,000 employees in 20 countries. It provides food services, facilities management, and uniform apparel to hospitals, schools, stadiums, and arenas.

May 1, 2006 Bloomberg
Aramark Corp., the food-service company that sells hot dogs and beer at Boston's Fenway Park and Shea Stadium in New York, received a $5.8 billion takeover offer from a group led by its chairman and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The group, which also includes JPMorgan Chase & Co., Thomas H. Lee Partners LP and Warburg Pincus LLC, bid $32 a share, Philadelphia-based Aramark said today in a statement. That's 14 percent more than its April 28 close. Aramark's shares surged as high as $34.95 as investors bet the company, which also runs college and corporate cafeterias, would eventually fetch more from the buyout group or another acquirer. The company's board formed a committee of independent directors to review the proposal, Aramark said. ``There exists for insiders an opportunity to sell the company to a rival bidder or compete in a bidding war for the company,'' JPMorgan Chase analyst Michael Fox wrote in a report. Fox has a ``neutral'' rating on Aramark. Private-equity firms have announced more than $120 billion of takeovers this year, up from $83 billion in the same period of 2005, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Pressure to meet quarterly earnings targets and abide by new accounting and governance laws have pushed some companies to go private. Leveraged buyout specialists usually borrow about two- thirds of the purchase price to finance acquisitions. Their goal is to improve the operating performance of the companies they purchase, often by cutting costs, and then sell the companies in two to three years to make a profit.

Brown County Jail, Brown County, Wisconsin
June 14, 2007 Green Bay Press Gazette
The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision that Brown County Sheriff Dennis Kocken doesn’t have the constitutional power to privatize food service at the jail could cost the county more than $1 million a year. But Bruce Ehlke, the Madison attorney representing the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, said the court’s decision preserves the state legislature’s authority over county offices such as sheriff, district attorney and coroner. “A decision in favor of the sheriff would have substantially impaired the state legislature from having anything to say about county government,” Ehlke said Thursday. “It’s one thing to blow off a few disgruntled employees, but there were very significant constitutional issues here.” The court voted 4-3 that the union could challenge Kocken’s decision to lay off its workers and enter an agreement with Illinois-based Aramark Correctional Services to provide the jail’s food service. Kocken said the privatized service saves the county about $1.1 million a year and allows him to put more officers on the road and at the jail. Kocken was not available for comment Thursday. A spokesman in Kocken’s office said questions should be forwarded to attorney Tom Godar in Madison, who represents Kocken in the case. Godar did not return calls to his office Thursday. Dean Meyer, executive director of the Badger State Sheriff’s Association, which backed Kocken with a friend-of-the-court brief, called the ruling disappointing.

Campbell University, Harnett County, North Carolina
January 17, 2008 Dunn Daily Record
The Harnett County Sheriff's Office has busted a burglary ring which struck Campbell University student housing during the Christmas holidays. Two suspects have been arrested and Harnett County Sheriff Larry Rollins said he plans to arrest three more but offered no details. In custody are Terrance Jerel Moore, 21, and 22-year-old Leslie Herman Gaitor, both of Main Street in Buies Creek. Both men have been charged with 12 felony counts each of breaking and entering, larceny and possession of stolen goods. Mr. Moore was employed as a cook at the Chick-fil-A on the Campbell University campus, which is run by the Aramark food management company. An Aramark official declined comment. Sheriff Rollins said all of the suspects in the case except Mr. Moore are former Campbell students. Most of the burglaries took place in Bob Barker Hall, he said. Stolen items included laptop computers, PlayStation games and textbooks.

Cascade County Regional Jail, Cascade County, Montana
October 27, 2005 Great Falls Tribune
The kitchen supervisor at the Cascade County regional jail was arrested at the correctional facility Tuesday for allegedly smuggling illegal drugs, tobacco and smoking paraphernalia to inmates in exchange for a small fee. Kelly Jerad McCann, 21, appeared in District Court Tuesday on charges of transferring of illegal articles to inmates, a felony. McCann is an employee of ARAMARK Corp., a national company the jail contracts with to supply meals at the facility. Detention officers became suspicious when two inmates chosen at random tested positive for marijuana.

Cook County Jail, Cook, Illinois
April 4, 2007 Sun Times
"I'm not going to be a minority front for anybody," declared Chicago businessman Harold Davis. Who asked you to? "Mike Maltese," answered Davis. Davis, the solitary figure you see in the picture, standing alone in a big empty South Side warehouse, called after I'd written about the FBI paying a visit last month to fired Cook County employee Paula Perkins. Perkins' job was to make sure firms like Davis' that applied for lucrative county contracts were run by actual minorities and were not just fronts for thick-necked white guys, a time-honored tradition in these parts. Perkins' axing, some believe, was the result of her doing her job too well. "I know her," Davis told me. "Ms. Perkins' job was to prove that I was not phony." And that she did. After a 14-month evaluation and inspection of his operation, Perkins certified Davis' company, American Enterprise Food Service, as a bona fide African-American business. She reaffirmed that Monday, saying, "When I saw it, it was full of merchandise . . . people were in there working." Perkins' certification paved the way for Davis to win an 18 percent share of $62 million in contracts to supply commissary products (chips, underwear, paper products) to inmates at Cook County Jail. The main contractor, Aramark Correctional Services Inc., is part of a multinational, multibillion-dollar corporation that services 475 prisons across North America, including Cook County jail. It's a Fortune 500 company with a reputation for racial diversity. Davis begs to differ. He claims that Aramark's account executives based in Oakbrook Terrace didn't want a minority partner at all. "They wanted a minority front," he told me as we walked through his empty warehouse on Monday. Exactly who told you that? "Mike Maltese did," he said, referring to Aramark's district manager who has since been transferred to its Kentucky division. Any relation to imprisoned Cicero Town President Betty Loren-Maltese? Not that there's anything wrong with that. Davis said Maltese conceded he was her nephew, but didn't want to talk about it. Maltese did not return my phone calls. Company spokeswoman Sarah Jarvis Tuesday told me, "Aramark does not discuss personnel or contract matters, but we conduct our business with utmost integrity and according to the highest ethical standards." Davis wants to argue that point. He says his contract began in February of 2006 and that from the beginning, the Aramark guys did all the purchasing, hiring and running of the warehouse. Davis said he expected, after a brief training period, that he would take over all of those responsibilities. "I started asking questions," he said. "When was I going to take over the warehouse?" Never, was the the answer he says he got. Maltese, claims Davis, offered him $17,000 a month in "free money" to be a "pass through . . . a dummy company," Maltese allegedly preferring to have one of his own guys do the actual running of his operation. Davis said he told Maltese no. And that, he says, is when, in the summer of 2006, Aramark pulled its merchandise out of his warehouse and stopped paying the rent. The county, however, is still paying Aramark on that contract, though Davis gets none of it. Aramark's spokeswoman said the company couldn't release specifics but terminated the deal "for legitimate business reasons." All of this makes me want to talk to Betty Hancock Perry. Hancock Perry is the head of Contract Compliance, one of the many county departments the feds are currently crawling all over. It was Hancock Perry who fired Paula Perkins earlier this year. And Hancock Perry to whom Davis reported his problems with Aramark, according to letters and memos I've seen. My request Tuesday to interview her was turned down by County Board President Todd Stroger, who issued a statement saying he referred my inquiries to his inspector general but would not "compel any employee to speak publicly about this ongoing investigation." We await the results. I wonder, though, if the FBI's next visit won't be to an empty warehouse on the Far South Side.

October 22, 2004 Sun Times
Aramark, accused of using politics to secure the food service contract at the Cook County Jail, will likely hang onto the contract because it is the low bidder. Bids were opened Thursday and they showed Aramark will charge about 75 cents per meal, compared with 99 cents from Amerimeals and Compass -- which accused Aramark of playing politics last month.

September 14, 2004 Sun Times
A lucrative Cook County contract is being extended three months, as county officials debate how much political patronage has influenced the contract process. Aramark will continue to provide food at the county jail, at a rate of $856,000 a month, while county officials seek bids for a new contract. Aramark signed a $39 million contract in 2000, but with increases, the contract is now worth more than $43 million. Last month, as the contract came up for bid, an Aramark competitor -- Compass, a division of Canteen -- claimed the bid process was rife with troubles, including the influence of politics, and backed out of the bid process, leaving Aramark as the only qualified bidder for another contract. Aramark hired John Robinson and contracted with John Maul, both former aides to Sheriff Michael Sheahan, and Compass claims they influenced the bid process. Compass also said it was denied records and access to information needed to submit a bid. Campaign finance records show Aramark and its many divisions since 2000 have contributed $11,240 to county officials, including commissioners and Sheah

With allegations lingering that the fix was in, Cook County officials were set to open bids Thursday on a $50 million food service contract at the county jail.  But when only one company -- Aramark -- submitted a proper bid, county officials said they weren't even opening it, instead opting to re-bid the contract in hopes of attracting more companies.  Fat chance, at least one of Aramark's competitors said, as Compass Group -- a division of Canteen -- alleges that Aramark has hired enough cronies of Sheriff Michael Sheahan that it is sure to lock up the contract. Both Sheahan and Aramark deny these allegations and Sheahan encouraged Compass to sit down and discuss its concerns with the county.  Aramark holds the contract now, but is accused by Compass of creating unsanitary food conditions at the jail, attracting rodents and airborne disease by leaving food out for several hours before serving inmates. Compass also alleged, in a letter sent last week to county officials, that as it tried to get records to prepare a bid, it was rebuffed time and again.  (Sun Times, August 27, 2004)

A Cook County Board commissioner called on his fellow commissioners Monday to block a $50 million contract for jail food until allegations of bias are resolved.  Chicago Democrat Forrest Claypool made the demand Monday after Crain's Chicago Business reported that a competitor for the contract accused the sheriff's office of not giving it information necessary to bid.  The contractor, Canteen Correctional Services, is competing against Aramark Correctional Services, which employs two former top aides to Sheriff Michael Sheahan and may end up being the only bidder for the job. 
(Daily Herald, August 24, 2004)

A firm that had hoped to oust a politically connected competitor on a huge Cook County contract instead is pulling out of the bidding — complaining of "flawed and biased" county procurement procedures.  In a blunt letter to Sheriff Michael Sheahan and other county officials Friday, Canteen Correctional Services says it will be unable to bid for an estimated $50-million pact to feed inmates at the Cook County Jail because officials haven't given it the data it needs to compete, despite repeated requests.  That means incumbent contract-holder Aramark Correctional Services may face no opposition for a new four-year pact on Thursday, when Mr. Sheahan, who operates the jail, and other officials are due to open bids.  Aramark employs Mr. Sheahan's former top aide, John Robinson, as a lobbyist and vice-president. Mr. Robinson resigned as undersheriff in December 2000, days after revelations that he used sheriff's office stationary to promote a British Virgin Islands-based company that ran an alleged investment scam. He faces the potential suspension or loss of his license as a lawyer over that matter, with a state disciplinary hearing set for Oct. 5.  Aramark also this month retained as a consultant another top ex-aide to Mr. Sheahan, John Maul. He was acting executive director of the jail until last summer.  Aramark, a division of Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp., and Canteen are giants in the food-service industry. They've clashed repeatedly around the country, including in Chicago, where U.K.-based Compass' Levy Restaurants unit has held off Aramark for the food contract at McCormick Place.  Still, Compass' Cook County letter is notable for its language and specificity.  The letter also asserts that Aramark's operating procedures are "questionable to any industry standard." For instance, "hot" meals for inmates sit on racks as long as three hours before they're delivered to be eaten, the letter alleges. "Improper storage of food was observed continually" during a site tour and "pest control issues exist," it says.  Aramark, a division of Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp., and Canteen are giants in the food-service industry. They've clashed repeatedly around the country, including in Chicago, where U.K.-based Compass' Levy Restaurants unit has held off Aramark for the food contract at McCormick Place.  Still, Compass' Cook County letter is notable for its language and specificity.  Under its current contract, Aramark provides meals at slightly more than 77 cents a serving, according to Mr. Stroger's spokeswoman. That's well under the average of $1.01 the Illinois Department of Corrections spends just to purchase food. The Compass letter implies that Aramark may have cut costs through lowered standards and deferred maintenance.  (Chicago Business, August 22, 2004)

Correctional Treatment Facility, Lucas County, Ohio
March 18, 2005 Toledo Blade
Three Lucas County work-release inmates were taken to St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center Wednesday after they ate food that contained what appeared to be metal shavings. Two of the inmates were released from the hospital and returned to the facility, 1111 Madison Ave. One was kept for unrelated reasons, said Jean Atkin, county Common Pleas Court administrator. She said work-release and the Correctional Treatment Facility, 1100 Jefferson Ave., receive food from the county jail, which contracts with Aramark for food service. Treatment facility officials yesterday reported a similar problem, but they thought the pieces were aluminum foil, Ms. Atkin said. She said no one at the treatment facility ate the food, which was thrown away. Rick Keller, corrections administrator, said he did not hear of any food complaints in the jail. Ms. Atkin said a complaint was lodged with the food provider. She said the contract with Aramark is up for renewal soon and that there have been some concerns about the food service. Aramark officials could not be reached for comment.

Cosjocton County Justice Center, Coshocton, Ohio
The new contract for the kitchen crew and the food they serve at the Coshocton County Justice Center comes with good news and bad news.  The two cooks at the jail, Janet Swaney and Vickie McKee, will keep their current salaries. However, the cooks will lose insurance and retirement benefits through the county, and pay twice as much for health insurance with the contracted company.  Details of the contract with Aramark were worked out with administrators at the sheriff's office and the Coshocton County Commissioners.   "We'll be making our current wages, (but) we'll be losing out on several things," she said. "If you don't have a county job, you don't have the retirement. What we've put (into our retirement), we'll get, but it won't continue."  (Coshocton Tribune, July 23, 2004)

Dallas County Jail, Dallas, Texas
October 11, 2006  The Dallas Morning News
Dallas County commissioners voted Tuesday for the first time to award a jail commissary contract, ending a tradition in which the sheriff decided who gets the lucrative deal to sell snacks and other items to more than 7,000 inmates. The roughly $34 million, five-year contract awarded to Keefe Commissary Network is expected to generate more money for the county than the existing contract. County officials who didn't like how the former sheriff handled the awarding of the existing commissary contract moved to get state law changed last year to allow commissioners to decide the commissary vendor. The new law allows the sheriff to designate commissioners to decide the contract. Sheriff Lupe Valdez didn't want to be involved because of past problems, her spokesman has said. Keefe, a St. Louis company, estimated that annual revenue to the county based on sales of snacks, pens, toiletries, playing cards and other items would be about $2.6 million, which is almost four times what the current contractor provides. That contractor, Mid-America Services, was given the contract in 2002 by then-Sheriff Jim Bowles, who was a longtime friend of the owner, Jack Madera. At the time, commissioners complained that other companies offered better financial terms. Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield cast the sole vote against the contract award, saying Aramark offered a better value to the county. He said Aramark offered a slightly higher commission rate as well as $1 million in upfront money, to be paid out each year of the contract. But Commissioner John Wiley Price said Keefe guaranteed the county at least $2 million each year. "The numbers speak for themselves," he said. Mr. Mayfield also said Keefe did not disclose to the county its involvement in a federal corruption investigation in Florida involving a prison contract until after the Justice Department issued a news release about it in July. The county's request for proposals required such a disclosure. The former head of the Florida corrections department and a prison official were charged in July with accepting more than $130,000 in kickbacks from a Keefe subcontractor over two years in connection with a 2003 prison-store contract. "There's a lot of smoke there," Mr. Mayfield said. "I find it incredulous that Keefe did not know they were under investigation in 2004 and 2005." No knowledge: Keefe's chief executive wrote in a July 31 letter to purchasing supervisor Linda Boles that the company had no knowledge of illegal activity related to the case. In a Sept. 11 letter, U.S. Attorney Paul Perez in Florida wrote that Keefe and its employees are considered witnesses in the investigation but that could change. "Nothing in this letter ... shall preclude the United States from later determining that Keefe or any of its employees are subjects or targets of this investigation," he wrote. It isn't the only controversy in which the company has been involved. In 2004, Keefe was found to have charged sales tax on some items that aren't taxable in Texas in connection with a Collin County jail commissary contract. As a result, almost 600 inmates were overcharged more than $5,000, records showed. Because of the error, the Collin County sheriff awarded the contract to a different firm.

Dauphin County Prison, Dauphin, Pennsylvania
September 20, 2005 Patriot News
While Dauphin County Prison's food service vendor has agreed to reimburse the county $65,000, there was no criminal intent behind the overbilling, authorities say. The agreement reached between Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp. and the county district attorney ends a several-month grand jury investigation started last year into allegations of watered-down food and overcharging. Aramark did provide adequate food as called for in its contract with the Swatara Twp. prison, but the investigation showed the county was billed for meals that were not made, said District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr. The $65,000 is for overbilling that occurred in 2002 and 2003, Marsico said. The investigation was spurred by repeated inmate complaints. While there were menu changes under the current contract, Marsico said the investigation found Aramark was providing the required meal content. Aramark officials refused to discuss what went wrong on their end or what steps they've taken to make sure the problem does not reoccur

September 20, 2005 AP
Dauphin County Prison's food service vendor agreed to reimburse the county $65,000 for overbilling during 2002 and 2003, authorities said. Officials said there was no criminal intent behind the overbilling, and Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp. did provide adequate food as called for in its contract with the prison. "I'm very pleased with the amount of money we received," District Attorney Edward M. Marsico said. "I believe it more than covers any loss the county may have had." Masrisco said much of the overbilling occurred because the company had charged a flat amount for meals instead of tracking the actual ups and downs of the jail population, and he said both prison officials and the company would keeping a more careful eye on how many meals actually are provided. Aramark officials declined to discuss what went wrong what steps they were taking to prevent a recurrence. "We fully cooperated with the inquiry and consider the situation to be resolved," company spokeswoman Sarah Jarvis said.

March 19, 2004
A 16-year old Harrisburg boy escaped from a Dauphin County juvenile detetnion center, using a stock to disable a locked door and a walkie-talkie to create confusion.  The teenager, who then outran two guards, remains at large following the escape at about 1 a.m. Tuesday from the Schaffner Youth Center in Steelton.  No one was injured, according to county spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher.  The teen, who was admitted Saturday on unspecified misdemeanor charges, is not considered dangerous. His name and the nature of the charge was not released because of his age.  Two guards have been suspended without pay pending a review of the facility, which is managed by Cornell Abraxas and holds about 65 youths, Kocher said.  "We did have several unfortunate breakdowns in security," she said.  (AP)

Officials are looking into whether a food service company is cutting back on the amount of food served to prisoners. Reporter Chris Schaffer has the exclusive story. When inmates come to the Dauphin County Prison food service giant Aramark provides the food they eat. A few months ago county officials began looking into the company's books, as part of a contract renewal process. They saw documents including years of menus, instructions, and budgets. Dauphin County Commissioner Jeff Haste: "The numbers didn't quite match up - it appeared in our minds that we had been over-billed" (WHPTV February 1, 2004)

DeWitt County Jail, Cuero, Texas
May 9, 2006 The Victoria Advocate
Bookkeeping problems in the DeWitt County Jail commissary should be a thing of the past now that the supplier and office policy have changed, Sheriff Jode Zavesky told county commissioners Monday. Zavesky said he had signed a contract earlier this month with Keefe Supply Company to supply and administer the jail's commissary. "Our last supplier (Aramark) kind of left us dangling," the sheriff said. "They said we were too small an operation and they weren't coming back." Commissioner Curtis Afflerbach asked if the problems with the system that the county auditor reported at the last court's meeting would be resolved with the new company. "We hope to reconcile that the best we can prior to this new contract," Zavesky said. "We've also implemented some changes with our staff that we hope will keep us from getting into the same problems."

Dona Ana County Detention Center, Dona Ana, TX
A Sun-News investigation into allegations of impropriety within Doña Ana County government makes it clear that at least some of the accusations are true.  The allegations, including mismanagement of contracts, failure to follow county ordinances and problems related to the county’s 1999 water system bonds and the proposed county complex to be built on Motel Boulevard, are serious enough to gain the attention of State Auditor Domingo Martinez. The state auditor’s letter contains allegations that the county continued to pay for maintenance services at the Doña Ana County Detention Center after the contract expired in June 2003, and that the county manager signed a contract for $340,000 for maintenance services at the jail though he isn’t authorized to sign contracts over $10,000.  The allegations stem from the expiration of the maintenance services contract between the county and Aramark on June 30, 2003. Jail Director Al Solis gave a contract-extension document to Haines, who signed it, though it was for $340,000.  (Lcsun-news.com, April 4, 2004)

Downview Women's Prison, Banstead, UK
March 27, 2007 IC Surrey
REPLACING prison food with over-priced outside catering fare is a recipe for disaster in a women's jail. This is the opinion of prison visitors whose latest report says inmates much preferred 'porridge' the way it is. Aramark, the company which has taken over the canteen at Downview Women's Prison, is typical of the caterers who have taken over the food at many jails. And the report by the Independent Monitoring Board claims the new system is not being welcomed anywhere. The report says: "We were warned in advance by other independent monitoring boards who had experienced a similar change to expect a disastrous transfer - and it has been. "The decision to privatise the canteen may bring cash benefit to the Treasury but the introduction of Aramark to run the prison canteen has so far been a disaster. "For prisoners the canteen is one of the most important facets of their lives but prices have risen sharply,the inventory has shrunk, revisions take ages to implement and the administration is poor. "In contrast the old prison-run canteen at least understood the needs of the prisoners and charged prices that matched their wages. "It worked and this seems to be the same story repeated throughout as prison after prison has lost control of its canteens." In a report which praises "committed and dedicated" staff, the board said all the faults it found with Downview were beyond their control.

Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
January 19, 2006 The Chronicle
Duke Student Government kicked off its first meeting of the spring semester with an eye toward the future Wednesday night. During the meeting, DSG discussed the upcoming confidence-no confidence vote on ARAMARK, Corp.—the Philadelphia-based company that operates a number of eateries on campus. Every year, DSG votes on whether or not it has confidence in the current dining service. The decision is ultimately brought before the Board of Trustees, which has the final say in whether or not to renew the company’s contract. For the past two years ARAMARK, which operates the Great Hall, the Marketplace, Trinity Café, Subway and Chick-Fil-A, has received a “no confidence” vote from Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee and DSG. The vendor has nonetheless remained on campus. Senior Paige Sparkman, vice president of student affairs, said the upcoming vote is “extremely important” because ARAMARK’s five-year contract is up at the end of this year. “There can be a more drastic result of the confidence-no confidence vote this year,” said DSG President Jesse Longoria, a senior.

DuPage County Jail, DuPage County, Illinois
May 29, 2008 Reporter Met
For the fourth time in about a year, the DuPage County Board has extended a temporary contract for food service at the county jail. After Tuesday’s County Board meeting, Chairman Robert Schillerstrom expressed frustration that the process has dragged on for so long. But board member Michael McMahon, R-3rd District, of Hinsdale, who heads the board’s Judicial and Public Safety Committee, said the county should be able to award a long-term contract by the end of June. By the numbers -- $850,000 Annual cost of original contract -- $1.3 million Approximate cost of temporary contracts -- 53 percent increase The board decided in February to open a fourth round of bidding for the food-service contract and extended the temporary contract through May 31. The new extension runs through Aug. 31, but McMahon said the matter should be settled well before then. A’viands, a Minnesota-based company, has been serving food at the jail under a temporary contract since last June. The contract has been under dispute since May 2007, when it was put out for bidding. A’viands was originally awarded the contract, but it was voided after another bidder, Philadelphia-based ARAMARK, objected that A’viands’ bid did not meet nutritional requirements. The original contract with A’viands would have cost the county about $850,000 for a year of food service. The new temporary contract will total about $1.3 million if a long-term deal is not reached before Aug. 31. “Simply put, the County Board can’t make up their mind on (the contract),” Schillerstrom said. “It should have been done a long time ago. There’s no reason for this to have dragged on for so long.” After a second round of bidding, bids by both companies were thrown out because they failed to meet nutritional requirements. For the third round, the county hired a nutritionist to create a menu with which all bidders were required to comply. ARAMARK’s bid of 91.9 cents per meal was slightly lower than A’viands’ bid of 92.5 cents, but county staff members recommended the contract be awarded to A’viands because ARAMARK strayed from the menu, county officials said. To avoid the confusion over nutritional requirements, the county is taking a new approach for the fourth round of bidding, McMahon said. Rather than requiring bidders to conform to a set menu, each company will be allowed to submit up to three menus, he said. A dietitian hired by the county will then review each menu and determine if it meets nutritional standards. The companies will then be allowed to bid on any of the approved menus, including those submitted by their competitors, and the contract will be awarded to the lowest bidder, McMahon said. “I think this is going to prove to be a good approach,” he said. “It should all be over within the next month.”

May 8, 2008 Naperville Sun
Maybe DuPage County Board members got it right the first time they opened competition for a contract to serve food to some 850 County Jail inmates. They approved a fourth round of bidding Tuesday that is almost identical to the original bid more than a year ago. While board members hope this bid will end a long feud between companies Aramark and A'viands over the contract, some say it will lead to even more contention. This time, bidding companies may submit up to three menus to the county, which will then be either approved or rejected by a certified nutritionist. The bidders may then submit prices on any of the approved menus and the lowest bidder will be chosen. The Judicial and Public Safety Committee has conducted and thrown out three bids during the past year. As members tried adding more specific nutrition requirements and then specific menu requirements, Aramark and A'viands either failed to meet standards or raised objections to each other. But committee member Jim Healy of Naperville said allowing bidders to select from a pool of approved menus may just lead to more conflict. "Then you have two parties arguing about fish cakes versus fish patties, orange juice versus orange drink," Healy said. But the county could save money by allowing bidders to select from a pool of approved menus, said DuPage CFO Fred Backfield. "(This) allows a vendor to choose another menu they could make cheaper," Backfield said. As the bidding process drags on, A'viands continues to feed inmates under an extended temporary contract that was first awarded last July. Before that contract, Aramark had serviced the jail for 21 years.

February 24, 2008 Naperville Sun
A company hoping to win another contract at the DuPage County Jail has donated thousands of dollars to elected county officials. Aramark, a Philadelphia-based company that has provided the jail's food service for 21 years, has poured $14,770 into campaign coffers of State's Attorney Joe Birkett, Sheriff John Zaruba, County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom and others since 1999, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections. County Board members Brien Sheahan, Debra Olson and Mike McMahon have received several hundred dollars each. In a bidding process fraught with ambiguity and conflict, Aramark has been fighting for more than a year to continue serving food to jail inmates. When the bid was redone for the third time in December, the company submitted a $949,616 bid that was $6,000 lower than that of its competitor, Minnesota-based A'viands. But after the state's attorney's office said Aramark submitted a menu that didn't meet requirements, officials recommended the bid be awarded to A'viands. Aramark's menu diverged slightly by offering breaded fish patties rather than the specified fish fillets and 12-ounce instead of 8-ounce oatmeal servings, Assistant State's Attorney Tom Downing said. Potential savings -- However, County Board members are giving Aramark another shot at the contract, opting for a fourth bid instead of awarding the contract to A'viands. They say the county can save thousands of dollars by changing bidding requirements. Instead of stipulating a specific menu, board members want to mandate only certain nutritional requirements, as was done during the second round of bidding. Allowing bidders to submit their own menu resulted in a bid from Aramark that was $120,000 less than when it followed a menu mandated by the county. That cost difference is enough to justify yet another bid, said Sheahan, calling the whole process "ridiculous." "We're basically having a $120,000 argument over whether milk and oatmeal will fit on a tray, and I think we owe it to taxpayers to make sure we are getting the best value for their money," he said. "We're not interested in spending extra every year so people at the County Jail can eat fish fillets instead of fish sticks." Nothing to hide -- Sheahan said a $500 contribution from Aramark to his primary campaign had nothing to do with his support for a fourth bid. "I really don't care whether Aramark gets it or not," he said. "I want the lowest bid to get it. I think the interest of the committee is just to get the best value for taxpayers." Saying she believes Aramark has submitted responsible bids, Olson, of Wheaton, said she supports a fourth bid to potentially save the $120,000. "This is about saving taxpayers money," said Olson, who noted that she has supported extending the temporary contracts to A'viands. "Any implications that my motivations are other than in the best interests of taxpayers is insulting." Birkett, who has received $3,600 from Aramark, said the campaign contributions played no role in the opinion rendered by his office, which ruled Aramark's bid noncompliant. "If I'm asked for opinion or legal guidance, I give it, free from any political support I've received," Birkett said. The recipient of $4,500 from Aramark, Schillerstrom sided with the state's attorney, saying Aramark failed to meet the menu requirements. "I believe A'viands is the lowest responsible bidder," he said. "I think it's clear that Aramark did not comply with the bid." Zaruba did not return a phone call seeking comment. Nutrition requirements -- Disputes about nutrition requirements have plagued the bidding process, which began last March. After the county declared A'viands the winner of the first bid, Aramark filed a lawsuit claiming its submitted menus were deficient. Schillerstrom upheld the protest, finding that both companies failed to meet requirements and declared a second round of bidding. For the second bid, the county outlined more specific nutrition standards. But both companies fell short, saying it was impossible to meet sodium requirements. In the third bid, the county hired a nutritionist to create a specific menu. While A'viands said the menu gave clear and specific requirements, Aramark disagreed. "It was crystal clear to us that we were to submit a menu that exactly met those requirements, and that's what we did," said Perry Rynders, CEO of A'viands. Rynders expressed "significant disappointment" at the county's decision to hold another bid, saying no one had disputed that A'viands did meet requirements. Temporary contract -- To keep prison inmates fed, the county has issued a string of temporary contracts to A'viands since July. But it's difficult to attract and hire good workers at the jail while the contract remains in limbo, Rynders said. "It's very difficult for us to find staff to work on a temporary basis," he said. "Each time this comes up, they're wondering if their job is on the line. I don't think the County Board understands how difficult this is on us." Aramark spokesman Tim Elliot said the county should return to a nutrition-based bid instead of one based on a menu. That is standard procedure for most of the 700 correctional facilities the company services worldwide, he said. Aramark is a private company that is the 19th-largest employer on the Fortune 500, employing 240,000 workers in 19 countries. Hospitals, eldercare centers, schools, corporations and sports stadiums are among the company's clients. Board member Jim Healy of Naperville agreed with Aramark that the county's "ambiguous" menu should be thrown out in favor of nutritional requirements. "We don't care what you serve as long as you meet the nutritional standards," he said. The county should have stuck with very basic nutritional requirements as it had done until last year, said board member Jim Zay. "This is insane ... the more people we get involved, the worse it gets," Zay said. "This has been costing us hundreds of thousands more because we've been screwing around with it."

Durham County, Durham, North Carolina
September 13, 2005 The Herald-Sun
A report from the county finance office shows that more than half the contractors required to comply with Durham's "living wage" policy have failed to submit payroll records that would show whether they're doing so. The report, forwarded recently to County Manager Mike Ruffin, also alleges that three contractors violated the policy by paying workers less than the required minimum salary, which now stands at $10 an hour. The others on the list are: -- The Aramark Corp., which had two contracts worth $33,429 from the county General Services Department and the Sheriff's Office. -- Carter Goble Associates Inc., which had a $17,000 contract to provide staff to the county jail.

East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina
March 10, 2005 The East Carolinian
An ARAMARK cashier working on campus was arrested when found with two financial cards belonging to members of the ECU community. Police said Lawanda Patrice Draughn, 22, worked at Java City in Wright Place when she allegedly kept credit cards from two of her customers. "The two individuals went to Java City and purchased coffee ... and then they walked away without their cards," said Major Frank Knight with the ECU Police Department. Once the victims realized they did not have their cards, they called the credit card company. The company representatives told them purchases had been made since the cards were lost. More than $200 was spent on one card and more than $1,000 on the other. ECU Police went to the stores where the cards were used, spoke with cashiers and viewed store videotapes. "It was good leg work by the police officers," Knight said.

El Paso County, Colorado
August 11, 2005 Colorado Springs Independent
Deputies at the El Paso County jail are in a food fight of sorts and giving inmates the bird. A Sheriff's Office press release of Aug. 3, defending the jail's meals in the wake of a brief hunger strike by inmates, is the latest development in what has become a jail food saga. The release says that on July 30 inmates were served turkey for a fifth consecutive meal, despite protests, and it promises more turkey is to come. The episode comes as the Sheriff's Office faces numerous internal complaints and at least 10 lawsuits filed by disgruntled inmates over jail food. One suit, filed by former inmate Mark Compton, describes the jail fare as substandard. He alleges that each meal was cut back by 25 percent as of March, and that some inmates have reacted by eating scraps from the trash, begging or intimidating fellow inmates for food. Yet complaint forms attached to Compton's lawsuit raise doubts about food quality. Inmate Darius Pinkney wrote that some peaches served in June were "four different colors (i.e. black, green, red and orange). "Some were mushy, some were rock hard," he wrote. "They were in my opinion not fit for human consumption." Other inmates complained about the peaches, too, but were instructed by a deputy not to consume them. "In your handbook, it states to eat around anything not to your liking," the deputy wrote in the official complaint form. Michael Holmes, another inmate, accuses Sheriff Terry Maketa of standing idly by as the jail's food contractor, Aramark Correctional Services, shirks its responsibilities by serving "unhealthy disease causing garbage." Former inmate Mark Compton claims portion sizes at the El Paso County jail were cut by 25 percent per meal.

July 18, 2005 The Gazette
Spoiled milk, rotten fruit and watered-down soup that tastes like dishwater.  Those are some of the items on recent menus at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center, according to inmates who are suing the jail, Sheriff Terry Maketa and the jail’s food-service contractor, Aramark Corp.  Nineteen inmates have filed separate lawsuits since June, claiming the sheriff and jail are violating a state law that requires jails to provide “good and sufficient” food to prisoners.  Since mid-March, food portions and quality have decreased to 25 percent of what they were, according to the inmates’ suits filed in 4th Judicial District Court. Inmates claim they’ve been ignored or harassed when they complained to jail officials about the food.  Some of the suits say Aramark, Maketa and the jail are “endangering the health and safety of approximately 1,300 seemingly innocent prisoners at this facility three times daily, seven days a week.”  Inmates are being forced to eat scraps out of trash cans or beg for other inmates’ food, the suits say. Stronger inmates have resorted to taking food from weaker ones, according to the suits.

Fairfax County Adult Detention Facility, Fairfax, Virginia
July 25, 2007 The Examiner
Fairfax County Sheriff Stan Barry accepted $1,000 in food for a campaign event from a company the county pays to feed its inmates – a contribution one state senator blasted as an attempt to “buy friendship” from the sheriff. Barry, a Democrat who is unopposed in the November election, denied any impropriety in accepting the donation from Aramark Corp. at a Fairfax City fundraiser on June 7. State Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, however, on Tuesday called the contribution a “cause for cynicism.” “They’re giving him money because their gravy train depends on his position to continue their food contract,” said Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax. “They’re just trying to buy friendship.” The Philadelphia-based company provides food, uniforms and other services to scores of institutions throughout the country, and won a two-year contract in July 2006 to feed inmates and staff of the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. The Sheriff’s Office operates the facility. Exactly how much the county has paid to Aramark since the company started providing meals Sept. 1 was not available Tuesday. Based on estimates in the county’s budget, the company served 1.47 million meals in fiscal 2007, an average of 4,050 a day costing about $1 each. Aramark was the only company to bid on the jail food-service contract, according to Cathy Muse, director of the Department of Purchasing and Supply Management, which oversees the county’s contracting. The Sheriff’s Office reviewed the bid and recommended the county approve it, after which Muse signed off on the contract. Barry said he had no input in that process. “If I was overseeing the contract or [was] instrumental in who got the contract, then I can see where there would be conflict,” he said. “But I’m not involved in those negotiations at all.” He said the fundraiser took place before it was clear no opponents would emerge in the election. The food, he said, included Swedish meatballs, lunch meat and chicken wings. An Aramark spokeswoman said she was unable to find details of the donation by early Tuesday evening and otherwise declined comment.

Fayette County Detention Center, Lexington, Kentucky
October 5, 2007 Lexington Herald-Leader
An Aramark employee who works at the Fayette County Detention Center is suspected of illegally bringing drugs and cigarettes into the jail. Melda Janae Coffman, 32, was charged yesterday with promoting contraband in the first and second degree, said Capt. Darin Kelly, jail spokesman. The first-degree charge was for illegally bringing in drugs. It is a Class D felony offense that can carry a sentence of at least one year in jail. The second-degree charge for illegally bringing in cigarettes is a class A misdemeanor with a minimum sentence of 90 days in jail. After her arrest, Coffman was fired, said Sarah Jarvis, Aramark spokeswoman. Coffman, who oversaw food preparation at the jail's kitchen, began working there on July 19. Kelly said additional charges could be coming.

Florida Department of Corrections
May 12, 2008 Palm Beach Post
One of the two companies that feed state prisoners has racked up nearly $250,000 in fines since the beginning of the year for violations including not having enough food and staffing shortages. That brings the total fines for Aramark to more than $864,000 since 2001 when the state hired private companies to take over feeding the more than 92,000 inmates in Florida prisons. More than $300,000 of Aramark fines have been rescinded by the Department of Corrections. Corrections officials are questioning Aramark's ability to provide quality food in sufficient quantities. The officials also say they are concerned about the company's staffing levels. "We have certain standards regarding foods for inmates that we're not prepared to see relaxed. We want to make sure they jibe with our standards," Corrections Chief of Staff Richard Prudom said of Aramark, which is negotiating a new contract with the state. One recent concern was an outbreak last month at the Santa Rosa Correctional Institution where almost 300 inmates became ill. The cause of the illness remains under investigation and no one is blaming Aramark, but corrections officials have not ruled out that the food caused the illness. Aramark spokeswoman Sarah Jarvis said the food was not the cause. "There are a lot of different reasons why inmates, especially in close quarters, can get ill," Jarvis said. "It can be close quarters. It can be sewer systems." Corrections officials took the trays and tested them and stool samples of inmates for food poisoning, Jarvis said, and the results were negative. Corrections officials said Monday they have not received the results and the investigation is ongoing. Aramark has been fined for running out of food, not having enough staff and diverging from the meals agreed to in its contract with the state, according to DOC records. The department let Aramark off the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines under former Corrections Secretary Jimmy Crosby, now in prison for taking kickbacks from contractors.

March 29, 2008 Palm Beach Post
Mushy bland broccoli stems accompanied by a greasy mystery meat endowed with undercooked rice is as good as it gets for inmates behind bars. But, according to the vendor who provides the food and some lawmakers, that's still too good. They want to cut as much as $11 million from prison food contracts as part of an effort to pare about $3 billion from next year's state budget. Prison officials fear that cutting the food budget will lower the quality of meals that are already bland and cause unrest among inmates. Anger about meals is the No. 1 reason for inmate uprisings, according to corrections officials, and menu changes imperil safety for prison guards, inmates and the public in general. "We think any reduction to (the current menu) that is not a change for health reasons poses a risk to public safety," said Department of Corrections Chief of Staff Richard Prudhom. "It may sound overly dramatic, but we strongly believe that." The state pays nearly $79 million per year to two food service vendors - Philadelphia-based Aramark and Oldsmar-based Trinity Services Group Inc. - for the bulk of the food that is purchased for Florida's more than 92,000 inmates. The state now pays $2.67 for three meals a day for each inmate. Lawmakers in the House want to reduce that cost to $2.30 a day. Aramark representatives have convinced some lawmakers that the state can save millions by reducing calories fed to inmates. The company wants to go back to a menu it once served that prison officials say was unacceptable. While the current menu is better then the old one, some inmates still complain about the food. "I don't eat it. I just come here to give it away," Calvin Mayes, an inmate at Jefferson Correctional Institution in Monticello, said after a lunch of Spanish rice and broccoli. Instead, he spends about $150 a month at the prison canteen to buy food. "The quality of the food is substandard," said a relative of an inmate at Marion Correctional Institution in Lowell, who asked not to be named because she feared retaliation against the prisoner. "The preparation is haphazard. They're supposed to wear hairnets and gloves. You find hair in your food and you find a Band-Aid in your food. Things are so overcooked it's mush, or it's not cooked at all." Sen. Tony Hill recently asked the legislature's Joint Auditing Committee to conduct an investigation into the Aramark contract, and Aramark spokeswoman Sarah Jarvis confirmed that the state auditor general is also looking into it. "When you've got people boycotting the food altogether, that's a problem," said Hill, D-Jacksonville. Some inmates, like Donald Jones, say the food is the best it has ever been. But food quality is less important to some lawmakers than saving money for taxpayers. The Senate has proposed slicing $6 million from the current prison food budget, while the House wants to cut $11 million. "We're talking about substantial savings," Jarvis said. "They way the savings come about is by making better use of the ingredients served. For instance, replace French toast with pancakes." Jarvis said that Aramark's spending for food has tripled since the initial contract was established in 2001. Aramark wants to do more than change the menu. The company also is proposing cutting back on the number of workers it provides prisons, shifting the responsibility to corrections officials. Guards would have to fill in, posing a problem for an already understaffed corrections system that could lose 1,800 guards under the Senate proposal, according to corrections officials. Since signing a contract with the state seven years ago, Aramark has received mixed reviews. There have been questions about food quality, quantity and potential health violations. At times, the company has been fined by the state for failure to meet the specifications of its contract. Critics suggest the proposed new contract is really an attempt by Aramark to make more money by paying less for food. The company is paid not by the number of meals consumed but by the number of inmates. If fewer inmates eat the food, Aramark can save money by providing less food. In February, Aramark-served institutions had an 85 percent participation rate of inmates eating the company's meals. Trinity, which serves food to about one quarter of the state's inmates, had a 97 percent participation rate. A state audit of the Aramark contract last year found that the participation rates equated to a "windfall for the vendor" and that Aramark substituted low-cost foods, such as turkey instead of beef, without passing the savings on to the state. Aramark representatives and corrections officials both say those problems have been resolved. Trinity this month canceled its contract with the state, giving it until August to renegotiate because, the company claims, it is losing money on the deal. Corrections officials said they will meet with Trinity and Aramark next week to discuss their contracts.

February 16, 2008 Miami Herald
Sweat dripping from his brow, union representative Bruce Raynor promised a crowd nearing 100, including two state lawmakers, that he wouldn't rest until food service provider Aramark is stripped of its contract with the Florida Department of Corrections. At the sidewalk rally outside downtown Miami government buildings Friday, Raynor, the president of the Unite Here union that represents more than 20,000 Aramark employees nationwide, accused the company of collecting millions of dollars of taxpayer money by charging for meals that were never served and using substandard ingredients in food preparation. ''We are sick and tired of hard workers and taxpayers having their pockets picked by greedy corporations,'' Raynor said. ``We want to call on the attention of state officials.'' The allegations are based on a January 2007 Department of Corrections internal audit that states Aramark's practice of charging the state per inmate and not per meal served resulted in ''a windfall for the vendor,'' which reduced Aramarks costs by $4.9 million per year. However, Department of Corrections and Aramark officials claim the unions are using the audit to push a labor-related agenda, and that the issues in the report have been resolved. 'As far as Aramark getting a windfall profit, we don't believe that's the case,'' said DOC spokesperson Gretl Plessinger. ``The contract is now a really good deal.'' According to the audit, the company was being paid for more than 6,000 meals per day that it didn't serve. Still, Plessinger said the DOC renewed its contract with Aramark last year, with changes partially based on the audit's findings. In a Jan. 30 letter to Tim Campbell, Aramark's president, DOC secretary James McDonough wrote: ``It is our department's position that Aramark has acted faithfully to abide by both its former and its current contract with the department.'' While union representatives claim Aramark used cheaper meat products to cut corners, McDonough said in the letter all food changes were approved by a DOC committee, and inmate meals in Florida meet ``minimum health standards.'' Kristine Grow, an Aramark spokesperson, said the unions' accusations are based on ulterior motives: ``This is more about allegations to get us to agree to their demands than it is about our clients or taxpayers.'' At the rally, State Sen. Tony Hill and State Rep. Luis Garcia said they would explore starting a state probe into DOC's contract with Aramark.

Florida officials are gambling with prison safety by continuing to employ Aramark Corp. as the principal food service provider for the state's correctional facilities. Since the company took over prison kitchens last year, it has continually violated regulations designed to promote sanitation and safety within the facilities. Their five-year contract, part of Gov. Jeb Bush's plan to reduce payroll by privatizing many state operations, is expected to cut prison food costs by $8-million in its first year. But quality has been one of the first ingredients sacrificed by Aramark's cost-cutting measures. State officials have yet to push the company to comply with prison regulations or to find a food service provider that will. The Times' Thomas Tobin recently reported that, under Aramark, daily logs kept by corrections officers across the state have described filthy kitchens, frequent meal delays, attempts to serve spoiled, watered down or undercooked food and a chronic inability to follow a state rule requiring all inmates to receive the same meal -- a security measure to prevent petty food jealousies from escalating into fights. Florida has already assessed $110,000 in fines against Aramark. But compared with the profit the company will earn in its first year, that's hardly the crackdown needed to force the company to mend its reckless ways. If the company cannot live up to its promises, the state needs to find a food service provider that can. Florida inmates deserve better service and corrections officers deserve to work in as safe an environment as possible. Gov. Bush and corrections secretary Michael Moore have been warned repeatedly about Aramark's unsafe practices. If a food riot breaks out and someone is killed, state officials will have some explaining to do. (St. Petersburg Times, July 2, 2002)

Hiring Aramark to feed prisoners has saved the state millions, but the company faces fines and fears over guard safety. Take any cross-section of Floridians and poll them about prisons. Few would care that, one day last February, lunch at the Madison Correctional Institution featured a particularly soupy batch of sloppy joes. But corrections Capt. Hugh Poppell took notice right away. He saw the prison's new civilian food service staff dilute the entree even more, adding ketchup and tomato paste to make it stretch among the 700-plus inmates still lined up to be fed. Poppell reported what he saw to warden Joe Thompson, who quickly investigated and found the workers had shorted the recipe by 70 pounds of ground beef and turkey. The warden also noted: "The other ingredients such as onions, celery and green peppers in the entree were not observed." Far from a show of concern over the inmate palate, the officers were heeding an age-old canon of prison administration: A hungry, discontented inmate is often a problem inmate -- and a potential threat. The culprit in the sloppy joe episode and scores of other recent food foibles across Florida was Aramark Corp., the cost-conscious Philadelphia company hired last year to feed inmates in 126 of Florida's 133 corrections facilities. The contract is part of Gov. Jeb Bush's push to reduce payroll by privatizing many state operations. But a rocky first year has prompted the state to assess $110,000 in fines against Aramark. Though the company has saved money for Florida, its stewardship over the state's prison kitchens has created a new set of concerns for frontline corrections officials, including: dirty kitchens that in one county produced maggots, frequent cooking delays that throw off prison schedules, food quality that often falls beneath expectations and a chronic inability to follow a state rule that requires every inmate to receive the same meal. So vigilant is Aramark's cost-cutting that a supervisor ordered workers to scoop food from pans in a way that wouldn't jam too much into the ladle, said Norma Schamens, 33, an Aramark employee for three months in Gulf County before she was fired in May. "There were some decent meals," she said. "But they were few and far between." "Any corrections officer will tell you that when inmates don't get fed right, that's where the riots start," said Al Shopp, a former corrections officer who monitors working conditions in prisons for the Florida Police Benevolent Association. "It's an officer safety issue . . . It's just a situation that I'm afraid will eventually go awry." Before Aramark, Florida corrections officers cooked meals. "It was like a military operation. You got them in, you got them fed and you got them out," Shopp said. "There were bumps in the road, but nothing like it is today." (St. Petersburg Times, June 17, 2002)

Fresno County Juvenile Hall, Fresno, California
June 28, 2006 KFSN
An investigation is underway into a troubling discovery at Fresno County's juvenile hall, where a rodent head was found inside a dinner meal. The current juvenile hall in southeast Fresno has been plagued with concerns about overcrowding and other unsafe conditions. A new $142 million facility is set to open south of Fresno to take its place. Juvenile hall officials are confirming a rodent head was found in a meal served there. They are investigating just how the foreign object got into the dinner meal served to a young offender. Chief Probation Officer Linda Penner tells Action News, "It looked to be like a small mouse head between bread that was served to a minor at the facility." Environmental health officials are investigating how the rodent head may have gotten into a dinner meal served on Sunday, June 18th. Meals are prepared at the Fresno County central kitchen by a company named Aramark. The county memo sent to employees says, "There have been no similar allegations from the jail facilities ... and the county regularly inspects the operation to ensure proper handling of food."

Fulton County, Fulton, Georgia
March 22, 2007 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fulton County will take a step back and ask more companies to bid on a contract to feed inmates at the Fulton County Jail. Fulton's County Commission voted unanimously Wednesday for a 90-day deferral on a vote to hire a food service provider for the jail and satellite facilities. County purchasing officials are to use the delay to advertise the contract in national publications that cater to the corrections industry. Commissioners weren't pleased by a staff recommendation to hire Gourmet-ARAMARK Correctional Services, which the county fired two years ago. Some commissioners drilled into the county's purchasing guidelines because they give a big bonus to companies that have an office in Fulton County. Commissioner Robb Pitts said Gourmet-ARAMARK would have won the contract even if all three bidders had scored the same in every category but one — location. For the sole reason that it was the only company with a physical address in Fulton County, the company outscored its competition and won the staff's recommendation, Pitts said. Chairman John Eaves said he didn't understand why Gourmet-ARAMARK got the nod when its $4 million bid was the highest of the three that were submitted. It was about $1 million higher than the low bidder. Eaves made the motion to defer the vote. Felicia Strong-Whitaker, a deputy director of the county's purchasing department, said the county's purchasing guidelines state that cost makes up 25 points of the formula used to recommend a company for this type of contract. A company gets an automatic 10 points if it has an office in Fulton County, she said.

February 21, 2007 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Amid allegations of bid rigging and corruption, Fulton County commissioners agreed Wednesday to rebid a lucrative food service contract at the county jail. County Attorney O.V. Brantley said Wednesday she's launched a probe into the allegations, but Commissioner Robb Pitts said any investigation should be turned over to state or federal agents. "Someone seems hell bent on giving the contract to this firm," Pitts said. "I'm going to find out why.... This is serious stuff...This needs to be investigated, not in house but by someone outside." The Trinity Services Group won the original contract in 2005, but it expired more than a year ago. When it was rebid in December, Trinity received the recommendation, even though it was the highest bidder of the three, according to county records. One of the firms that was rejected filed a formal protest with the county, and the other filed a letter, also with the county, claiming employees were pressured to change bid evaluations to ensure that the deal stayed with Trinity. Charles Mathis Jr. said his client, Meat Masters Inc., was the rightful winner of the contract with a bid that was $850,000 lower than Trinity's $4.1 million offer. They only failed, Mathis said in his letter, because county employees were pressured to doctor the bid evaluations. "Meat Masters should legitimately be awarded the contract," Mathis wrote. Two county employees, Sgt. Chandra Hall and former Chief Jailer Charles Felton, provided written statements to Meat Masters that they had been directed to change the contract evaluations to boost the results for Trinity. The Board of Commissioners has copies of the letters, which were also obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Both said they were threatened that if they went before commissioners with Meat Masters as the bidder they would be hammered. The other bidder, Gourmet-Aramark Correctional Services, has alleged collusion involving the other two bidders since Meat Masters was included as a subcontractor on the winning bid by Trinity. Lawyer Michael Coleman, who served as hearing officer for the complaint, issued a ruling on Feb. 16 that recommended Fulton rebid the deal. "Due to the questions raised by the county's rejection of Gourmet-ARAMARK's proposal and the collusion claims involving Trinity and Meat Masters, the appropriate remedy is to cancel the current RFP and re-issue a new RFP," Coleman found.

A company accused of serving bad food to senior citizens is moving on.  Aramark has voluntarily given up a $700,000 contract to prepare food for seniors and the homebound in Fulton County.  An 11Alive News investigation last month revealed numerous complaints about the company’s services ranging from spoiled and outdated milk to deliveries of fish that were not fully cooked, clumps of grease on food and one report of a roach found embedded in meat.  Earnestine Yarborough, a senior citizen, said she got chicken that was badly undercooked. "It was pink water running out of it and pink next to the bone,” Yarborough said.  (11alive.com, August 4, 2004)

Giants Stadium, New Jersey
October 25, 2007 The Record
On a fall Sunday eight years ago, Antonia Verni of Cliffside Park was sent to a harsh prison, probably for the rest of her life. Her incarceration does not include steel bars, stone walls and stern guards, though. Antonia's prison is far more merciless. On that Sunday, a man who later said he was "beyond drunk," drove his pickup truck head-on into the Verni family's Toyota Corolla. Antonia was paralyzed from the neck down. She was only 2 years old and was returning with her mother and father from a trip to pick pumpkins. Antonia now spends her days in a wheelchair, hooked to a breathing machine and monitored by a nurse. Over the course of her life, her parents, who quit their jobs to care for her, may have to come up with as much as $32 million to pay all of Antonia's medical bills. The fiery crash on Terrace Avenue in Hasbrouck Heights, which also left Antonia's mother partially blind, galvanized national attention to the dangers of drunken drivers. But it raised other questions, too: What about those who serve booze to drunks? Are servers guilty? If not, why not? The drunken driver, Daniel Lanzaro, a Cresskill carpenter and father of two young sons, spent that tragic day swilling the equivalent of three six-packs of beer, mostly inside Giants Stadium. When he rammed his truck into the Verni car, his blood alcohol level was more than three times the legal limit. Didn't anyone who sold beer at Giants Stadium or at area bars later visited by Lanzaro notice that he was blind drunk? As you might expect, this tragedy landed in court. Lanzaro pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of vehicular assault and was sentenced to five years in prison. The Verni family filed a lawsuit, and won a historic $135 million judgment, with $105 million of it to come from the stadium beer vendor, Aramark Corp. Aramark appealed – no surprise there. Nor was it surprising that lawyers for Antonia's family and Aramark privately worked out a settlement, approved last week by a Bergen County judge. What's surprising – and sad -- is that the judge sealed the records. This pivotal chapter of Antonia's story needs to be told, not locked in a judicial file drawer. We've heard many times how drunken driving wrecks innocent lives. Indeed, such stories are important. But we also need to explore other, wide-ranging implications of drunken driving, especially for those who sell booze in taverns or at public sporting events. Our government issues liquor licenses to these vendors. Why shouldn't taxpayers know more about them? Sealing records in such an important court case does not add to constructive discourse. It puts a damper on it. In reaching an agreement with Antonia's family, Aramark issued a statement claiming it "settled the litigation without any admission of wrongdoing." It merely paid Antonia's family – as if that means nothing. Antonia's parents seem satisfied that the settlement will cover their daughter's medical bills. That's good news. But why not disclose the amount? Knowing the size of the judgment might be a warning to vendors to be careful. And why allow Aramark to avoid admitting any responsibility? Or was that question dropped from discussions? More important, was Giants Stadium required to take additional steps to make sure tipsy fans are not served at future events? Open those records. It's the only way to be sure.

September 7, 2006 Star-Ledger
Lawyers for a Bergen County girl paralyzed in a drunken-driving accident have asked the state Supreme Court to review her case against the beer vendor at Giants Stadium, claiming the issues could affect drunken-driving policies in New Jersey. The attorneys argue that a state appeals court erred in August when it overturned a landmark $135 million jury verdict against the stadium vendor, Aramark Corp., and a fan whose drunken-driving accident left 2-year-old Antonia Verni of Cliffside Park paralyzed. The appeals court ordered a new trial, ruling that testimony about the "culture of intoxication" at the stadium should not have been presented to the jury. Antonia's attorneys disagree. "If this decision is allowed to stand, it will emasculate the ability of victims of drunk driving to go after liquor establishments that serve visibly intoxicated patrons, by eliminating certain evidence that can go before a jury, and that's not what the law ... intended," said Antonia's attorney, David Mazie, who filed a 25-page petition to the state Supreme Court on Tuesday.

August 3, 2006 AP
A New Jersey appeals court on Thursday overturned a landmark $105 million verdict against a Giants Stadium concessionaire that sold beer to a drunken football fan who later caused an auto accident, leaving a girl paralyzed. The three-judge appeals panel ruled that the trial court erred by improperly allowing testimony about the “drinking environment at the stadium” and ordered a new trial should be held. “The admission of this evidence cannot be considered harmless. A central theme of plaintiffs’ case was the culture of intoxication at the stadium,” the court wrote in its 65-page ruling. Last year, a state judge in Hackensack rejected an effort by Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp. to throw out or reduce the verdict. Its vendors sold beer to Daniel Lanzaro, of Cresskill, during a 1999 New York Giants game just hours before he caused a car crash that left then-2-year-old Antonia Verni paralyzed from the neck down. In January 2005, a Bergen County jury said Lanzaro and Aramark should pay a total of $135 million in damages. At the time, legal experts said it was the largest alcohol liability award in the United States in at least the last 25 years. Aramark’s portion of that award included $30 million in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages.

May 31, 2006 NewJersey.com
Lawyers for a food-service giant that was ordered to pay $105 million to the family of a Cliffside Park girl paralyzed in a drunken-driving crash argued Tuesday that the victim's father shares responsibility for her condition. Antonia Verni was 2 years old when a truck driven by a drunken Cresskill man slammed head-on into her family's sedan on Terrace Avenue in Hasbrouck Heights on Oct. 29, 1999. A Bergen County jury in January 2005 ruled that employees of Aramark Corp. irresponsibly sold beer to the drunken driver, Daniel Lanzaro, contributing to the crash. The jurors awarded more than $135 million in compensatory and punitive damages – an amount many lawyers believe is the largest ever in such a lawsuit. Aramark is liable for $105 million and Lanzaro the rest. Arguing before a state appellate panel in Trenton on Tuesday, Aramark attorneys lambasted Superior Court Judge Richard Donohue for dismissing evidence that they said should have been admitted during the civil case in Hackensack. For one thing, they contended, Ronald Verni had strapped Antonia in an adult seat belt instead of a child restraint. The impact jolted her head forward, breaking her neck and causing the paralysis, they said. Antonia's mother, Fazila Baksh Verni, was the only other person seriously injured in the crash. The woman, who the lawyers said wasn't wearing a seat belt, was hospitalized for two months and left partially blinded. "Everyone walked away from the accident, except Antonia and her mother," said Aramark lawyer Michael Rodburg. However, he said, the jurors in Hackensack were never allowed to review that evidence during the trial. "This was a smear case against Aramark," he said. "And the judge allowed it."January 26, 2006 Star-Ledger
A lawyer for an 8-year-old paralyzed car crash victim has filed a motion to expedite the appeal of a $135 million jury verdict, most of it against the beer service company at Giants Stadium. Attorney David Mazie of Roseland said the state appellate court should speed up the case because his client, Antonia Verni, is ventilator-dependent and has been unable to get the 24-hour nursing care that experts on both sides of the case recommend. Neither Antonia nor her mother, Fazila, has been able to collect the money while the case is pending, Mazie said. "It's very unusual to file an appeal to expedite," Mazie said. "It's only done in the gravest of cases. We think her situation is one such case. This is to prevent something catastrophic from happening." Last January, Antonia and her mother were awarded $135 million in compensatory and punitive damages, most of it against Aramark Corp., the concessionaire at Giants Stadium. A jury determined there was a "culture of intoxication" at the stadium and found Aramark guilty of serving a visibly drunk fan who later caused the car crash that left the Cliffside Park girl injured. Aramark appealed, but a state appellate court could take until September to hear arguments. Antonia's court-appointed legal guardian for the case, Albert Burstein, said the second-grader can't wait that long to collect her award. He said the family only has limited access to about $500,000 collected in settlements from third parties. "There's not enough money to match the daily costs of taking care of Antonia," Burstein said. "If we were to do the job we would like to do on her behalf, which means round-the-clock care by professionals, it adds up very rapidly." Antonia has a nurse during school hours, paid for by the school district. Her mother, who has no formal medical training, cares for Antonia at home.

September 25, 2005 San Francisco Chronicle
Fans who drive after drinking excessively at 49ers or Raiders games, or any other sporting event, would be well advised to consider the plight of an 8-year-old New Jersey girl. And a vendor who sells an intoxicated fan another beer should think not only about the little girl but about the multimillion-dollar judgment a jury ruled she and her family were entitled to receive earlier this year from the New York Giants' concessionaire. "Concessionaires throughout the country are well aware of that case," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said. In January, a jury awarded $135 million to the family of Antonia Verni, who was paralyzed from the neck down in a car wreck caused by a drunken football fan. The fan is serving a five-year prison sentence, and the concessionaire whose employees sold him beers when he was already clearly intoxicated will pay the family $110 million unless the verdict, currently on appeal, is reduced or reversed. The NFL, the 49ers and the Raiders say the Verni case was a wakeup call for the league and the people who serve fans millions of dollars worth of beer and other alcoholic beverages each season. Like other pro sports leagues, the NFL is heavily intertwined with beer companies. Their signage is as much a part of stadiums as the goalposts, and their commercials form the backbone of the league's TV sponsorship. Attorney David Mazie said from his office in Roseland, N.J., "Quite frankly, I haven't heard anything that demonstrates the NFL and teams have changed their policies on serving alcohol -- other than paying lip service. I haven't seen anything at all." Mazie called the verdict against Aramark "a milestone" in holding a concessionaire accountable. "There may have been settlements before, but I'm not aware of any verdicts. Clearly, it's a landmark, not only because of its size but because of the punitive damages."Lanzaro "was trashed" when the accident occurred, Mazie said. "I'm sure there were 5,000 others in the same condition (driving away from the game)." "As long as you're not falling down, they'll serve you," Mazie said of Aramark employees. "The person who trained them said that. But by the time you're slurring your speech or stumbling, your blood-alcohol is between .10 and .15. Anything above .08 is drunk driving, so what they're saying is they'll still serve people when they're at twice the legal limit." "There are a series of signs -- slurring of speech, talking a lot, not being able to hold themselves up straight," spokesman David Freireich said from the firm's headquarters in Philadelphia. Aramark is a founding member of the Techniques for Effective Alcohol Management (TEAM) Coalition, a nonprofit group that advises pro sports leagues and sponsors designated-driver programs at McAfee Coliseum and other parks, Freireich pointed out.

March 4, 2005 USA Today
A state judge on Friday upheld a $105 million verdict against a Giants Stadium concessionaire for selling beer to a drunken football fan who later caused an auto accident, leaving a girl paralyzed. State Superior Court Judge Richard J. Donohue in Hackensack rejected an effort by Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp. to throw out or reduce the verdict. Its vendors sold beer to Daniel Lanzaro of Cresskill during a 1999 New York Giants game hours before he caused a car crash that left then 2-year-old Antonia Verni paralyzed from the neck down. "It sends a message to Aramark and other beer concessions around the state that they have to change their ways," said David Mazie, a Roseland lawyer representing Verni's family. Aramark's portion of that award included $30 million in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages. Interest accruing daily has brought the company's total to nearly $110 million, according to Mazie. The family claimed Aramark vendors sold beers to Lanzaro at the stadium in East Rutherford even though he was clearly drunk. The company, they said, fostered an atmosphere in which intoxicated patrons were able to buy more.

January 21, 2005 Reuters
The family of a girl paralyzed in a car crash caused by a drunken football fan won $105 million in damages from the concessionaire that sold him beer, and the girl's father said on Thursday the case should have far-reaching effects. The Superior Court jury in Hackensack, New Jersey, assessed punitive damages on Wednesday against Giants Stadium concessionaire Aramark Corp., for its role in the October 1999 accident that left Antonia Verni, then 2 years old, paralyzed from the neck down.

January 18, 2005 AP
A jury awarded $60 million Tuesday to the family of a girl paralyzed in a car wreck caused by a drunken football fan. Ronald and Fazila Verni were headed home from a pumpkin-picking trip in 1999 with their 2-year-old daughter, Antonia, when their car was hit by a truck driven by Daniel Lanzaro, 34. Antonia was paralyzed from the neck down. The family sued Aramark, the Giants Stadium concessionaire, claiming vendors sold beers to Lanzaro even though he was clearly drunk and that Aramark fostered an atmosphere in which intoxicated patrons were served. The stadium also mandates that fans can only buy two beers at a time -- a rule Lanzaro sidestepped by tipping the vendor $10, allowing him to buy six beers.

January 14, 2005 WNBC News
Jury deliberations have begun in a civil lawsuit filed by the family of a 7-year-old girl who was paralyzed when a drunken football fan on his way home from a New York Giants game crashed into the family's car. The family claims Aramark, the Giants Stadium concessionaire that sold beers to the fan, was partly responsible for the crash in Hasbrouck Heights. The family claims Aramark vendors sold beers to Daniel Lanzaro at the stadium even though the Cresskill man was clearly drunk and that Aramark "fostered" an atmosphere where intoxicated patrons were served, which is against the law.

January 12, 2005 NewJersey.com
An admitted alcoholic who slammed his truck into a Cliffside Park family's car, paralyzing their 2-year-old daughter, wasn't visibly drunk when he bought beer at Giants Stadium earlier that day, an alcohol expert told jurors Tuesday. Robert J. Pandina, a psychology professor and director of the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University, said Daniel Lanzaro of Cresskill couldn't have had more than five or six beers inside the stadium. The parents of the injured girl are suing Aramark, the food-service company that holds the liquor license at the stadium, saying it sold alcohol irresponsibly to Lanzaro. Lanzaro, a 35-year-old carpenter and father of two, left a Giants game on Oct. 24, 1999, and crashed his truck head-on into the car of Ronald and Fazila Baksh Verni in Hasbrouck Heights. The crash seriously injured Baksh Verni and left the Vernis' daughter, Antonia, a paraplegic. The family is suing Aramark under a state law that holds vendors liable for damages caused by patrons who were served alcohol while visibly intoxicated.

December 9, 2004 Star-Ledger
Sitting in her wheelchair with a stuffed doll propping her head, unable to move her arms or legs, 7-year-old Antonia Verni told a jury yesterday what she wants to be when she grows up. "I want to be a singer, a rock star, a kindergarten teacher and a ballerina," Verni said, her melodic voice filling the tiny courtroom. Two jurors cried. Others shifted in their seats. Doctors say the Cliffside Park girl will never be able to walk as a result of a car accident when she was 2 years old, when a drunken football fan rammed his truck into her family's car as they were driving home from pumpkin picking. Verni testified on the second day of a civil trial in Superior Court in Bergen County in a case against Aramark, the Giants Stadium concessionaire that sold beers to the fan who crashed into the Vernis, Daniel Lanzaro.

December 9, 2004 NorthJersey.com
A drunken driver who rammed his truck into a young family's car in Hasbrouck Heights - paralyzing a 2-year-old girl for life and landing himself in prison for five years - openly admits that he was "beyond drunk" in the 1999 accident. But the buck doesn't stop there, lawyers for the Cliffside Park family contend. Aramark's beer servers, who sold more than a dozen beers to the driver at Giants Stadium during a game, are equally responsible, say the lawyers, who have taken the battle to the multinational food-service conglomerate. As a civil trial opened Wednesday in Superior Court in Hackensack, the first witness for the Verni family was Daniel Lanzaro, the drunken driver, who is still in prison. Lanzaro is a defendant, but is penniless and is testifying willingly. He testified that Aramark concession stands - contrary to state law and the company's internal rules - sold alcohol at the stadium to visibly intoxicated patrons. Aramark's lawyer, Brian Harris, told the jury during his opening statement that Lanzaro was a seasoned drinker who didn't display signs of intoxication when he was drunk. Even though Aramark's beer sellers are trained in identifying intoxicated people, Lanzaro fooled them, he said.

Hendry Correctional Institute, Immokalee, Florida
A 35-year-old woman authorities say bought cocaine from an undercover sheriff's deputy to take inside the walls of the Hendry Correctional Institute was arrested Wednesday night. On Wednesday, Collier County deputies received a tip from the state Inspector General's Office in the corrections department about a cocaine delivery involving Quashie, who worked for Aramark Food Service. She was trying to get some cocaine to take into the prison for an inmate. (Naples Daily News, October 5, 2001)

Hutchinson Correctional Facility, Hutchinson, Kansas
December 9, 2006 Hutchinson News
A former Aramark Services employee who worked inside the Hutchinson Correctional Facility was sentenced to one year, three months in prison Friday for trying to bring methamphetamine inside the prison. Joseph L. Delancy of South Hutchinson pleaded guilty to trafficking in contraband in a correctional facility, possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell and unlawfully arranging a drug sale by a commercial device. He faced up to four years, 11 months in prison. Delancy's attorney, Kerry Granger, asked for a lesser sentence and cited his client's drug use starting as "a misguided attempt to deal with the death of his son."

June 24, 2006 Hutchinson News
Drug detectives arrested a South Hutchinson man employed in the Hutchinson Correctional Facility dining hall for allegedly purchasing drugs he planned to sell to prison inmates. Joseph Lamont Delancy, 33, worked for Aramark Services, which provides food service for part of the prison. According to police reports, Delancy made phone contact with a drug enforcement detective about buying an ounce of "Ice" methamphetamine. The detective set up the drop, and Delancy allegedly arrived and accepted the drugs from the detective. The report indicates Delancy said he planned to sell the drugs in the correctional institute and attempted to set up another buy with the detective. Delancy is being held on $25,000 bond on suspicion for possession of meth with the intent to sell, a drug tax stamp violation and unlawfully arranging a sale by a commercial service.

Illinois Legislature
September 15, 2004 Sun Times
Scott Fawell, once a golden boy of Illinois politics, cut a deal with federal prosecutors Tuesday that put his lover's fate over the future of former Gov. George Ryan, a man once like a father to Fawell. Fawell, a former top aide to Ryan, pleaded guilty to a bid-rigging scheme and is already providing prosecutors substantial assistance in their corruption case against Ryan, the Sun-Times has learned. Fawell is also giving information on Ryan's friend, Republican businessman Lawrence Warner, and other potentially high-profile investigations not yet made public. On Tuesday, Fawell pleaded guilty to leaking inside bid information in 2001 on an $11.5 million contract to oversee expansion at McCormick Place. The company that got the contract was Jacobs Facilities Inc., a client of Fawell's friend, Ronan. Fawell ordered his girlfriend, Coutretsis, to give the details to an employee of Ronan's. In Fawell's plea agreement, he admitted providing inside information to help two other Ronan clients while Fawell oversaw McCormick Place and Navy Pier -- food service giant Aramark, and LaSalle Bank, which wanted the ATM contract at Navy Pier, according to the plea and sources.

Indiana State Prison, Michigan City, Michigan
June 25, 2008 The News-Dispatch
A contractual food service employee was arrested for trafficking early Sunday morning at the Indiana State Prison when he allegedly brought marijuana into work. Thomas Fly, 25, was seen with marijuana, wrapped in plastic, falling out of his pants leg while reporting to work at 3 a.m., said Barry Nothstine, spokesman for the prison. Prison staff recovered the drug, which weighed two ounces. Indiana State Police took Fly to the La Porte County jail, where he was charged with attempting to traffic with an offender, a Class C felony, and possession of marijuana, a Class D felony. Nothstine said he did not know how long Fly had been assigned to the facility. He has been employed by ARAMARK Correctional Services since 2000. The prison has been contracted with ARAMARK for the past 18 to 24 months, he said. Nothstine said there is no indication so far as part of the investigation that Fly has brought drugs to the prison in the past. "The investigation report that I have seen does not indicate that," he said.

Jackson County Adult Detention Center, Pascagoula, Mississippi
September 27, 2006 The Mississippi Press
Overcrowding at the Jackson County Adult Detention Center should ease in the near future. The Jackson County Board of Supervisors approved an additional steel fabricated facility on the ADC grounds in Pascagoula. The $1.2 million facility will house 116 inmates. It is expected to be ready in five months. Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd said relief from overcrowding is a critical issue. "We're just doing what we have to do to maintain what we have. It's very stressful. We have done shakedowns where we have found weapons which is very dangerous to officers. We had a contract employee with Aramark, we just caught her last week bringing drugs into the facility. Everyday is a challenge just to maintain things on a day to day basis," Byrd said.

Kane County Jail, Kane, Illinois
January 10, 2008 The Daily Herald
Aramark, the Kane County jail's longtime food service vendor, has come under fire by a union-affiliated group. Four representatives of the Campaign for Quality Services, a group formed by two labor organizations, on Tuesday asked the Kane County Board to examine its contract with Aramark in light of complaints against the company filed across the country. Aramark is accused of billing the Florida Department of Corrections for meals that were never prepared or eaten and failing to pass on the cost savings for serving less expensive food items to inmates, according to an analysis conducted by Florida's inspector general last year. Kane County Sheriff Pat Perez said he is aware of those and other complaints against Philadelphia-based Aramark, which has provided food to county jail inmates since at least 1996. Perez said he and his staff are evaluating Aramark and other vendors in light of the jail's pending relocation from Geneva to a new building in St. Charles Township. "Obviously moving into the new facility, we're reviewing all of our operations. The kitchen is one of them," Perez said. "It's entirely possible that we're going to open this up to bid. … This may be an opportunity for us to look and see could we get better service and could we get it for a better price." An Aramark spokeswoman dismissed the Campaign for Quality Services' concerns, saying the group is interested only in increasing union membership.

Keller School Board, Keller, Texas
September 20, 2005 Star-Telegram
Keller school trustees voted unanimously Monday to fire Aramark Management Corp., a company paid more than $1 million annually to supervise custodians, grounds and maintenance in the district. Aramark has 30 days to leave the district, and district employees will take over, Assistant Superintedent Bill Stone said moments after the vote. The company was hired in September 1999 to oversee district employees, including custodians, groundskeepers and maintenance workers. Their five-year contract was renewed for another five years in 2004. But in recent months, complaints from district employees and trustees have grown. And on Aug. 17, Veitenheimer sent a letter to the company saying the district "is considering termination of the agreement." According to the letter, about one-third of the money paid to Aramark does not cover anything tangible, but is for an "added value" the company will bring to all tasks. That value has not been realized, officials say. Custodians voice "an almost constant complaint" that they do not have the supplies and materials they need to keep buildings clean. And district officials are not certain they are getting what they pay for. The district paid Aramark just over $25,000 to furnish cleaning equipment needed at Liberty Elementary School, the district's newest campus. But guidelines suggest the typical cost for equipping a new elementary school runs $5,000 to $10,000 less, according to the letter.

Lee County Jail, Sanford, North Carolina
November 3, 2005 Sanford Herald
District Attorney Tom Lock will not pursue charges against a former Lee County Jail kitchen employee, who was under investigation for allegedly buying food with jail funds and using them in his private catering business. Lock asked the State Bureau of Investigation to conduct a probe into the issue after it was brought to him in March by Herb Hincks, the chairman of the Lee County Board of Commissioners, who told Lock that he'd heard that the chief cook at the jail was diverting jail food to his own business. "After reviewing the SBI's report, I have concluded that there is no credible evidence upon which to lodge any criminal charges against the suspect," Lock said in a press release on Tuesday. Lock said the SBI reviewed a number of "suspicious" receipts and invoices for food purchases from various food vendors, interviewed Hincks, as well as county commissioners Amy Stevens and Ed Paschal, Lee County Finance Director Lisa Minter and finally the suspect. There was at least some evidence that Hincks' concerns were shared by others: n Both Stevens and Paschal told the SBI they'd heard similar allegations against the suspect on a second-hand basis. n Minter told the SBI that she had concerns about what the county was paying for meals in the jail compared to other counties. But Lock said that there was "no substance" to the allegations. Lock said some of the most compelling evidence came from the suspect himself, whom neither Lock nor sheriff's department officials would identify other than by his title, "chief cook." Lock's press release indicates the cook "denied stealing any food from the Lee County Jail or diverting any food products for the jail to his personal catering business." Lock also said the suspect submitted to an SBI polygraph test in August and passed it. The suspect still works in the jail's kitchen, but not as a county employee. In the summer, the board of commissioners voted to contract all kitchen duties to Aramark, a private company. Bryant said he's not sure if it saves the county money, but he likes the arrangement.

October 2, 2005 Sanford Herald
District Attorney Tom Lock says his review of the investigation into whether an employee with the Lee County Jail illegally diverted food to his own catering business is nearly finished. The allegation is that the jail kitchen employee, who runs a private catering business, was ordering food through the jail and taking it to use at his own business. The employee, who has not been named publicly by either the sheriff's department or by Lock, still works at the jail but not as a county employee, according to Kevin Bryant, chief deputy of the Lee County Sheriff's Office. Rather, he now works for Aramark, a company the county began contracting with for food services in the spring.

September 5, 2005 Sanford Herald
State Bureau of Investigation officials are promising to deliver a report about the possi