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Abu Ghraib, Iraq
October 28, 2005 Macon Telegraph
Abu Ghraib means different things to different people. For the
people of Iraq, it is where tens of thousands of family members died in
Saddam Hussein's death house or were tortured under his regime. Around
the world, it is the scene of the infamous prisoner abuse scandal that
led to U.S. soldiers doing time for war crimes. For retired Macon
firefighter John Wood, it is now home. Before beginning his role as a
civilian firefighter working for Wackenhut Services LLC, Wood spent two
weeks at Camp Victory near Baghdad, Iraq, to get acclimated to the heat.
The prison-turned-military base is home now to some 5,000 detainees,
U.S. soldiers and a multinational force that operates a combat supply
hospital, Wood said. "It just blew me away," Wood said of his
arrival at Abu Ghraib. "I didn't know what to expect, and when I
got there, it was beyond my worst expectation."
Afghanistan
December 8, 2009 Rueters
The State Department will not renew the contract of a security
company embroiled in a scandal involving the U.S. Embassy in Kabul,
where guards were accused of drunken conduct and sexual hazing. U.S.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Tuesday Virginia-based
ArmorGroup would not have its contract renewed when it expires in June,
although it will receive a six-month extension to allow the contract to
be put up for new bids. Toner said officials had reviewed the contract
and "concurred that the next option year should not be exercised and
that work begin immediately to compete a new contract." He said the
review included both recent misconduct allegations against ArmorGroup
personnel and the company's "history of contract compliance
deficiencies." This week a report by the non-partisan Government
Accounting Office identified a number of shortcomings in the State
Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security including staffing shortage
and increased reliance on contractors in high-risk posts. The Kabul
embassy scandal broke in September, when a watchdog group accused
ArmorGroup of jeopardizing security at the embassy by understaffing the
facility and ignoring lewd, drunken conduct and sexual hazing by some
guards -- and provided graphic photos as evidence. ArmorGroup North
America, now owned by Florida-based Wackenhut Services, was also hit by
a federal whistle-blower lawsuit that said it had ignored brothel visits
by guards and other misconduct because of what a lawyer said was a
"myopic preoccupation with profit" in its five-year, $187 million
contract with the State Department. State Department officials said the
safety of embassy staff was never in jeopardy. But they subsequently
said 12 embassy guards had been removed or resigned, ArmorGroup's entire
senior Kabul management replaced and alcohol banned at the group's camp.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered a thorough review of how
contractors are used. The GAO report noted that worldwide, the U.S.
diplomatic security budget had grown to $1.8 billion in 2008 from just
$200 million in 1998, when truck bomb attacks on U.S. Embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania killed more than 300 people including 12 Americans. The
bureau's workforce has also doubled over the same period but is failing
to keep pace with rising security threats including those faced in Iraq
and Afghanistan, it said. "Staffing shortages in domestic offices and
other operational challenges -- such as inadequate facilities, language
deficiencies, experience gaps, and balancing security needs with State's
diplomatic mission -- further tax its ability to implement all of its
missions," the report said. The report urged the State Department to
develop a strategic plan to directly address the rising demands of
diplomatic security including increased staffing.
September 18, 2009 AP
A top executive of the private security contractor hired to protect the
U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan was informed in July 2008 of alleged illegal
and immoral conduct by guards, attorneys for a whistleblower suing the
company said Friday. The claim contradicts the sworn testimony of Samuel
Brinkley, a vice president for Wackenhut Services, the owner of
ArmorGroup North America. Brinkley told the Commission on Wartime
Contracting under oath on Monday that he and other corporate officials
outside of Afghanistan didn't know until a few weeks ago of problems
that reportedly included lurid parties and ArmorGroup employees
frequenting brothels in Kabul. But in a 10-page letter to the
commission, the attorneys say their client, James Gordon, told Brinkley
during a meeting on July 15, 2008, of alleged guard misconduct. The
meeting took place in Brinkley's office in Arlington, Va., Gordon said
in a separate e-mail through the lawyers. Gordon was ArmorGroup's
director of operations until February 2008. He says he was forced out of
the job after trying to get the company to fix a long list of
shortcomings with the $189 million embassy security contract that the
State Department awarded ArmorGroup in March 2007. He filed a lawsuit
earlier this month in federal court claiming the company retaliated
against him for telling the department about the deficiencies. Brinkley
and Wackenhut did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a
previous statement on the lawsuit, a Wackenhut spokeswoman called
Gordon's claims baseless and said he voluntarily resigned from the
company. Clark Irwin, a spokesman for the wartime contracting
commission, said the congressionally mandated panel is reviewing the
letter. At the commission's Sept. 14 hearing on ArmorGroup's
performance, Brinkley portrayed himself and other company executives as
being blindsided by the misconduct of a small number of employees. "I am
not here to defend the indefensible," Brinkley said. "Certain of our
personnel behaved very badly." During a series of heated exchanges,
commissioners pressed Brinkley to explain why he didn't tell the State
Department of reports that guards were behaving inappropriately,
potentially putting security of a key U.S. diplomatic outpost at risk.
Brinkley said ArmorGroup managers in Afghanistan only told him about an
Aug. 11 incident involving nine employees who got drunk at a bar near
their living quarters. Those workers were counseled by the on-site
manager and a temporary ban on alcohol was imposed. He said the State
Department was informed of this incident on Aug. 26. Brinkley said he
wasn't aware of the scope and duration of the misconduct until Sept. 1
when a watchdog group released a report with photos showing guards and
supervisors in various stages of nudity at parties flowing with alcohol.
The watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight in Washington,
also said guards were subjected to abuse and hazing by supervisors who
created a hostile work environment. The letter from Gordon's attorneys
says they are concerned Brinkley's testimony did not provide the
commission with a "full and accurate understanding of many of the events
in question."
September 14, 2009 Government Executive
The State Department should terminate ArmorGroup North America's
contract for security services at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, witnesses
and panelists said during a Commission on Wartime Contracting hearing on
Monday. The recent photographs and report from the Project on Government
Oversight detailing alleged lewd, drunken behavior by guards at the
embassy just describe the latest and most egregious violation by
ArmorGroup, witnesses told the panel. State Department Undersecretary of
Management Patrick Kennedy testified that the contract has required
"extensive oversight and management." Since awarding the contract to
ArmorGroup on March 12, 2007, State has issued seven deficiency notices
addressing 25 deficiencies, one cure notice and one show-cause notice.
Each notice demanded separate correction action plans to resolve
contractual issues and several involved serious allegations, including
that the contractor had deceived the government in its contract
proposal. Despite these problems, State has not terminated the contract
with ArmorGroup and has, in fact, exercised an extension of the contract
period. State officials said they are awaiting the results of an ongoing
investigation into the contractor's conduct at the embassy. Commissioner
Clark Kent Ervin pressed Kennedy to pledge State would terminate the
contract if the probe validates the allegations made against the
contract employees. While Kennedy was hesitant to speculate on a
hypothetical situation, he said he could imagine an outcome of the
investigation that would lead the agency to terminate the contract.
"We're seeing a serious case being made for termination," he said.
William Moser, deputy assistant secretary of State for logistics
management, told the commission a public hearing was not the proper
forum to talk about future contract actions. Regardless, he said the
department is discussing potential alternatives and approaching the
reevaluation of the contract "with a great deal of seriousness."
Danielle Brian, executive director of POGO, said the organization's
investigation shows State officials were notified of serious issues
relating to the ArmorGroup contract repeatedly, and took limited action.
"For the two years of this contract, State's response to whistleblowers'
sustained complaints and to its own finding of severe noncompliance
consisted mainly of written reprimands and the renewal of ArmorGroup's
contract," Brian said. "Simply documenting a problem or even levying a
fine is not effective oversight when those same problems continue to
occur." Brian said State has been "stubbornly defensive" in not
recognizing its own failures, and how those failures have caused
misconduct and potential lapses in security. While POGO strongly
believes the contract should be canceled and ArmorGroup -- or its parent
company, Wackenhut -- should be debarred from doing business with the
government, that will not prevent future problems, Brian said. To ensure
proper conduct by contractors overseas, State must shorten the rotations
of its regional security officers, perform more frequent audits and
independent verification of contractor reports of compliance, and
prioritize accountability, she said. "This cultural shift will be aided
by canceling contracts when the contractor consistently underperforms --
which will have the added benefit of acting as a deterrent to future
contractors -- and by disciplining the State Department officials who
are responsible for the failed oversight of the ArmorGroup contract,"
Brian said. Commissioner Linda Gustitus said State already lost
authority with industry by not terminating its contract with Blackwater
Worldwide in the wake of the Nissor Square shooting incident in Iraq.
"That helped to send a message to other contractors that you can do a
lot and not have you contract terminated," Gustitus said. Several
commissioners joined Brian in urging Kennedy to hold accountable the
State employees responsible for managing Armor Group by firing them,
withholding bonuses or taking some other disciplinary action.
September 14, 2009 Wayne Madsen Report
At a September 10 press conference at the National Press Club in
Washington, two former managers for ArmorGroup North America (AGNA),
headquartered in McLean, Virginia and a subsidiary of ArmorGroup
International (AGI), revealed a litany of contract fraud and abuse
charges against AGNA and AGI and provided further details of sexual
deviancy among AGNA security guards in Kabul tasked with protecting the
U.S. embassy. ArmorGroup is now owned by Wackenhut Services, Inc.,
headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The two former employees
are suing AGNA, AGI, Wackenhut, and Corporation Service Company for
wrongful termination, false claims, and conspiracy. John Gorman, a
retired Marine Corps veteran who was the camp manager at the security
guard force’s Camp Sullivan, blew the whistle on contract
non-performance, security pitfalls, and sexual deviancy, and was placed
under virtual house arrest in June 2007 by AGNA’s top manager in Kabul,
Michael O’Connell, and flown out of the country. Gorman was terminated
and confined for some 24 hours, along with two other AGNA managers,
James Sauer, a retired Marine sergeant major and Pete Martino, a retired
Marine colonel, who filed complaints to both AGNA and the Regional
Security Office (RSO) for the U.S. embassy in Kabul, also Marine Corps
veterans. Because they told the RSO they feared for their personal
safety after bringing the charges against AGNA, he offered them the
security of his apartment on the embassy compound, which they turned
down only to later have their cell phones and weapons confiscated by
AGNA and being confined before their flight out of the country. Gorman
said no one at AGNA “ever mentioned or indicated a concern for the
actual security at the embassy -- the greatest and only concerns were
the profit margin and the bottom line.” Gorman said the project manager
for the security contract, Sauer, a man with 35 years of experience as a
30-year career Marine with private security contractor experience in
Iraq and Afghanistan, was “ignored, second guessed, and rejected.” Sauer
had vehemently objected to allowing security personnel to be deployed to
Kabul who had engaged in “lewd and deviant behavior” during their
subcontractor training in Texas. After Gorman, Sauer, and Martino made
their complaints known to McConnell, the corporate executive replied
that ArmorGroup was a publicly traded company and could, therefore, not
hire more people “because he had a responsibility to the shareholders.”
The effect was the hiring of clearly unqualified personnel for the
security guard force. Gorman said that there were people hired as guards
who had “no DD214s, driver’s licenses, passports,” including one person
who had been fired from a previous security project for pulling a pistol
on another employee while drunk. AGNA, according to Gorman, covered up
the security contract failures because the firm was “to assume the $187
million a year security contract for the American embassy in Kabul in
less than two weeks and they were bidding on the more lucrative $500
million contract for the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. James Gordon, a New
Zealand citizen and New Zealand Army veteran who is married to an
American, worked for ArmorGroup Iraq as the operations manager, a
subsidiary of AGI, also spoke about corporate malfeasance involving AGNA.
He later became the business development director for AGNA headquarters
in McLean. In 2007, Gordon took over as operations director for the
Kabul embassy security contract and attempted to bring the contract into
compliance with State Department requirements. Eventually, Gordon was
forced out of the company because instead of correcting contract
violations the firm’s only goal was to “maximize profits.” Gordon said
among AGNA security personnel were unqualified personnel, some of whom
had serious criminal records. Some guard recruits had engaged in
“disgusting behavior” during their initial training at AGI’s
subsidiary’s training facility, International Training Inc. (ITI) of
Pearsall, Texas. Sauer, Martino, and Gorman had received reports that
some of the AGNA recruits, while undergoing pre-deployment in Texas, had
engaged in “lewd, aberrant, and sexually deviant behavior, including
sexual hazing, urination on one another and equipment, bullying,
‘mooning,’” exposing themselves, excessive drinking, and other conduct
making themselves unfit for service on the contract. The AGNA employees
who were later forced out of the company attempted to ensure that the
trainees in Texas never arrived in Kabul. Several email exchanges
(“e-pong”) show they tried to block the sexual deviants from duty in
Kabul. AGNA also misrepresented ethnic Nepalese Gurkha farmers hired as
security guards for the Kabul embassy job as Gurkha military veterans of
the British and Indian armies. In fact. the Gurkha farmers hired from
Nepal and northern India were not proficient in English as required
under the State Department contract. In fact, some could speak no
English. The language test had never been administered to the Gurkha
recruits. When some Gurkha guards walked off their jobs in May 2007
because of poor wages and treatment, Carol Ruart, AGI’s human resources
director in London, ordered AGNA management in Kabul to “lock [the
Gurkhas] in their rooms until they agree to work for less.” Gordon also
stated that AGNA never invested in secure vehicles to transport embassy
guards between the embassy and other locations. AGNA used broken down
vehicles called “white coffins.” After the State Department released
funds to AGNA to buy secure vehicles, the firm never bought the vehicles
but transferred the money to AGI in London. AGNA also hired a “rogue”
South African program manager for the embassy contract in Kabul,
according to Gordon. DuPlessis replaced Sauer. Jimmy Lemmon replaced
Martino as deputy program manager. During the tenure of the South
African, Nick duPlessis, ammunition went missing from Camp Sullivan
where the guards were bivouacked and illegal weapons were stored at the
facility. Moreover, duPlessis did not possess a security clearance to
receive classified briefings, a requirement for the program manager
position. In addition, Gordon stated that the AGNA logistics manager,
Sean Garcia, used contract funds to purchase counterfeit North Face and
Altama jackets and boots for the security guards from his wife’s company
in Lebanon, Trends General Trading and Marketing LLC of Beirut. Gordon
said, “the cheap knock-offs could never keep the men warm during the
cold winters in Afghanistan.” After Gordon notified the State Department
about the contract breach, the order to remove him was ignored and the
State Department continues to own sub-par counterfeit material. Gordon
sent an email dated September 3, 2007 to duPlessis and his staff in
Kabul. Gordon also said that the AGNA armorer in Kabul, responsible for
maintaining all the weapons, had to be “forcibly removed” from a brothel
in Kabul. Many of the prostitutes working in Kabul, according to Gordon,
are young Chinese girls who were taken against their will to Kabul for
sexual exploitation. When Gordon ordered the armorer’s immediate
termination, he discovered that the AGNA medic, Neville Montefiore, and
duPlessis, the program manager, had also frequented the brothels with
the armorer. Gordon also discovered that there had been an outbreak of
sexually-transmitted diseases among the AGNA guards in 2007 and this was
never reported to the State Department as required by the contract.
Prostitutes also frequently visited Camp Sullivan. Gordon also
discovered that the guard force routinely visited brothels in Kabul and
Montefiore’s replacement discovered the improper storage of regulated
narcotics at Camp Sullivan’s medical facility, including morphine. “You
can rest assured that there is no hiding of information from the DoS
[Department of State]. Anyone who thinks that they can get away with
this will probably end up in a Federal Penitentiary. It is our duty to
report on all aspects of the contract performance and we are required to
be transparent and honest in our dealings. Personally I wouldn’t accept
anything else.” Gordon’s plans to visit Kabul to conduct an
investigation were immediately shut down by ArmorGroup’s parent office
in London. Gordon said it is contrary to U.S. law for a foreign company
to direct or influence any activities on a classified contract.
Moreover, the British parent conducted their own investigation, which
resulted in a three-page whitewash. Gordon was denied access to all
information about AGI London’s investigation. After the whitewash,
Gordon received a report that an AGNA trainee wanted to be hired on as a
security guard at the embassy in Kabul because he knew someone “who
owned prostitutes there.” The trainee boasted that he could purchase a
girl for $20,000 and earn a handsome profit each month. The trainee,
according to Gordon, had previously worked in Kabul under duPlessis.
Neither AGNA nor the State Department conducted a follow-up
investigation of the violations of the U.S. Trafficking in Victims
Protection Act by AGNA employees. AGNA responded to Gordon’s warnings by
blaming him for all the contract’s failures and he was forced to leave
the firm on February 29, 2008. After Wackenhut Services Inc. bought
ArmorGroup, after Gordon left the company, he met with Sam Brinkley, the
vice president of Wackenhut, to discuss the contract problems. Brinkley
promised to remove duPlessis and investigate all the charges of
misconduct. On June 10, 2009, Gordon was present during hearings held by
Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Gordon said that Brinkley and the State
Department testified to McCaskill’s subcommittee on contracting
oversight that AGNA was “fully compliant” on the security contract for
the embassy in Kabul. Brinkley told the subcommittee that he “was proud”
of the way the company had been managing the embassy security contract.
Gordon said the situation at Camp Sullivan had worsened and the U.S.
Embassy was facing a grave security threat. McCaskill and ranking
Republican member Susan Collins (R-ME) never heard testimony from any of
the whistleblowers on AGNA’s poor security record in Kabul. The only
witnesses heard were Brinkley and William Moser, the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for Logistics Management. Brinkley, in addition to
the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, has responsibility for the security contract
for the U.S. Naval Support Activity in Bahrain, which, according to ex-AGNA
sources, may be using untrained Gurkha farmers from the Indian
subcontinent as crack veterans of the British and Indian armies. The
Gorman/Gordon lawsuit states that on October 10, 2007, the AGNA security
force in Kabul was involved in a number of serious incidents, including:
detaining a group of Afghan civilians and involuntarily transporting
them to the U.S. embassy; verbally and physically engaging in an
altercation with Afghan Ministry of Interior policemen and handcuffing
the policemen; confronting an Afghan general and several Ministry of
Interior policemen; refusing an order from the embassy RSO to withdraw
from a checkpoint to defuse a potentially explosive situation. The
statements of the two ex-AGNA employees reveal a culture of depravity
and unprofessional behavior that Gordon stated still exists to this very
day in Kabul.
September 14, 2009 AP
A member of a federal commission investigating wartime spending said
Monday that photos showing private security guards in various stages of
nudity at drunken parties may be as damaging to U.S. interests in
Afghanistan as images of detainee mistreatment at Abu Ghraib were in
Iraq. Dov Zakheim, a former Pentagon comptroller, made the comment at a
hearing Monday held by the Commission on Wartime Contracting on
allegations of lewd behavior and sexual misconduct by employees of
ArmorGroup North America, the company hired to protect the U.S. Embassy
in Kabul. Zakheim said the photos are circulating heavily on the
Internet and give Muslims in Afghanistan a negative image of the United
States. Patrick Kennedy, the State Department's management chief,
acknowledged the department should have been paying closer attention to
the activities of the ArmorGroup guards at their living quarters near
the embassy. The private security contractor hired to protect the
embassy said Monday it erred by not immediately telling the State
Department about an alcohol-related incident involving its guards that
proved far more serious than company officials first believed. "I am not
here to defend the indefensible," said Samuel Brinkley, vice president
of Wackenhut Services, the company that owns the contractor, ArmorGroup
North America. A manager for ArmorGroup counseled nine guards after they
got drunk at a bar near their living quarters in Kabul on August 10. But
after photos surfaced showing the guards had been at a party where
ArmorGroup employees engaged in lewd and inappropriate behavior, they
realized they made a mistake by not alerting U.S. officials. Photos
showed guards and supervisors in various stages of nudity at parties
flowing with alcohol. Brinkley said the manager's response, which
included a temporary ban on alcohol, seemed adequate at the time. "In
retrospect, we were wrong in not notifying the State Department,"
Brinkley said in testimony before the independent Commission on Wartime
Contracting. Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, told the
commission the State Department is very concerned about ArmorGroup's
delays in reporting its knowledge of any misconduct by its employees.
The State Department has been sharply criticized for its management and
oversight of the security contract at one of the country's most
important diplomatic outposts. In addition to the allegations of
misconduct, other problems have included a shortage of guards and
inferior equipment. As the department's top management officer, Kennedy
said he takes full responsibility for having failed to prevent the
problems that reportedly ranged from out-of-control parties to Armor
Group supervisors frequenting brothels in Kabul. The State Department
has launched an investigation into ArmorGroup's handling of the $189
million contract embassy security contract. Kennedy told the commission
that the misconduct "dishonored" the State Department in Afghanistan,
where "the success of U.S. objectives depends on the cultural
sensitivity of all mission personnel, including employees under
contract." But he and other State Department officials said no decision
will be made on whether to terminate the contract with ArmorGroup until
the investigation is complete. Members of the commission pressed Kennedy
to be more aggressive, saying the evidence already available is enough
to warrant firing ArmorGroup, which was awarded the contract to protect
the embassy in March 2007. "To me, it's just totally out of control and
it's been going on for a long time," said Michael Thibault, co-chairman
of the commission. Commissioner Clark Ervin asked Kennedy to pledge to
terminate the contract if the investigation proves all the allegations
prove to be true. Kennedy refused to commit, saying the inquiry needs to
run its course. However, Kennedy added, "We are seeing a very, very
serious case being made for termination."
September 13, 2009 Washington Post
In 2005, the State Department hired a Northern Virginia company to
provide security for the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan. Diplomats quickly
became concerned about whether the new guards, who barely spoke English,
could protect such a sensitive site. "They had serious problems,"
recalled Ronald E. Neumann, who was ambassador at the time. The
department then brought in another security contractor, ArmorGroup North
America. But the difficulties didn't cease. In recent days, evidence of
ArmorGroup's failings has burst into public view -- photos depicting its
guards in semi-naked hazing rituals and official documents showing
persistent staff shortages. Harold W. Geisel, the acting inspector
general of the State Department, told Congress last week that his
investigators are checking for possible criminal conduct by ArmorGroup,
and a congressional hearing is scheduled for Monday. Lawmakers and
watchdog groups are questioning how the department could have continued
to employ a company that, in addition to tolerating bullying and
understaffing, failed to ensure that its guards had proper security
clearances and sufficient equipment -- or that they spoke English. The
criticism is particularly intense because the State Department had
promised to improve oversight after a 2007 shooting incident in Iraq
involving bodyguards from security contractor Blackwater that left 17
Iraqi civilians dead. "State's management of these contracts has been
self-evidentially abysmal," said Peter W. Singer, an expert on
government contracting at the Brookings Institution. ArmorGroup's
efforts to guard the Kabul embassy were troubled from the start,
according to congressional hearings, internal State Department documents
and interviews. The McLean-based company submitted "an unreasonably low
price" in 2007 for the contract, said Samuel Brinkley, an official with
Wackenhut Services, the firm's parent company, at a congressional
hearing in June. Former ArmorGroup supervisors have said in interviews
that the company slashed guard staffing so it could squeak out a profit.
State Department officials have expressed outrage about the lewd
behavior shown in the photos. Still, they defend their selection of
ArmorGroup, saying they are legally required to award such contracts to
the lowest qualified bidder and noting that ArmorGroup was
well-regarded. They also insist that the embassy was never endangered by
the guard problems -- even though internal department documents say it
was. "The fact you find something is wrong means something is wrong. But
you find it," the department's undersecretary for management, Patrick F.
Kennedy, said in an interview. He emphasized that many of the guards'
failings emerged in documents written by department officials. "There
was oversight present," he said. The troubles at the Kabul embassy raise
questions about how authorities will manage what is expected to be a
surge in the number of contract guards at U.S. facilities in Iraq as the
American military presence declines. The scandal has also given new
impetus to a debate over whether too many government wartime jobs are
being outsourced. "The State Department should consider whether the
security for an embassy in a combat zone is an inherently governmental
function, and therefore not subject to contracting out," Danielle Brian,
executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, wrote to
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton this month. Brian's group
released the photos of what it called near-weekly sessions of hazing and
sexual humiliation of ArmorGroup guards at their camp. The State
Department has for years used local contract guards to secure the
perimeters of its embassies, while generally keeping a modest Marine
contingent for interior access. But in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
department decided not to use local guards because of vetting concerns,
officials say. Instead, as the military withdrew forces from around
those embassies in recent years, the department turned to contractors
such as ArmorGroup. But the department, which suffers from a shortage of
contracting staff, has had a rocky history of managing such guard
contracts. Each of its three contracts in Kabul has come under fire. The
first was awarded to McLean-based Global Strategies, to replace a Marine
combat force withdrawing from the U.S. Embassy in March 2005. The
department justified the $6-million-a-month sole-source contract by
saying it had received late notification of the Marines' departure. But
the inspector general found that the Defense Department had given six
months' official notice, and scolded the State Department for poor
planning. By July 2005, the State Department had signed a contract with
MVM of Ashburn, cutting its guard costs to less than $2 million a month,
according to the inspector general's report. But MVM could not provide
enough guards, partly because it was paying much less than its
predecessor, according to Neumann. And, he said, the guards spoke so
little English that they could not understand instructions. "We went
back to the State Department and said, 'These people are unacceptable,'
" Neumann said. State canceled MVM's contract and kept on the Global
guards temporarily. MVM's chief executive, Dario O. Marquez, did not
return a call seeking comment but told the Wall Street Journal last year
that the State Department did not give him enough time to fix the
problems. Neumann said the department was handicapped in selecting guard
companies because of regulations stipulating that the contract go to a
qualified U.S. firm that offers the lowest bid. "People low-bid, and
then they're not competent," he said. Finally, in March 2007, the
department turned to ArmorGroup. The firm, which also guarded the
British Embassy in Kabul, was one of only two bidders deemed technically
qualified by the department's acquisition and security specialists. Its
price was about $3 million a month, officials say. "ArmorGroup was not a
small, undercapitalized, underfunded, fly-by-night organization,"
Kennedy said. "They put forth a proposal that met every requirement."
But within weeks of the company starting work, the State Department sent
ArmorGroup a warning that its deficiencies -- including shortages of
guards and armored vehicles -- were so serious that "the security of the
U.S. Embassy in Kabul is in jeopardy," according to the House
Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight. State Department officials issued
eight more warnings to the company over the next two years, including
one last September threatening to terminate the contract. Despite the
problems, the department stuck with ArmorGroup, agreeing this summer to
extend its contract for a year. State Department officials have said
that the company appeared to be making progress and that changing firms
would be disruptive. A spokeswoman for Wackenhut, which took over
ArmorGroup North America last year, declined to comment. In a lawsuit
filed last week, former ArmorGroup supervisor James Gordon accuses the
company not only of failing to properly staff the embassy but also of
lying to the State Department about its capabilities. The operation "was
a complete shambles," he said.
September 12, 2009 New York Times
When a security guard at the United States Embassy in Kabul,
Afghanistan, was leaving for breakfast Monday morning, he froze at the
sight of a crude poster of a rat hanging on his door. “Warning!” the
poster said in stark, black letters. “Rats can cost you your job and
your family.” The guard was a whistle-blower who had told of security
lapses and lewd, drunken bacchanals by fellow workers, sparking an
outcry and enraging Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Now he
wonders whether he should have kept his mouth shut. “Threats are still
running rampant here,” he said in a telephone conversation from Kabul,
speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “So even though
it looks like State may finally turn things around, no one’s ready to
celebrate yet.” Such skepticism may be warranted. A review of two years
of e-mail messages, letters and memos reveals that the State Department
had long known of the serious problems with ArmorGroup, the contractor
chosen to protect its embassy. The complaints went beyond the lurid
pranks that made headlines, the documents show, and included serious
understaffing, bullying by management, petty corruption and abusive work
conditions. In fact, the deficiencies became so severe that they
threatened the security of the compound, the documents show, and State
Department officials withheld payments to ArmorGroup as a way to compel
it to comply with the terms of its agreement. On a few occasions,
government officials warned the company that if it did not correct the
most egregious problems it would lose the five-year, $189 million deal.
Yet both times the contract came up for renewal, in 2008 and 2009, the
State Department opted to extend it, officials confirmed. The troubles
with the ArmorGroup contract, and the State Department’s frustrated
dealings with the company over two years and through two
administrations, illustrate how the government has become dependent on
the private security companies that work in war zones, and has struggled
to manage companies that themselves are sometimes loosely run and do not
always play by the government’s rules. With a stretched military, the
government relies on the security companies themselves to vet, train,
and discipline the guards, all at the lowest cost. “It’s expensive for
the State Department to withdraw a contract from one company, rebid the
project and award it to a new one,” said Janet Goldstein, a Washington
lawyer who represents one of the ArmorGroup whistleblowers. “So
businesses know that once they get a contract, State may ding them
around a little bit, but it’s not going to fire them.” The perils of
this reliance were most graphically illustrated in Iraq in 2007, when
security guards from another contractor, Blackwater, were involved in
shootings that left 17 civilians dead on a Baghdad street. But
interviews and documents show that the ArmorGroup affair, in its
mundane, unsavory details, offers perhaps a more representative look
inside the troubled relationship between contractors and the government
in war zones. State Department officials acknowledge they had a litany
of complaints about the company, none of which, they insist, compromised
the security of the embassy. But they profess to being deeply
embarrassed by reports of parties where security guards were
photographed naked, fondling and urinating on each other. “I’ve been
doing this for 37 years; I’m proud of what I do,” said Patrick F.
Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for management who oversees outside
contractors. But, he added, “This is humiliating.” Mr. Kennedy, however,
defended the State Department’s overall handling of the contract. The
frequent letters of complaint the government sent to ArmorGroup, he
said, were evidence that the department was keeping close tabs on the
company. The “greatest majority” of the failures cited in the letters
were addressed, he said. Part of the problem, officials said, was that
the guards are housed in a complex six miles from the embassy, Camp
Sullivan, with little oversight by State Department officials. Susan
Pitcher, a spokeswoman for Wackenhut Services, the American subsidiary
of the Danish company that owns ArmorGroup, referred questions to the
State Department, saying only that it was cooperating with the
government’s investigation. On Monday, the independent Commission on
Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan will hold a hearing to
examine the State Department’s oversight of the contract. Christopher
Shays, a former congressman and co-chairman of the commission, said
there was “a serious failure on the part of the State Department in
being unable to compel the contractor to fulfill its commitment.” The
disclosures, which were originally made by a nonprofit organization,
Project on Government Oversight, deeply rattled the State Department. At
a staff meeting following the release of the group’s report, senior
officials said, Mrs. Clinton vented her anger about the lurid pictures.
Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired Army general who became President Obama’s
ambassador to Afghanistan last May, was livid, an official said, because
he had never been briefed about the problems. Despite their unease with
contractors, officials acknowledged the department had no choice but to
keep using them. “In situations where there is a surge of intense
security requirements, it is a real challenge,” said Jacob J. Lew, the
deputy secretary of state for management and resources. “We cannot
reduce the security presence.” The State Department was not in a buyer’s
market when it looked for a company to protect its embassy in Kabul. It
picked ArmorGroup in March 2007, after its previous choice, MVM, proved
unable to marshal the necessary personnel or equipment, officials said.
Of the eight companies that bid for the contract the second time around,
only two were deemed technically capable. ArmorGroup was the cheapest.
The company’s most recent contract extension was granted in June this
year, after a Senate hearing in which one of its executives, Samuel
Brinkley, a Wackenhut vice president, said in sworn testimony that his
company was in full compliance with the terms of its contract, and a
State Department official, William H. Moser, a deputy assistant
secretary of state, also under oath, said he was satisfied with the
company’s performance. In interviews, ArmorGroup whistleblowers said
they felt betrayed by the testimony. By many measures, they said, things
were worse, not better. After largely uneventful company barbecues
morphed into what have been described as scenes from “The Lord of the
Flies,” at least a dozen of the men started a document trail of their
own, sending e-mail messages and photographs to the Project on
Government Oversight. According to interviews and those documents, from
July 2007 to April 2009, the State Department issued ArmorGroup at least
nine warnings, nearly one every other month, about contract violations
that ranged from mundane concerns about the company’s ability to keep
accurate personnel logs, to more critical concerns about corruption
among company managers and the hardships faced by sleep-deprived,
underpaid guards — the majority of them Gurkhas from Nepal — who could
not understand simple commands in English. While the Gurkhas were
largely the source of the language problems, the lewd hazing rituals
were largely the activity of the native English speakers, a mix of
Americans, South Africans, New Zealanders and Australians. In 2008,
after ArmorGroup was acquired by the Danish company, G4S, Wackenhut
informed the State Department it was taking control of the Kabul
contract, and promised to fix any problems. Government officials agreed
to give the new owners a chance. According to their own correspondence,
their optimism seemed to dim fairly quickly. On Aug. 22, 2008, the State
Department wrote to ArmorGroup to express concerns that staffing
shortages were so severe the company might not be able to provide
security after a situation with mass casualties. On Sept. 21, 2008, the
State Department deducted $2.4 million in payments from ArmorGroup,
warning that its failure to provide a sufficient number of guards
“gravely endangers the performance of guard services.” In March 2009,
the department again advised ArmorGroup that it had “grave concerns”
about staffing shortages, noting that inspectors on a recent tour found
18 guardposts left uncovered. In April, it denied ArmorGroup’s request
for a third waiver to the requirement that it teach its foreign guards
English. A month later, without much explanation, ArmorGroup told the
State Department that deficiencies relating to language and staffing had
been resolved. And a month after that, a senior State Department
official told the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight that
“despite contractual deficiencies, the performance by ArmorGroup North
America has been and is sound.” “I sat in the audience that day, and
shook my head in disbelief,” said James Gordon, a former ArmorGroup
executive who has filed a whistleblower’s lawsuit against the company.
He says he was forced out for complaining about the problems. “I knew
that conditions at Camp Sullivan were deteriorating, that the contract
continued to be understaffed, that the conditions in Kabul were getting
more dangerous, and that the U.S. Embassy was facing grave threats.”
September 10, 2009 New York Times
Two former employees of a private contractor hired to provide
security at the United States Embassy in Afghanistan charged that State
Department officials were aware as early as 2007 that guards and
supervisors were involved in lewd conduct. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday,
one of the former employees, James Gordon, a native of New Zealand who
served as director of operations at the contractor, ArmorGroup North
America, charged that he had spoken numerous times with State Department
officials about significant problems that threatened security at the
embassy. Among other things, he said that ArmorGroup hired guards who
could not speak English and had no security experience; that the company
employed fewer guards than needed and worked them for longer hours than
at other embassies to cut costs; and that it allowed managers and
employers to hire prostitutes. “Their goal was to perform the contract
as cheaply as possible,” said Mr. Gordon, speaking by telephone from
Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, where he is now employed by another
private security contractor which he declined to name. “Their goal was
to do everything they could to prevent the State Department from
discovering their multiple contract violations and operational
shortcomings. Their goal was to provide a fig leaf of security at the
embassy, and to pray to God that nobody got killed.” Mr. Gordon and
another former supervisor, John Gorman, said they warned State
Department officials in Kabul several times that ArmorGroup was plagued
with problems and that it was determined to cover them up. They said
that as a result of their efforts to correct the problems and to make
the government aware of the issues, ArmorGroup forced them to leave
their jobs. As evidence to support his assertions, Mr. Gorman provided a
packet of memos and e-mail messages that he said he and two other former
employees gave State Department officials in June 2007, including a
three-page memo in which he outlined an array of contract violations.
Among them, he wrote: “The training program run for new hires has been
plagued with hazing and intimidation of students by students. This
included physical threats and perversions.” Senior State Department
officials said they were unaware that guards had engaged in that kind of
activity at their living quarters at a base in Kabul. The officials
spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak about a
continuing investigation. The charges echoed those in a report released
last week by an independent group, the Project on Government Oversight,
which accused the guards and supervisors of deviant behavior. Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ordered an investigation, and about 16
guards and supervisors were fired or have resigned. ArmorGroup North
America, based in McLean, Va., was acquired in 2008 by a Danish security
company, G4S, and its American subsidiary, Wackenhut Services Inc. In a
written statement, Wackenhut described Mr. Gordon’s allegations as
“overstated, ill-founded, not based on any personal knowledge or
otherwise lacking in legal merit.”
September 10, 2009 AP
A former manager for the security contractor protecting the U.S.
Embassy in Afghanistan says the company lowballed its bid for the work
and then failed to hire enough guards or fix faulty equipment. The
allegations come after an independent watchdog group said last week that
ArmorGroup guards were subjected to abuse and hazing by supervisors who
created a climate of fear and intimidation. On Thursday, James Gordon,
former director of operations at ArmorGroup North America, alleged the
company bid too low in order to win the contract and then cut corners to
keep profits up. Gordon says he was fired for reporting the problems. He
also claims ArmorGroup withheld from Congress information about
employees who went to brothels. Wackenhut Services, ArmorGroup's parent
company, had no immediate comment.
September 8, 2009 Government Executive
A contract employee in Afghanistan claims he was forced to resign or
risk being fired outright in retaliation for his role in exposing
alleged lewd and drunken behavior of security guards at the U.S. Embassy
in Kabul. Terry Pearson worked for 16 months as an operations supervisor
for RA International, a Dubai-based food service provider at Camp
Sullivan, the off-site base that was home to the ArmorGroup North
America security guards alleged to have participated in the incidents
reported last week by the Washington watchdog group the Project on
Government Oversight. A native of Great Britain, Pearson said he was
disgusted by the behavior of some guards, including one episode in which
an apparently drunken supervisor allegedly accosted a young Afghan
employee. Pearson reportedly complained about the incidents to RA
International and ArmorGroup -- the prime contractor on the $187 million
State Department embassy contract -- but when the two companies failed
to address his concerns, he contacted a Washington law firm. Internal
company e-mails obtained by Government Executive show that RA
International executives suspected Pearson was a whistleblower. In one
of the messages, RA International Chairman Soraya Narfeldt asked Pearson
to admit that he was the source of the complaint about the guards.
Narfeldt also questioned Pearson in two separate e-mails about calls to
the Washington attorney. "They have stated that a staff member of RAI
reached out to another law firm in D.C. regarding information pertaining
to AGNA," Narfeldt wrote. "I cannot see how they could have this
information if it was not true and if you have reached out using the RAI
e-mail address then this is quite serious. How can a D.C. firm pluck RAI
out of thin air to call with no information? Makes no sense." Narfeldt
punctuated the e-mail by noting that ArmorGroup "is our client" and what
the company "does within themselves is not our concern." Shortly after
receiving the message, Pearson gave his 30-day notice of resignation.
Five hours later, he rescinded his resignation, but Scott Fardy, the
firm's country manager in Afghanistan, told him to have his personal
property removed from Camp Sullivan by the end of the day, e-mails show.
Pearson later told the Project on Government Oversight that, "This is
definitely a case of get rid of the whistleblower." RA International,
however, insists that Pearson left the company voluntarily for reasons
that were "not associated" with the guard controversy. "The employee
independently made the decision to leave the company," Fardy said in an
e-mail to Government Executive. "His notice was received on Sept. 1,
2009. We have very clear [human resource] procedures in place both for
dealing with grievances and issues -- in confidence if necessary -- and
for ensuring that an employee's decision to leave the company is
validated. There was no coercion leading to his resignation and, in
fact, RA International's response highlighted that he was welcome to
reapply to the company for positions in the future." Fardy said he spoke
with Pearson twice following his resignation "to check that he felt he
was making the right decision." Once Pearson made up his mind, Fardy
said, the company had to move on. RA International has more than 1,000
employees worldwide and, in addition to Afghanistan, holds
reconstruction assistance contracts in Darfur, Sudan; and the Central
Republic of Chad. Pearson was among the first to blow the whistle on
alleged hazing and alcohol-filled debauchery of ArmorGroup guards, much
of which was caught on camera and video. On Aug. 1 an ArmorGroup
supervisor and four others reportedly entered a Camp Sullivan dining
facility that was run by RA International wearing short underwear and
brandishing several bottles of alcohol. Before leaving the facility, the
supervisor allegedly grabbed the face of a young Afghan national
employed by RA International, and began abusing him with foul and sexual
language, according to a complaint filed by the employee. Pearson was in
charge of taking the statement from the Afghan national. POGO
investigators said Pearson was punished for speaking out and that if he
had been fired, he would have had difficulty finding work elsewhere as a
security contractor. By resigning, however, he can find work with
another company. During an interview with CNN over the weekend, Pearson
said he does not regret his decision to speak out about the scandal. "If
I had the chance to turn back the clock and do something different, I
don't think I would," he said. "I would still end up doing exactly the
same thing because people's dignity at work and respect at work are more
important than the job itself." Meanwhile, other embassy whistleblowers
have reportedly been threatened for coming forward with their
accusations. POGO said posters were produced and distributed at several
locations in Afghanistan calling the whistleblowers "RATS" and warning
them that if they continued revealing negative information, then they
could be in danger. POGO brought the posters to the attention of the
State Department, which has since reportedly put up its own posters
stating that, "Threats and/or intimidation are completely unacceptable
and should be reported immediately." The posters include the name and
phone number of a special agent for the embassy for whistleblowers to
contact. On Friday, the State Department announced it had fired eight
ArmorGroup contractors who appeared in the photographs. The embassy
originally reported that two other guards had resigned their positions.
But, POGO said the State Department later rescinded those resignations
and fired the employees. State's inspector general office is
investigating the conduct of the ArmorGroup guards. RA International is
cooperating with the probe, Fardy said.
September 4, 2009 Government Executive
The State Department on Friday announced it has fired eight security
contractors assigned to guard the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, after
photos surfaced of the men involved in lewd and embarrassing behavior.
The guards from ArmorGroup North America left Afghanistan on Friday,
according to a statement from the embassy. In addition, the company's
senior managers in Kabul are "being replaced immediately," the statement
said. The embassy did not release the names of the dismissed employees.
"The embassy security office continues its interviews of every one of
the ArmorGroup guards," the statement said. The embassy originally
reported that two other guards who appeared in the now infamous
photographs had resigned their positions. But, sources told the Project
on Government Oversight, the watchdog group that broke the scandal, that
the State Department rescinded their resignations, fired them and
revoked their security clearances. That essentially will prevent them
from finding work with another security contractor. But, POGO is
concerned that some of the employees who lost their jobs were young
recruits who might have been pressured to participate in the sexual and
alcohol-fueled escapades captured in the photos. "We have been told
people are being fired for simply being in the photographs," POGO
Executive Director Danielle Brian said. "We do know a number of those
were unwilling participants. We also want to hear that the supervisors
who were responsible for this debacle are being held fully accountable
and not simply allowed to resign and go to another contractor." A team
from the State Department's inspector general office arrived in Kabul
this week and is conducting an investigation of the allegations. On
Thursday, POGO learned that one of the whistleblowers who helped expose
the guard scandal allegedly was forced to resign. The whistleblower's
company, RA International, is a Dubai-based food service provider at
Camp Sullivan, the off-site base where the guards lived.
September 2, 2009 The Guardian
Pictures have emerged showing private contractors at the embassy holding
'deviant and lewd' parties. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton,
has ordered an investigation into allegations that private contractors
employed to protect the American embassy in Afghanistan were engaged in
"deviant and lewd" parties that have been compared to Lord of the Flies.
The decision to launch the inquiry came after an independent group sent
her a 10-page dossier yesterday claiming that the security guards at the
embassy had been engaged in drunken parties involving prostitutes and
the kind of ritual humiliation associated with gang initiation. Pictures
and video footage were attached to the dossier. The dossier, compiled by
the independent investigative group Project on Government Insight,
includes an email allegedly from a guard currently serving in Kabul
describing scenes in which guards and supervisors are "peeing on people,
eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of
[buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drnken
[sic] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating
in this activity". The allegations are an embarrassment at a time when
the Obama administration is struggling to win hearts and minds in
Afghanistan and the Muslim world in general. It comes against the
backdrop of the continuing controversy over the widespread use by the US
of private contractors in war zones, of which the most notorious was
Blackwater, now named Xe. The group at the centre of the new allegations
are the ArmorGroup, part of the Florida-based Wackenhut group, one of
the biggest private security organisations in the US. The organisation
did not respond immediately today to the allegations. The Project on
Government Insight, which was established in 1981 to track military
procurement and bring to light evidence of any corruption, described the
environment at Camp Sullivan, where the guards were housed outside
Kabul, as comparable to the anarchy in William Golding's Lord of the
Flies. It said about 300 of the 450 ArmorGroup guards are Gurkhas and
the rest are a mix of Australians, South Africans and Americans. In the
dossier, it said that guards were "engaging in near-weekly deviant
hazing and humiliation of subordinates" . It claimed that some guards
had barricaded themselves in their rooms out of fear that the alleged
hazing might harm them physically. It further claims that guard force
supervisors "made no secret that, to celebrate a birthday, they brought
prostitutes into Camp Sullivan, which maintains a sign-in log."
According to the report, Afghan nationals, as Muslims, were humiliated
by the behaviour and the apparently free-flowing use of alcohol. The
pictures could be picked up by the Taliban and used as propaganda
against the US and its allies. But the Project on Government Insight
stressed that comparisons should not be made with the pictures of abuse
at the Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, because no allegations of torture are
being made. The report says that the general breakdown in discipline
poses a threat to the security of the embassy. Ian Kelly, the state
department spokesman, said of the reports of wild, anarchic partying:
"These are very serious allegations, and we are treating them that way."
Clinton has "zero tolerance" for the behaviour described and has
directed a "review of the whole system" for farming out security to
private contractors that may have threatened the safety of embassy
personnel, Kelly said. The embassy said today: "Nothing is more
important to us than the safety and security of all embassy personnel -
Americans and Afghan - and respect for the cultural and religious values
of all Afghans." It added: "We have taken immediate steps to review all
local guard force policies and procedures and have taken all possible
measures to ensure our security is sound." Senator Claire McCaskill, a
Democrat who heads a subcommittee on contractor oversight, wrote to the
state department calling for the inquiry in the light of the report.
McCaskill's committee earlier this year conducted its own hearings on
the involvement of ArmorGroup in Afghanistan.
September 1, 2009 Washington Post
Private security contractors who guard the U.S. embassy in Kabul
have engaged in lewd behavior and hazed subordinates, demoralizing the
undermanned force and posing a "significant threat" to security at time
when the Taliban is intensifying attacks in the Afghan capital,
according to an investigation released Tuesday by a government watchdog
group. The Project on Government Oversight launched the probe after more
than a dozen security guards contacted the group to report misconduct
and morale problems within the force of 450 guards that lives at Camp
Sullivan, a few miles from the U.S. embassy compound. In one incident in
May, more than a dozen guards took weapons, night vision goggles and
other key equipment and engaged in an unauthorized "cowboy" mission in
Kabul, leaving the embassy "largely night blind," POGO wrote in a letter
to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton outlining the security
violations. The guards dressed in Afghan tunics and scarves in violation
of contract rules and hid in abandoned buildings in a reconnaissance
mission that was not part of their training or mission. Later two heads
of the guard force, Werner Ilic and Jimmy Lemon, issued a "letter of
recognition" praising the men for "conspicuous intrepidity (sic)" with
the U.S. State Department logo on the letter head. "They were living out
some sort of delusion," one of the whistle-blower guards said Tuesday in
an interview with The Washington Post from Kabul. "It presented a huge
opportunity for an international incident," said the guard who spokes on
condition of anonymity because he feared retribution. The report
recommends that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates immediately assign
U.S. military personnel to supervise the guards and remove the
management of the current force. It also calls on the State Department
to hold accountable diplomatic officials who failed to provide adequate
oversight of the contract. The report also found that supervisors held
near-weekly parties in which they urinated on themselves and others,
drank vodka poured off each other's exposed buttocks, fondled and kissed
one another and gallivanted around virtually nude. Photos and video of
the escapades were released with the POGO investigation. "The lewd and
deviant behavior of approximately 30 supervisors and guards has resulted
in complete distrust of leadership and a breakdown of the chain of
command, compromising security," POGO said in the letter to Clinton. The
guards work for ArmorGroup, North America, which has an $180 million
annual contract with the State Department to secure the embassy and the
1,000 diplomats, staff and Afghan nationals who work there. The State
Department renewed the contract in July despite finding numerous
performance deficiencies by ArmorGroup in recent years which were the
subject of a Senate subcommittee hearing in June. Susan Pitcher, a
spokeswoman for Wackenhut Services, Inc., the Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
company that owns ArmorGroup, declined to comment on Tuesday's POGO
report. Conduct of contractors providing security in Iraq and
Afghanistan has been the subject of controversy and other investigations
in recent years. The government relies heavily on such contractors for
security and other needs. A new Congressional Research Service report
has found that as of March, the Defense Department had more contract
personnel than troops in Afghanistan. The 52,300 uniformed U.S. military
and 68,200 contractors in Afghanistan at that time "apparently
represented the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by DOD
[Defense Department] in any conflict in the history of the United
States," the report said. Some 16 percent of the contractors are
involved in providing security, a much higher percentage than the 10
percent that were used in Iraq. Although contractors provide many
essential services, "they also pose management challenges in monitoring
performance and preventing fraud," according to Steven Aftergood, who
first disclosed the congressional report on his Secrecy News Web site.
September 1, 2009 AP
Guards hired by the State Department to protect diplomats and staff
at the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan live and work in a "Lord of the
Flies" environment in which they're subjected to hazing and other
inappropriate behavior by supervisors, a government oversight group
charged Tuesday. In a 10-page letter to Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton, the Project on Government Oversight contended the
situation has led to a breakdown in morale and leadership, compromising
security at the embassy in Kabul where nearly 1,000 U.S. diplomats,
staff and Afghan nationals work. The group is urging Clinton to launch
an investigation of the contract with ArmorGroup North America. It also
recommends that she ask the Pentagon to provide "immediate military
supervision" of the private security force at the embassy. The oversight
group's findings are based on interviews with ArmorGroup guards,
documents, photographs and e-mails. One e-mail from a guard describes
lurid conditions at Camp Sullivan, the guards' quarters a few miles from
the embassy. The message depicted scenes of abuse including guards and
supervisors urinating on people and "threats and intimidation from those
leaders participating in this activity." Multiple guards say these
conditions have created a "climate of fear and coercion." Those who
refuse to participate are often ridiculed, humiliated or even fired,
they contended. The group's investigation found sleep-deprived guards
regularly logging 14-hour days, language barriers that impair critical
communications, and a failure by the State Department to hold the
contractor accountable. Wackenhut Services, ArmorGroup's parent company,
had no immediate comment on the allegations. The State Department also
had no immediate comment. The State Department has been aware of
ArmorGroup's shortcomings, the letter says, but hasn't done enough to
correct the problems. It cites a July 2007 warning from the department
to ArmorGroup that detailed more than a dozen performance deficiencies,
including too few guards and armored vehicles. Another "cure notice" was
sent less than a year later, raising other problems and criticizing the
contractor for failing to fix the prior ones. In July 2008, however, the
department extended the contract for another year, according to the
notice. More problems surfaced and more warning notices followed. Yet at
a congressional hearing on the contract in June, State Department
officials said the prior shortcomings had been remedied and security at
the embassy is effective. The contract was renewed again through 2010.
Nearly two-thirds of the embassy guards are Gurkhas from Nepal and
northern India who don't speak adequate English, a situation that
creates communications breakdowns, the group says. Pantomime is often
used to convey orders and instructions. On the Net: Project on
Government Oversight: http://www.pogo.org/
Altcourse Prison, UK
December 17, 2009 Liverpool Daily Post
A LIVERPOOL prison is among five in the country allowing its inmates
to watch satellite television. More than 4,000 prisoners enjoy the
privilege in private jails nationwide. Altcourse Prison, in Fazakerley,
is among the contractor-run prisons allowing access to a “limited
number” of satellite channels. The number of prisoners allowed to watch
satellite varies according to behaviour. But Justice minister and city
MP Maria Eagle revealed the number was currently around 4,070. The
Garston MP was responding to a written question from Tory MP Philip
Davies. She said no inmates in public sector jails have access to
satellite in their quarters. But they do at Altcourse and other GS4-run
prisons in South Wales and Warwickshire. The other private prisons
offering satellite television are run by Serco in Staffordshire and
Nottingham. Ms Eagle said: “In these establishments, satellite
television in cells is generally only available to prisoners on the
enhanced or standard level of the incentives and earned privileges
scheme.” There are 84,500 prisoners in England and Wales, meaning around
one in 20 has access to satellite TV.
November 5, 2009 Liverpool Echo
PRISONERS in a Liverpool jail are commanding their organised crime
empires using mobile phones. A damning report into HMP Altcourse slams
the authorities for not investing in jamming technology that would make
mobiles obsolete. Independent inspectors say prison officers at the jail
have to conduct laborious yard searches and intelligence gathering
exercises in vain attempts to crack down on the phones. The Independent
Monitoring Board (IMB) – a national body which inspects prisons for the
Government – says buying a signal deviator is an “urgent requirement”.
Its report adds: “This Board is tired of being fobbed off with excuses
from the prison service and ministers alike concerning the progress as
to installation of mobile phone deviators.” An IMB spokesman also said:
“The current situation is having profound implications, particularly in
terms of allowing prisoners the opportunity to organise both the
availability of drugs within the prison and to control criminal activity
outside the prison.” The situation is becoming more critical as inmates
are better connected than ever as handsets get more high-tech. Altcourse
inmates could use web-enabled smartphones to transfer money, the IMB
warns. The category B jail, which has a maximum capacity of more than
1,320, is run by private outfit G4S. Some of the prison officers there
are represented by the Prison Officers Association (POA). POA spokesman
Glynn Travis told the ECHO: “I believe deviators should be used. There
would be no need for mobile phones within the establishment at all. “It
would stop the drug trafficking, the bullying and the violence that goes
with the mobile phones.” He said they are also used to taunt victims and
their families. Mr Travis said mobiles are hot property inside and are
worth up to £200 and can be rented out for £150. But they are contraband
and if a rented mobile is confiscated owners often dish out harsh
punishments and fines – on top of those handed out by the prison
authorities. Mr Travis added: “It’s a real problem. On average there’s
one mobile for every 10 prisoners. “If every cell was fitted with a
phone, would prisoners use it? No – because they want to use them for
illicit activity.” The IMB report also expressed concerns about the
transfer of inmates to Altcourse from the West Midlands. There has been
an influx from HMP Hewell, in Redditch, to ease overcrowding. Around
half have been near the end of their sentence, which the IMB says shows
little regard for their “human care”. Altcourse also houses around 120
foreign criminals. But some of them are being kept there well over the
end of their sentence as immigration papers are processed. The IMB say
they deserve a more “humanitarian service”. A Prison Service spokesman
said: “We thank the IMB at HMP Altcourse for their report which is being
fully considered by ministers. We will be responding in due course.” A
spokeswoman for G4S added: “It’s up to the Ministry of Justice whether
they give deviators to prisons. We just do the best we can to try to
stop mobile phones coming in with searches and the like.”
Alexander Youth Services Center, Alexander,
Arkansas
(AKA Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center)
January 26, 2008 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The state's youth detention center near Alexander has been
accredited for the first time by a national correctional association.
But while officials expressed optimism that the center's beleaguered
past was nearing an end, two days later they were explaining a Jan. 19
incident involving mistreatment of a teenager that resulted in the
firing of three staff members. The private Virginia-based company, G4S,
operates the 140-bed detention center under a contract with the state
Youth Services Division. Officials said Wednesday the American
Correctional Association inspected the quality of life, security, food
service, medical care and educational programs in November at the
Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center, and later accredited
the facility. Center administrator Todd Speight said he viewed
accreditation as a sign that the center was making progress. "I see this
as turning a corner," Speight said. "We've got a long way to go, but
we're making good progress." The previous contractor, Houston-based
Cornell Companies Inc., was fired in late 2006. G4S has run the center
for about a year. Previously known as the Alexander Youth Services
Center or the Alexander Juvenile Correctional Facility, the center is
the state's largest youth residential treatment facility. Two days after
announcing the accreditation, officials said one staff member lost his
job for using inappropriate physical force and two others were fired for
trying to protect him. Speight said a male employee physically
restrained a 17-year-old boy in a dormitory in a manner that was
"completely inappropriate." He said two others were fired for misleading
investigators because the original report attempted to conceal the
nature of the scuffle. Speight, who did not disclose the employees'
names, said he was disappointed by the firings, but stressed that center
employees are hard workers who try to do their best. "These three did
something inappropriate and were held accountable," he said. The Bryant
Police Department and the Arkansas State Police are investigating. Scott
Tanner, a state ombudsman for juvenile justice issues, said the teenager
apparently suffered a sore ankle but his safety was not an issue. "This
doesn't seem to be standard operating procedure, but something out of
the ordinary," Tanner said. The center's history includes incidents of
abuse, mismanagement and educational shortfalls. In 2003, the state and
the U.S. Justice Department signed a court agreement to improve
shortcomings in fire prevention, suicide prevention, religious policies
and educational programs.
July 25, 2007 Arkansas News
The state is developing a plan to improve special education programs
at an embattled state lockup for troubled youth, officials told
lawmakers Tuesday. Special education at the Alexander Juvenile
Correction Facility were found lacking in a report last month. "Yes, we
intend to fix the problems out there," former state Rep. Steve Jones,
now deputy director of the state Department of Human Services, told
lawmakers at a meeting Tuesday. DHS oversees the Division of Youth
Services, which runs the Alexander unit and other juvenile facilities in
the state. During the meeting, legislators expressed concern with a June
report by the state Department of Education, which found that DHS is not
in compliance with several state and federal regulations regarding the
Individuals with Disabilities Act. The report found procedures for the
evaluation of specific learning disabilities were lacking at the
Alexander facility, which houses some of the state's most violent youth
offenders. Other problem areas included individualized education
programs and, in some cases, children were advanced a grade even though
DYS was not providing an appropriate education to them. Also, parents of
the children were not being informed of their rights regarding special
education programs. "Just because a kid is in jail doesn't mean they
don't deserve a good education," said Sen. Kim Hendren, R-Gravette,
upset with DYS. About 500 children a year stay at the 143-bed facility
in Saline County. Marcia Harding, associate director of special
education for the state Department of Education, told lawmakers DYS is
supposed to present a correction action on how it plans to deal with
some of the problem on Aug. 1. A plan to address the rest is due Sept.
15. The officials addressed a joint meeting of the Senate Committee on
Children and Youth and the House Committee on Aging, Children and Youth,
Legislative and Military Affairs. Also during the meeting, Hendren and
other lawmakers said they did not understand why the special-needs
education deficiencies identified in a study two years ago have still
not been addressed. "Who is in charge of getting this mess fixed?"
Hendren asked, saying he did not want to "beat this up time and time
again." DHS Director John Selig agreed the problems should have been
addressed, but he said a variety circumstances, including the firing of
the facilities management, Cornell Cos. Inc., in November, and the
hiring of G4S Youth Services in January, were partially to blame.
June 19, 2007 The Morning News
A new report identifying problems in the special education program
at the former Alexander Youth Services Center -- some of which were
previously identified in a 2005 study -- drew frustrated comments Monday
from legislative panels that oversee the state's youth lockups. "It
seems we're planning ourselves to death but we're not getting anything
accomplished," said state Rep. Bobby Pierce, D-Sheridan, during a joint
meeting of the House and Senate committees on children and youth. In a
report released this month, the state Education Department cites about
50 practices at the facility, now known as the Arkansas Juvenile
Assessment and Treatment Center, that don't comply with state and
federal regulations under the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act. The department has directed the Division of Youth Services to
develop a plan of action for correcting the problems. Sen. Sue Madison,
D-Fayetteville, said that on visits to the facility in Saline County she
has been "extremely unimpressed" with the educational practices she saw,
which she said seemed to consist of youths playing on a computer. "Do we
have any way of determining if they're really learning something, or if
we're just letting a computer baby-sit them?" she asked. The House
chairwoman, Rep. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, said a lack of
sufficient information gathering is one of the problems highlighted in
the report. Chesterfield said scrutiny is needed for the educational
services the state provides to all youth in custody, not only those in
need of special education. Scott Tanner, ombudsman coordinator for the
state Public Defender Commission, testified that the Division of Youth
Services has had chronic problems with its education system at least
since 2000, the year he became an ombudsman. Education services at the
facility are provided by Group 4 Securicor, the private company that
took over operation of the facility in January. The state fired the
facility's previous operator, Cornell Companies, in November after a
state investigation found evidence that psychotropic drugs may have been
administered improperly to some youths as a restraint. The facility also
was investigated in 2005, after 17-year-old Lakeisha Brown died from a
blood clot in her lungs two days after complaining to staff that she
felt ill. Cornell was ordered to revamp some of its policies as a result
of that investigation. Madison asked Monday whether it would be more
appropriate for the education of youth in custody to be undertaken by
the state rather than a private company. Education Department attorney
Scott Smith said he did not believe it would. Trying to incorporate
students in custody into the state's public education system would
require compliance with numerous state and federal mandates that
currently are waived, he said. "The reason I ask is, there's something
wrong with the picture in my mind when you have state agencies .....
firmly committed to a free public education, and then we turn around and
hire a private company to deliver that," Madison said. "I just have a
hard time thinking that that's a good idea." Steve Jones, a former state
representative who recently became deputy director of the Department of
Health and Human Services, told the committee the Division of Youth
Services is working on a plan to correct the problems. Rep. Dawn
Creekmore, D-Hensley, noted that the division developed a plan of action
previously, after a 2005 report cited problems with the facility's
educational system. "It's time to quit putting plans of action on paper
and time to bring something to the table, take some action, physical
action, for improvement. These children are still here, and we're just
letting them down continuously, year after year after year," she said.
"It is children that the state Department of Education is all about, and
it is children that DYS is all about," Chesterfield said. "Somewhere the
bureaucratic -- we're not going to use the alliterative -- the
bureaucratic stuff, if you will, has got to be overcome for the
children." Jones assured the committees the division would achieve real
results.
April 21, 2007 AP
Two employees at the Alexander Juvenile Correctional Facility have
been fired after allegations that they physically abused a 15-year-old
girl, the lockup's administrator said. Todd Speight, facility
administrator, said two employees were fired because of an incident
involving the girl, but emphasized there are many more employees who are
trying hard to be a positive influence on the youths. "Our philosophy is
we will treat kids right. We truly believe we will turn Alexander
around. Not a doubt," Speight said. "We understand there are going to be
some negative things at a program that large but we are all about
correcting those things with oversight and supervision." The girl, who
had been at Alexander for about four months, called advocacy group
Disability Rights Center in early April to report the abuse. The teen
told the group's investigator that on March 25 she lost consciousness
while she was restrained on the floor of her dorm, according to a report
released by the Disability Rights Center. While the group was
investigating, the girl's family called and reported that she had
bruises on her body from another restraint on April 10. This is the
fourth incident at Alexander investigated by the Disability Rights
Center, which has released reports on the allegations of abuse to the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "It's not just one bad thing that we can say,
'It happened but we fixed it,' and can go on," said Dana McClain, a
senior attorney with Disability Rights Center. "It's an ongoing thing."
The center is run by G4S Youth Services, which took over after the state
fired the previous contractor, Cornell Cos. Inc. Cornell was fired after
allegations that nurses inappropriately gave anti- psychotic medications
to calm bad behavior. Julie Munsell, a spokeswoman for the state's
Department of Human Services, said the agency is closely watching G4S'
work at Alexander. "We want to send a very clear message that change is
still going on out at Alexander, very positive change," Munsell said.
"We've seen a change in the demeanor not only of the staff but also of
the campus as a whole."
March 16, 2007 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Advocates investigating a claim of abuse by a teenager at the
Alexander Juvenile Correctional Facility say employees failed to help
the boy even as his screams could be heard behind a closed door in an
office without a surveillance camera, according to a report released to
the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Thursday. In its eight-page report, the
Disability Rights Center claims the 15- year-old boy was restrained on
the ground for too long during an obscenity-laced encounter with staff
members. The advocacy group released its report to the state and to G4S
Youth Services, the company that runs the facility, and is calling for
disciplinary action against some employees. G4S is investigating the
incident with renewed vigor, said John Morgenthau, the company’s chief
operating officer and vice president.
January 18, 2007 KATV
Lawmakers said Thursday they plan to study the future of the
Alexander youth lockup--and whether they should continue using private
companies to run the facility. The Joint Budget Committee reviewed a
$4.9 million contract for G4S Youth Services of Virginia, which will
take control of the Alexander juvenile facility beginning Sunday. John
Selig, director of Department of Health and Human Services, told
lawmakers he's confident the company will provide better management than
Cornell Companies, which was fired last year for inappropriately
injecting children with antipsychotic medications. State Senator Shane
Broadway, a Democrat from Bryant, says he wants the Legislature to have
more oversight of the youth facility. Broadway says he hopes there is
further discussion on the future of the lockup.
January 11, 2007 Arkansas News Bureau
The state Department of Health and Human Services has agreed to
enter into a short-term contract with a company to operate the troubled
Alexander Juvenile Correctional Facility in Saline County, agency
officials said Wednesday. The agency has signed a $4.5 million contract
with G4S Youth Services in Richmond, Va., a division of the
British-based Group 4 Securicor, for the company to operate the facility
from Jan. 21 through June 30, DHHS spokeswoman Julie Munsell said. The
contract is pending approval by the Department of Finance and
Administration. At the end of the six-month period, the state will have
the option of renewing the contract for an additional year, Munsell
said. Munsell said no bids were taken because the agreement was reached
under emergency procedures. The agency considered the situation an
emergency because of safety and welfare concerns for the 143 youths at
the facility, she said. The state fired Cornell Companies, the
Pennsylvania-based company that previously ran the facility, in November
after a state investigation indicated psychotropic drugs may have been
administered improperly to some youths to restrain them. Munsell said
Cornell is still at the site, but the state has been in charge since
Nov. 3.
Arkansas Nuclear
One, Arkansas
May 16, 2005 Courier
News
After Friday’s negotiations between Arkansas Nuclear One security
force representatives and Wackenhut Corp., there’s a good chance no
strike will occur at the plant. According to Darrell Williams, president
of the United Government Security Officers of America Local 23, the
second meeting between the two parties was more productive than the
first. However, the final decision on whether Friday’s revised
contract will be accepted is up to the 79 unionized security guards.
That decision will be made later this week when Williams and his
negotiations committee present the new information. “I really think
the new contract will be accepted,” Williams said. “We’ve done all
we can do without going to even more drastic measures, so hopefully we
will have a contract by the end of (this) week.” After the guards’
threat of a strike in mid-April with claims of low wages and poor
benefits, Wackenhut, who has contracted with Entergy since 1991 to guard
Arkansas’ only nuclear power plant, brought some new contract plans to
the table.
Baxter Immigration Facility, Australia
June 5, 2005 The Advertiser
SECURITY guards have been moved on to the grounds of Glenside Mental
Health Service to watch over nine Baxter detainees receiving treatment.
The guards, employed by the Baxter Detention Centre operators, are
costing an estimated $150,000 a month. Effectively, two guards have been
assigned to each detainee. They operate out of a hired demountable hut
which was recently delivered to the grounds of the hospital. State
health officials have made it clear the guards are not welcome. Director
of Mental Health, Learne Durrington, said she has approached the
Immigration Department about the impact of the guards on other patients.
"We're running a hospital here and it needs to be managed as a
hospital," Ms Durrington said. "I've proposed that we get rid
of the guards and replace them with our own staff who are better trained
in mental health care." The Baxter guards are employees of Global
Solutions Limited (GSL) subsidiary Group 4, the security company that
has the contract to operate the Baxter Detention Centre. "We've
taken additional troops from another part of our company," the
spokesman, who did not wish to be named, said. "As a result we've
got staff shortages and we're recruiting more people – mainly for our
Baxter contract." One of the guards told a visitor to Glenside
hospital the demountable was hired at a cost of $300 per day. Figures
from the Miscellaneous Workers Union show the salary costs of the 54
daily eight-hour shifts to be more than $150,000 per month. A spokesman
for the Glenside hospital confirmed two guards were allocated for each
detainee. "That's 18 guards on three eight-hour shifts, making a
total of 54 guards on a daily basis," he said. The increase in
numbers of detainees needing mental health treatment has occurred
subsequent to the Cornelia Rau case where an Australian resident
suffering psychosis was wrongly detained in Baxter until her real
identity was discovered in February this year. Health officials have
confirmed that in the year prior to the Rau case only one person had
been referred to Glenside, but now nine people were in treatment.
Glenside hospital officials are still waiting for a response from the
Commonwealth on the presence of the Group 4 guards. Meanwhile, the legal
team assisting the Rau family's submission into the Palmer inquiry has
questioned the timing of an internal Baxter memo about the identity of a
detainee. A story in the Sunday Mail of November 21, 2004, described a
missing woman as 168cm tall, 58kg, with dark blonde hair, brown eyes and
a brown mole on her left cheek. It subsequently turned out to be
Cornelia Rau. It's since been revealed that an internal memo dated
November 24 raised the possibility a detainee was an Australian citizen.
Legal representatives for the Rau family will ask the Palmer Inquiry to
check if the memo was sparked by the article in the Sunday Mail.
February 9,
2005 The Age
The detention centre where mentally ill Australian Cornelia Rau was
wrongly held was not visited by a psychiatrist for at least three months
last year, documents filed in Adelaide's Federal Court suggest. South
Australian Legal Services Commission lawyer Claire O'Connor claimed in
documents that Group 4 Falck, the company that runs Australia's
detention centres, and the Department of Immigration had breached their
duty of care by failing to provide adequate psychiatric care for three
mentally ill Iranian men at the Baxter detention centre. Outside the
court, she said there were parallels with the Rau case. "Cornelia
was sick and wasn't treated, my clients are sick and they are not being
treated," Ms O'Connor said. "She is no different to people in
there." In documents supporting her attempt to get urgent
psychiatric treatment for the men, Ms O'Connor said the centre's suicide
and self-harm unit did not employ a psychiatrist. "It is believed
there has been no psychiatric visit . . . since about August 2004 and
certainly none since November 2004," she said in an affidavit. Ms
O'Connor said the problem of the lack of psychiatric care at Baxter was
compounded by the fact that the centre itself was contributing to the
poor mental health of detainees. She said psychiatrists visited Baxter
infrequently and were forced to deal with a series of seriously ill
people in a short time. "All they can do is medicate them, they
just keep renewing the prescriptions," she said.
February
7, 2005 The Age
Only a full judicial and
public inquiry would be sufficient to establish the facts about the
detention of a mentally ill Australian woman, her sister said today.
Cornelia Rau, a 39-year-old former flight attendant who was released
from Baxter immigration detention centre last week after spending 10
months locked up, has caused a national debate over services for the
mentally ill. Her sister, Christine Rau, said an inquiry independent of
the government and open to public scrutiny was necessary to get to the
bottom of the case. Adelaide public defender John Harley, who represents
mentally ill people, said he had grave concerns for the fate of other
people suffering mental health problems imprisoned by the immigration
system. "This is not isolated at all," Mr Harley told ABC
radio. "I was informed that (Ms Rau) was in solitary confinement
and that involves her being under lights 24 hours a day (with) closed
circuit television. "She was allowed out of her room six hours a
day, but in some occasions it required four men in riot gear to remove
her back into her cell," he said.
February
7, 2005 Herald Sun
THE Federal Government will
hold an inquiry into the detention of a mentally ill Australian women at
the Baxter centre for illegal immigrants. Prime Minister John Howard
yesterday said it was regrettable Cornelia Rau was held in custody for
three months in Baxter and before that six months in a Brisbane jail.
"Obviously it's . . . a very regrettable incident," Mr Howard
said. Ms Rau, a 39-year-old former Qantas flight attendant, was released
from Baxter in South Australia on Friday. Australian
Democrats leader Lyn Allison said the Government should not be trusted
to investigate its own actions. "It is bad enough that Ms Rau was
being held in an immigration detention centre," Senator Allison
said. "But why did she spend six months in a women's prison before
that? Senator
Allison said state and federal governments had allowed prisons and
detention centres to become "the new psychiatric asylums".
February 5,
2005 The Age
A family snapshot of Cornelia Rau, detained as a suspected illegal
immigrant. A mentally ill Australian woman found by Aborigines in a
remote Cape York township has been mistakenly held in immigration
detention for nearly a year while her distressed family thought she was
dead. Cornelia Rau, 39, who suffers from schizophrenia, was last seen in
March after she escaped from the psychiatric unit of Sydney's Manly
Hospital. The Immigration Department confirmed last night that Ms Rau,
who was speaking German and some English, had been held in a Queensland
women's prison until September when she was transferred to Baxter
detention centre. Ms Rau's sister, Chris Rau, a Sydney journalist, read
an article from The Age last Monday about a mystery German-speaking
woman held at Baxter, known only as "Anna". Baxter authorities
faxed her a photograph, which showed her missing sister. "We're
just relieved that she is alive," Chris Rau said. They were also
bewildered why the department could not establish her identity when
police had her details. Ms Rau was first taken into detention in April.
She had been staying near an Aboriginal camp at Coen, in far north
Queensland. The Aborigines became concerned that she was sick and
brought her into Cairns police. A spokesman for Immigration Minister
Amanda Vanstone said the woman was handed over to the Department of
Immigration by police in April 2004. She was held in a Queensland
women's prison until September when she was transferred to Baxter. Greens
senator Kerry Nettle last night called for an inquiry into "this
staggering case of mismanagement and abuse". During her three
months in Baxter, Ms Rau was kept in isolation for a week, then in a
high- security unit locked in a room on her own for 18 hours a day,
refugee advocate Pamela Curr said. She said her sister had "been
through hell". "We don't know what the implications are going
to be for her future condition or her treatment."
December
13, 2004 The Age
The immigration department today
accused refugee advocates of inciting incidents within the Baxter
detention centre by exaggerating reports of a detainee hunger strike.
Refugee support group Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR) today said 27
Iranians within the South Australian centre were participating in the
hunger strike, now into its second week. Among those were five men who
had sewn their lips together and three who were staging a protest on the
centre's gymnasium roof, RAR spokeswoman Kathy Verran said. She said
those on the roof had been denied water since last night, after guards
stopped other detainees bringing water to the men. Ms Verran said
detainees had also reported the guards were bouncing balls against the
ceiling of the gym, underneath the detainees, to prevent them from
sleeping.
December
3, 2004 The Age
Four Sri Lankan men have been
hospitalised after refusing food for up to 10 days in a hunger strike at
South Australia's Baxter detention centre. Two of the men had also been
admitted overnight earlier this week, she said.
December
1, 2004 The Age
Eleven Sri Lankan men at the Baxter detention centre have stepped up
their hunger strike and are now refusing medication, a refugee advocate
said today. The detainees were determined to continue their hunger
strike until death, in a last bid to be granted refugee status in
Australia, according to Rural Australians for Refugees spokeswoman Mira
Wroblewski. Ms Wroblewski said other hunger strikers were angry that the
pair, after their release, had been forced to walk from the detention
centre medical facility to their compounds in pouring rain. "It
(forcing them to walk in the rain) has just strengthened their resolve.
September
20, 2004 The Age
A hunger strike, a High Court action and a direct appeal to Immigration
Minister Amanda Vanstone are among last-ditch efforts to stop the forced
return of asylum seekers to Sri Lanka. The man on hunger strike, who is
34 and was detained after his visa expired, was put into Baxter's
management unit on Thursday and forcibly fed. He resumed his hunger
strike on Saturday, Ms Wroblewski said. Eleven other Sri Lankans held at
Baxter yesterday entered the fifth day of a peaceful sit-in at the
compound.
August 20, 2004 The Age
A food sample from South Australia's Baxter detention centre will be
presented to health authorities for inspection after detainees
complained they had been served a meal crawling with maggots. The
Immigration Department last week said one maggot had been found in food
and an investigation was under way. South Australian Greens MP Kris
Hanna said he would today present a sample of meat and rice to the state
Environmental Health Department for examination. Mr Hanna said the food
sample was smuggled out of Baxter following frustration among detainees
about the situation. "According to reports in the centre, the food
was crawling with live maggots," Mr Hanna said. Detainees at the
Baxter centre last week upturned rubbish bins in protest after
complaining about maggots in their food.
November
1, 2004 BBC
An investigation is being carried out at a Warwickshire prison after two
inmates finished a rooftop protest. The men came down from the roof of a
shed at Rye Hill prison near Rugby at just after 9.30pm on Saturday
evening.
It is not clear what the demonstration at the jail, which is run
by Global Solutions Ltd, was about.
Inmates
of Baxter immigration detention centre took control of a compound
yesterday morning and barricaded themselves in. About 50 guards in riot
gear surrounded the compound and forced open the door.
A
spokesman for the Immigration Department confirmed that there had been a
disturbance at Baxter. (The Age, March 18, 2004)
Bicester Detention Center, Oxford, UK
June 11, 2008 Mail on Sunday
The Home Office squandered £29million of taxpayers' money on a flagship giant
asylum centre which was never built - including hiring in a 'financial advisor'
who charged almost £16,000 a month. A scathing report from MPs exposes a
catalogue of costly blunders and lambasts the failing department for a
'startling absence of common sense' in one of its most embarrassing fiascos of
recent years. Seven years after officials started working on the ambitious plans
to house thousands of asylum seekers on a former RAF station at Bicester,
Oxfordshire, the site remains empty and derelict with 'no benefit' to the
taxpayer. Vast sums were paid to consultants, private advisors and contractors
and when ministers pulled the plug on the entire project in 2005 they were
forced to hand over millions more in cancellation fees. Officials failed to
understand how fierce local opposition and legal challenges would drag out the
process, and made no attempt to plan for future uses of the site or the risk
that other immigration policy changes would scupper the scheme. Last night the
Home Office claimed the disaster had led to an 'overall positive impact for the
public' because officials had learned important lessons. Former Home Secretary
David Blunkett announced the scheme in 2001, as part of a strategy to speed up
and streamline the creaking asylum system by housing applicants in a series of
huge accommodation centres across the country. Thousands were to be placed in
the first centre at an isolated site outside Bicester, but crucially it would
not be secure and the immigrants would be free to come and go as they pleased.
The plans brought a storm of protests, not only from local residents but also
from refugee support groups who claimed leaving so many asylum seekers to
languish at a remote site, far from any local community, was a disastrous plan.
Planning inspectors rejected the plans, but John Prescott used his powers to
overturn their decision, further infuriating locals. Finally ministers realised
in 2005 that the centre was unnecessary and unworkable, but not before almost
£30million of public money had been wasted. The PAC report reveals how the Home
Office hired a Financial advisor at a cost of £15,743 per month, and a
procurement advisor who was paid £15,559 per month, because no civil servants
were judged to have the right expertise. The pair, who have not been named, were
paid more than £1.1million for less than three years work, on top of £6.3million
paid out to consultants. MPs complained that the Home Office was unable to show
whether the highly paid consultants 'added value'. Private contractors Global
Solutions Limited were paid £7.6 for design work, but claimed almost £8million
in termination fees when the Bicester scheme was axed. PAC chairman Edward Leigh
said the project 'embodied lack of foresight, poor business planning and a
startling absence of common sense.' He said the scheme was 'always going to
provoke opposition in the local community' but the Home Office took no account
of that, or of objections from refugee groups, and made no effort to make
contact with local interest groups or MPs to discuss objections. Nor did the
department realise - until it was too late - that a decline in the number of
asylum seekers and some success in speeding up the system meant the centre was
increasingly pointless. Last month the Home Office announced plans to build a
secure immigration detention centre on the Bicester site, although it will not
be open until 2012 at the earliest and will require planning permission. Shadow
Immigration Minister, Damian Green, attacked the Bicester debacle as 'a symptom
of long-term incompetence by immigration ministers, who failed to notice that
asylum numbers were dropping just when they were planning this new centre.
'Their latest plan is to turn the derelict site into a detention centre. I hope
they have done their homework better this time.' A Home Office spokesperson
said: 'At the time, we believed accommodation centres to be the right decision
but as circumstances changed and the project was delayed, we reviewed that
decision. 'Our experience with this project has taught us some important
lessons, and this, along with the other improvements put in place, has led to an
overall positive impact for the public.'
November 8, 2007 The Guardian
A Home Office decision to abandon plans for an asylum accommodation
centre near Oxford because of local opposition cost it £28m, including
"termination payments" of £7.9m to the private contractor, Whitehall's
spending watchdog reveals today. The National Audit Office says that
some of the problems faced in trying to open Bicester accommodation
centre could have been foreseen - and money saved - if the Home Office
had worked in a "more coordinated and joined-up way". The report also
discloses that despite a four-year battle by local residents against the
project, it is still being considered whether the site can be used as a
detention centre for failed asylum seekers who face deportation. The
plan to set up a 10-strong network of purpose-built accommodation
centres holding 3,000 asylum seekers was announced by the then home
secretary, David Blunkett, at a time when asylum applications were at a
record high, as part of a plan to disperse them from London and the
south-east of England. Bicester was earmarked as one of the first but it
met fierce local opposition and planning permission was not secured
until November 2004. By then, the number of asylum seekers coming to
Britain had halved. The Home Office accounting officer advised that it
was no longer economically viable and the project was cancelled in June
2005. The NAO inquiry found that £33m had been spent in total on the
accommodation centres, including £28m on Bicester alone. The report
reveals that the successful bid by GSL, formerly Group 4, for the
contract to build the 750-bed centre for £59.9m was nearly £25m cheaper
than the bid from rival private security company UKDS. After the project
was cancelled GSL was handed "termination payments" of £7.9m. It had
already been paid £7.6m for design work. Edward Leigh, the chairman of
the Commons public accounts committee, said that £28m had been spent on
"the asylum centre that never was". Mr Leigh said: "The Home Office
drove ahead with a project to build a network of asylum accommodation
centres without an eye on what was happening to the numbers of those
seeking asylum in the UK.
Brook House, Sussex, UK
June 13, 2009 BBC
A fire was started and "disorder" broke out at a wing of an immigration removal
centre near Gatwick Airport, Sussex police said. Officers said there were
reports of minor damage and a blaze in the exercise yard at Brook House, which
houses 312 people awaiting deportation. No-one is believed to be hurt and the
fire is said to have burnt itself out. The force said "disorder" involving 30
detainees started at about 2250 BST and was confined to one wing. Officers were
called in to support security firm G4S. 'No risk' -- G4S, with the help of HM
Prison Service, currently manages the welfare of detainees inside the centre,
the police said. Ch Insp Ed Henriet, of Gatwick Police, said: "Sussex Police is
supporting the security arrangements. All detainees are accounted for and there
is no risk to the wider community." A second fire, that was unrelated to the
first, according to a spokesperson for G4S, was also started by "one of the
detainees setting fire to his bedding" on Saturday afternoon. It was
extinguished using sprinklers and fire extinguishers. The spokesperson added
that a detainee who assisted in putting out the fire was "slightly injured" and
the fire had delayed some detainees being fed. The then Home Secretary Jacqui
Smith opened Brook House, which can house up to 426 people, in March. It is
situated next to Tinsley House, a 136-bed detention centre.
Border Patrol
(US)
October 24, 2009 San Diego Union-Tribune
A contract worker for U.S. Customs and Border Protection was sentenced to 18
months in prison yesterday for trying to release an illegal immigrant from
custody in exchange for money. Christopher Saint-Lucero, who had earlier pleaded
guilty to a charge of transporting illegal immigrants for financial gain, was
sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller. Saint-Lucero worked as a
sergeant for Wackenhut Corp., which contracts with the agency to transport
illegal immigrants to Mexico after they are captured. He worked at the Border
Patrol station in Chula Vista. Prosecutors said that on June 1, 2008,
Saint-Lucero tried to release an illegal immigrant who was in agency custody in
exchange for $2,500 in cash.
June 4, 2008 San Diego Union-Tribune
Two Border Patrol contract workers were arrested on suspicion of conspiring
to shuttle illegal immigrants from San Diego to Los Angeles for $2,500 apiece
instead of returning them to Mexico. Christopher Saint Lucero and Manley Lamont
Smith work for Wackenhut Corp., which holds a Border Patrol contract to escort
illegal immigrants to Mexico after they are captured by agents in California,
Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. According to court documents, Saint Lucero told a
colleague that he had been involved in about 10 smuggling attempts. The men were
arrested Sunday after Saint Lucero allegedly escorted a group of illegal
immigrants from the Border Patrol's Chula Vista station to the border in
Tijuana. According to a statement of probable cause, Mexican authorities refused
to admit two who identified themselves as Salvadorans. One was an undercover
agent. Authorities say Saint Lucero then brokered the deal to get the two men to
Los Angeles. Smith allegedly met them at the Border Patrol station in his
Wackenhut jeep and offered to hide them. Saint Lucero and Smith were expected to
make an initial court appearance today, said Debra Hartman, a spokeswoman for
the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego. The charge against them, conspiracy to
transport illegal immigrants, is a felony.
June 3, 2008 AP
A Border Patrol contractor says 2 of its employees have been arrested for
investigation of releasing illegal immigrants from federal custody. Wackenhut
Corp. says the employees were arrested Sunday in the San Diego area and are in
jail facing felony charges. For about two years, Wackenhut has held a contract
to return illegal immigrants to Mexico after they are captured by Border Patrol
agents. A senior vice president, Marc Shapiro, told The Associated Press Tuesday
that this is the first time Wackenhut employees have been arrested for allegedly
releasing immigrants. He said his company has returned more 1 million illegal
immigrants to Mexico. Shapiro declined to name the suspects. A Border Patrol
spokesman had no immediate comment.
Broward County, Florida
November 13, 2008 Miami Herald
The Wackenhut Corp. overbilled Broward County thousands of dollars for
airport security guards, and collected hefty payments for unauthorized overtime
work by library guards, according to a county auditor's report. But those
irregularities could be just the tip of the county's problems with the Palm
Beach Gardens-based security company. County Auditor Evan Lukic also found poor
spending controls at nine county agencies that paid Wackenhut $5.8 million last
year. The County Commission will discuss the report Thursday, as Lukic vowed a
more in-depth look at the billings. 'If we'd found little chance of risk we'd
say, `Case closed,' '' he said. ``This has opened the door to look some more.''
A spokesman for Wackenhut downplayed the auditor's findings, noting that the
amount in question totals less than one percent of the money the company was
paid last year. ''We are pleased and proud of not only our long-term
relationship with Broward County, but also of the high degree of safety and
security we provide to the residents,'' Bruce Rubin said. Rubin said Wackenhut
has worked closely with the county ``to ensure compliance and improve
processes.'' County Administrator Bertha Henry reviewed the report and told
commissioners she agreed with its findings, and had begun implementing fixes.
Broward launched its audit last spring following reports in The Miami Herald
about problems in a Miami-Dade contract involving the company. There, the county
reported that Wackenhut overbilled as much as $6 million over three years for
phantom security guards at county transit stations. Miami-Dade auditor Cathy
Jackson said the company relied on inaccurate and falsified records to try and
cover up the billing. ACCUSATIONS DENIED -- Wackenhut denied the accusations and
supplied the county with paperwork seeking to refute them. Miami-Dade has not
yet responded, and the company continues to supply guards for Metrorail under a
contract that runs through November 2009. Broward signed a three-year security
contract, including two one-year renewal options, with Wackenhut in June 2005.
In the first three years, the firm was paid $14.9 million. Lukic's audit found
that most county agencies doing business with Wackenhut failed to review and
validate daily entries on security logs that documented hours worked by guards.
Also, they didn't compare the hours Wackenhut billed with the hours reported on
the security logs. Likewise, little checking was done to ensure that some highly
qualified guards Wackenhut billed the county for actually carried those special
qualifications. AVIATION DEPARTMENT -- The one department that did check:
Broward County Aviation, where officials said Wackenhut overbilled nearly
$19,000. Those overcharges were recovered last year, the audit said. In
contrast, the report said, the library division paid Wackenhut overtime for 14
branch guards even though OT wasn't properly pre-authorized or substantiated by
payroll records. In one week alone in September 2007, the auditor found 233
hours of unauthorized overtime costing $1,655.
November 11, 2008 South Florida Business Journal
Broward County auditors are raising red flags over how county agencies kept tabs
on nearly $6 million in billings by Wackenhut Corp. for security services last
year. In a report to be presented to county commissioners on Wednesday, county
auditors noted several problems with the way Wackenhut invoices have been
processed. Specifically, the report noted that county personnel were not
reviewing and validating daily entries on security logs that document hours
worked by guards. The audit also found that there was no evidence that hours
billed were hours actually worked. County Auditor Evan A. Lukic said the
decision to review the county’s oversight of Wackenhut grew out of news reports
earlier this year that alleged the Palm Beach Gardens-based security company was
overbilling Miami-Dade County for services that were not performed. “We were
concerned about the allegations we heard and whether we were possibly
experiencing the same thing here,” he said. “We wanted to look at it from how
are we controlling the contract and administering it.” At this point in the
auditing process, Lukic said, there was no evidence Wackenhut engaged in any
wrongdoing. However, based on the audit’s findings Lukic said his department
will take a closer look at payments to “make sure that guards who we are paying
for are present.” In June 2005, Broward County entered into a three-year
agreement with Wackenhut to provide security services. Payments for fiscal years
2005, 2006 and 2007 totaled more than $14.8 million. In fiscal 2007, Broward
County’s Aviation Department topped the list with $2.1 million in security
services billings by Wackenhut. The county’s facilities maintenance division
paid out $1.66 million to Wackenhut, and the county’s library division was
billed nearly $633,000. The report found that during a one-week period, the
libraries division paid 233 hours of overtime for security guards and found no
evidence that Wackenhut provided the required written notification and payroll
documentation to substantiate the overtime payments. When queried by the South
Florida Business Journal about the auditor's findings, Wackenhut issued the
following statement: "We've worked closely with facilities management through
the audit department to insure compliance and to improve our processes."
Questions also have been raised about matching guard qualifications to pay
rates. In some instances, the audit raised concerns about guards with lesser
qualifications billing at a higher rate, resulting in overcharges. In an Aug. 22
letter, Broward’s director of the facilities maintenance division advised
Wackenhut President Drew Levine that he would now require the company to provide
documentation that links guards’ qualifications with their job classifications.
In the meantime, Lukic is asking the Broward County Commission to direct the
county administrator to come up with procedures to ensure that billings are
validated, that the guards’ qualifications match their job descriptions and that
overtime charges are substantiated. In May, a Miami-Dade County audit found that
Wackenhut overbilled the county by as much as $6 million over three years for
services it did not provide to Miami-Dade Transit, and then falsified records to
cover up the over charges. In its response to that audit, which Wackenhut
published on its Web site, the company said it has cooperated with the county’s
investigation, but “continues to question the audit methodology.” Wackenhut said
a lawsuit by a former guard, who accused the company of padding its bills, has
caused the increased scrutiny. “It is Wackenhut’s belief that county entities …
have been placed under undue pressure and influence by unsubstantiated
allegations in this ongoing disputed litigation,” it stated. Miami-Dade
continues to review Wackenhut’s response to determine what actions should be
taken, county spokeswoman Suzy Trutie said.
Campsfield
Immigration Removal Centre,
Oxford, England
July 22, 2006 The Independent
A Kurdish teenager killed himself after spending more than four months in an
immigration detention centre, an inquest has heard. Ramazan Kumluca, 18, is the
youngest asylum-seeker to have committed suicide while facing deportation from
Britain. Campaign groups yesterday called for the closure of all detention
centres, comparing them to Victorian workhouses. Mr Kumluca is one of more than
30 asylum-seekers who have killed themselves in the past five years after being
told their applications had failed. He had travelled from his home in Turkey to
Italy and then on to Britain where he claimed asylum last year, saying that his
life was in danger over a £20,000 debt owed by his father. He also claimed that
if he was sent back to Italy (under rules that asylum must be claimed in the
first safe country reached) he was at risk of exploitation. Mr Kumluca was
refused asylum and denied bail because there were fears he would not report back
for deportation. He was sent to Campsfield House in Oxfordshire, an immigration
removal centre that holds around 100 men at any time. The average stay for
detainees at the centre is 14 days, but because the teenager was fighting his
deportation order he was held for four and a half months. An inquest at Oxford
Old Assizes heard he had been plunged into despair during his incarceration and
had complained of insomnia, headaches and anxiety. A fellow inmate, Abdulwase
Kamali, told the court Mr Kumluca had appeared "sad" the day before he killed
himself. He said: "Ramazan said he had been told by immigration he would be sent
back to Italy, and he said if he was sent back to Italy he would be used in sex
films. He said he would slash himself or hang himself." On 27 June last year, Mr
Kamali and other Muslim detainees alerted warders after calling Mr Kumluca for
morning prayers and finding his door would not open. He was found hanging from
the door closing mechanism. After investigating his death, a Prison and
Probation ombudsman cleared staff of any wrongdoing. The jury returned a verdict
of suicide. Outside the court, Bob Hughes, of the pressure group Campaign to
Close Campsfield, said: "Here we have an institution full of people being driven
deliberately to despair by government policy." "He added: "We believe these
people should be allowed to get on with their own lives. Centres like Campsfield
are a huge national scandal and shame. Campsfield House has been a removal
centre since 1993 and is privately run by the company Global Solutions Limited.
In 2002, the then Home Secretary David Blunkett pledged that the centre would be
closed, but a year later it was decided to keep it open and expand the number of
places. Since 2000, at least 25 asylum-seekers have killed themselves while
living in the community after being told they would be deported. Mr Kumluca was
the seventh to have committed suicide in a detention centre. More than 2,600
adults and children are being held in detention centres prior to deportation. In
January this year another asylum-seeker Bereket Yohannes, from Eritrea, was
found hanging at Harmondsworth Removal Centre. An inquest will be held into his
death.
June 17, 2006 Indy Media
On Monday 12th of this week a Somalian man went onto a roof at Campsfield;
he had been detained for four months (probably illegally, since the government
cannot deport people to Somalia) and took a rope and a plastic bag with him.
GEO, the new management at Campsfield, asked the police to leave and said they
would deal with the matter themselves; we do not know whether they used violence
against the Somalian detainee; he has been removed from Campsfield, no doubt to
somewhere even worse as is usual in these cases. There have been 12 suicides in
immigration detention, and several hundred attempted suicides and cases of self
harm requiring medical treatment. GSL lost the contract to run Campsfield to GEO
(Global Expertise on Outsourcing), presumably on cost grounds. GEO took over at
the beginning of the month. They have changed their name from Wackenhut, and
have a discreditable history of running penal institutions in the USA and
Australia. GSL's manager, Andy Clark, who had been more willing than his
predecessors to allow volunteers and education classes in Campsfield, decided he
could not work with GEO; at least two of the people who ran education classes
and workshops have been sacked or left, and GEO apparently intends to provide
much reduced hours of education (as required under the contract), run by its own
officers. But of course the most serious problem is not the conditions inside
the centre, but the fact that people are detained there who have committed no
crime, been charged or suspected of no crime, with no judicial process and no
time limit, often with no access to lawyers, and always with great uncertainty
about what is happening to them or about to happen to them.
May 23, 2001
The global private security firm Group 4, is an "Investor in
People." This may come as a surprise. For since Campsfield
opened, almost unnoticed, in the bleary period just before Christmas in 1993,
this improvised brick compound has become to many the unacceptable face of the
British government's asylum system. Within weeks, the country's first
specialized facility for confining them while their cases were decided was
provoking hunger strikes. Within months, detainees were climbing on to its
roofs to protest at the conditions. Still in its first year of operation,
there was a mass escape over its 20ft perimeter fence, and a
"disturbance" - involving fires and smashed furniture - which resulted
in the deployment of riot police and injuries to detainees, who needed several
ambulances and hospital treatment. Official reports on Campsfield in 1995
and 1998 by two different chief inspectors of prisons found fear, boredom and
stress among inmates. Among the Group 4 staff, the inspections found
inexperience, poor pay and exhausting shift work. This cycle of protest
and disorder and repressive countermeasures continued unabated during the late
1990s. (Guardian Newspapers)
May 14, 2002
As many as 15 asylum seeker accomadation centres could be built across the UK
despite an angry response from residents in the locations chosen for the three
pilot "villages". The government plans to build the centres at
Throckmorton, near Pershore on Worcestershire, RAF Newton, in Nottinghamshire,
and at Bicester, Oxfordshire. More than 3,000 villagers have signed a
petition objecting to a development in their area. Some local people are
anxious about plans to house large numbers of asylum seekers near them,
particularly following the riot and fire which destroyed the $100m Yari's Wood
centre. Steve Mitchell, chairman of Pinvin Parish Council, promised to
fight the plans "every step of the way". (BBC News)
Chrysler Plant, Newark Delaware
September 14, 2009 Newark Post
Newark Police report they were notified by Wackenhut Security officers at the
Chrysler Assembly Plant that a University of Delaware student spent the night at
one of the buildings in the closed plant in an attempt to find the way back to
her dorm. The student told the officers that she had been at a party last
Thursday and had gotten lost trying to find her room. She spotted the train
tracks and followed them, hoping to find a station and call for help. The tracks
led her to the Chrysler Plant, where she entered one of the buildings and called
the security desk. One of the security officers, thinking the call was a joke,
stated that and hung up on the student.
Cook Nuclear Plant, Bridgman,
Michigan
April 15, 2009 WSJM AM
The Cook Nuclear Plant is shaking up its security force. The Plant is
ending its contract with Florida-based Wackenhut Corporation and instead
offering all security officers jobs with Indiana Michigan Power. 162
existing contracts employees will transition into members of the
American Electric Power security team. Cook Senior Vice President Joe
Jensen says joining the American Electric Power team will help the
plant's security be more effective. The plan is expected to give more
control over integrated operations and costs and give more benefits to
security employees.
Coquelles Detention Centre, Coquelles, France
April 6, 2006 Gulf Daily News
Holding cells used by British immigration officials at a French freight
terminal were so crowded and filthy that staff called them "the dog
kennels," a prison watchdog said yesterday. Chief Inspector of Prisons
Anne Owers also said staff were unsure whether they could stop a
detainee from fighting, trying to escape, or committing suicide because
they did not know whether English or French law applied. Her report
concerned the centres at Calais seaport and the Channel tunnel freight
and tourist terminals at Coquelles, which were set up on French soil
under an international treaty to hold detainees seeking entry to
Britain. Accommodation at Coquelles freight terminal was described by
staff as the "dog kennels," Owers said. The six 13 feet by 10 feet cells
at Coquelles freight terminal featured hole-in-the-ground toilets and on
busy days one cell could be used to hold six people. Furnishing,
ventilation and heating were all inadequate, her report added. Records
suggested average detention time was seven and a half hours, with the
maximum nearly 12 hours. The chief inspector made 49 recommendations for
improvement, including one that an independent monitoring board should
have regular access. Figures for May to July last year showed 661
detainees had been through Calais Seaport detention centre, 11 of whom
were children. The average period of detention was four hours, although
the longest was 17. In all, 17 per cent were given permission to enter
Britain. At the third centre at Coquelles tourist terminal, average
detention time was three hours but the maximum recorded was nearly 16
hours. None of the facilities, run by private firm Group 4 Securicor,
could appropriately separate men, women and children. The chief
inspector also published a report on detention facilities at Heathrow
airport, including the Queen's Building, which handles the greatest
number of forced removals from Britain. People could be detained there
for up to 36 hours, the report said. Owers complimented the staff's
approach to welfare of detainees but called the system inhumane. "Some
of those we observed in detention had been dealt with as though they
were parcels, not people, and parcels whose contents and destination
were sometimes incorrect," Owers said.
Cree Incorporated,
Durham, North Carolina
October 19, 2005 News
Observer
An early-morning immigration sweep at Cree Inc. resulted in the arrest
of 36 undocumented workers Tuesday. Most of the people arrested were
employed by a contractor to Cree, which makes semiconductors. The bust
was the first at a high-tech company since U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement began focusing on facilities that the government considers
strategic or sensitive. All but 10 of those arrested were employed by a
maintenance and cafeteria services subcontractor, GCA Services Group of
West Conshohocken, Pa. Also, in early February, ICE arrested a Kenyan
man working at Cree as a security guard. He was employed by Wackenhut,
another Cree contractor.
Cypress
Creek Juvenile Detention Center,
Lecanto, Florida
January 4, 2007 St Petersburg Times
A helicopter hovered above. Canine officers tracked through the
woods. Checkpoints were in place. And dozens of sheriff's deputies
swarmed the area near the Cypress Creek juvenile detention facility.
Wednesday afternoon, the word was out: Two teenage inmates escaped from
the maximum-security prison. Except they didn't. After an hour and a
half of searching, the two missing inmates were found hiding - in the
detention facility's compound. Kendall Wayne Wilbanks, 15, of Leesburg
and Gavin Alexander Eskdale, 17, of Kathleen in Polk County, picked a
lock to gain access to the roof area of the woodworking shop, a separate
building from the main facility inside the security fence. The inmates
were in the shop for an 11 a.m. class. But they were missing when the
class ended and a head count took place at 12:06 p.m., the Citrus County
Sheriff's Office said. A massive manhunt began, but deputies soon turned
their attention back inside the facility after a check of the perimeter
showed no breach of the fence.
August 21, 2006 Miami Herald
Just after 4 a.m. on Oct. 13, youth-camp guard Josephus Johnson heard a
''gurgling'' sound coming from a dorm room. He found 17-year-old Willie
Durden cold, limp and without a pulse. Twenty minutes and two exams
later, an officer at the Cypress Creek Juvenile Offender Correctional
Center finally started CPR. Why the wait? ''Some of these kids will play
pranks,'' Johnson told an investigator with the state Department of
Juvenile Justice, according to records provided to The Miami Herald this
week. The inspector ``asked Johnson how someone could get his or her
heart to stop beating to accomplish such a prank.'' Durden, a
Jacksonville teen described as a ''model inmate'' who dreamed of being a
youth counselor himself, was pronounced dead on arrival at Citrus
Memorial Hospital at 5:10 a.m. He was to receive a football scholarship
to a Christian school in Jacksonville following his release. He became
the sixth Florida child to die in DJJ custody since 2000. Two other
children have died since then, including Martin Lee Anderson, who died
Jan. 6 at a Bay County boot camp. Durden is among several youths who
died after guards or nurses dismissed their condition as the false cries
of a faker or malingerer -- and the cases raise serious questions about
the quality of care children in state custody receive. "This is another
tragic example of the state's inability to guarantee the health and
safety of children in its care,'' said Roy Miller, who heads the
Children's Campaign, a Tallahassee-based advocacy group. ``Parents and
judges and law enforcement people need to ask the tough question: Are
children in state custody safe? ''These are not isolated incidents. They
are recurring, and it's shameful,'' Miller added. Asked Nancy Hamilton,
who oversees a St. Petersburg drug treatment program and is president of
the state Juvenile Justice Association: ``How do you hire for common
sense? This is a key issue . . . Would you wait 20 minutes if this were
your child? Or would you be on your phone?'' The head of Cypress Creek,
Joseph Hasselbach, declined to discuss the case, citing a DJJ
requirement that agencies that contract with the state government not
speak to reporters.
March 17, 2006 Florida Times-Union
It took five months for the state to release the autopsy report
Thursday for a Jacksonville teen who died in juvenile facility, drawing
concern from some lawmakers especially after another boy's taped beating
death in January. According to the autopsy, Willie Durden, who died Oct.
13 at the Cypress Creek Juvenile Offender Corrections Center in Citrus
County, had an enlarged heart. But the report took several months to
surface even after blood tests came back negative for drugs. Durden, 17,
was the third young black male in three years to die in a state
detention center. The Legislature's black caucus has been waiting for
Durden's report since before Panama City teen Martin Lee Anderson died
in January at a Panhandle boot camp where staff are accused of
contributing to his death. The report on Durden shows the autopsy exam
was performed the day of his death and toxicology results came back in
November, but only in the last few days has the report quietly appeared
on Northeast Florida lawmakers' desks.
Czech Republic
March 25, 2008 Ceskenoviny
Czech police arrested last week an accomplice of Frantisek Prochazka,
who is suspected of having stolen half a billion crowns in cash from a
security agency last December, Prague City State Attorney's Office
spokeswoman Stepanka Zenklova told today. "The detained person has been
put into custody and we will provide no more information so that not to
endanger further investigation," Zenklova said. She said the alleged
accomplice was in custody and faced charges of robbery in conspiracy. A
special police team is looking for Prochazka on whom an international
arrest warrant has been issued. The company afflicted is the G4S Cash
Services, a subsidiary of the supranational security agency Group 4
Securitas that specialises in transport of money. Prochazka worked as a
security guard there. The robbery took place on December 1, 2007, on
Saturday morning. According to the police, Prochazka and his accomplice
who was also employed with the G4S agency as a driver loaded the bags
with the cash Prochazka stole from the company's safe in a van
resembling an office vehicle that was used for transportation of money.
While the accomplice drove the vehicle away Prochazka remained at his
workplace. Police declined to say whether the driver was the person whom
they detained last week. According to central Bohemian police
spokeswoman Sona Budska, police today also detained three men from the
Pribram area who are suspected of robbing security agencies' armoured
vehicles. They face up to 12 years in prison for the combined theft of
more than 12 million crowns. According to available information, two of
the vehicles robbed by the suspected perpetrators belonged to G4S.
Budska told that she had no information on a possible connection between
the two cases of robbery.
December 10, 2007 Czech Happenings
The state attorney in charge of the case of Frantisek Prochazka,
former employee of G4S security agency, whom the police suspect of
stealing 560 million crowns from the agency, has proposed to issue an
international arrest warrant for him, Stepanka Zenklova from the Prague
State Attorney's Office told CTK today. "The state attorney has proposed
to issue a warrant for the arrest of Prochazka in the Czech Republic, a
European arrest warrant and a warrant for his arrest on the
international level," Zenklova said. The Prague 3 District Court will
now decide on issuing the warrants. So far, only a preliminary consent
for Prochazka's detention has been issued. However, after the police
officially accused him on Thursday the state attorney could propose
issuing the arrest warrants, Zenklova said. Previous information by some
media that a European arrest warrant for Prochazka has already been
issued has not thus been confirmed. Prochazka has been accused of theft.
He will face up to 12 years in prison if apprehended and found guilty.
The "theft of the century," probably unprecedented in Czech history,
occurred in the G4S agency's premises in Prague last Saturday.
Prochazka's car, driven by an unknown accomplice, arrived at the
complex, took the stolen sum from Prochazka and drove it away. Prochazka,
who worked in the agency as a guard and is armed, disappeared later and
he is still escaping from the police.
December 5, 2007 The Prague Post
Police are searching for a security agency employee who took a
record 560 million Kč ($31.2 million) from his company’s Prague 3 office
Dec. 1 in what officials are calling the “robbery of the century.”
According to Prague city police spokeswoman Iva Knolová, “Police would
welcome any information about the suspect, and have launched a statewide
search.” The man, 33-year-old František Procházka, an employee of
multinational security agency G4S Cash Services, has short brown hair,
is of medium height and may be carrying a weapon, according to Knolová.
While stealing the money, Procházka may have had an accomplice, the
Czech News Agency (ČTK) reported, citing a source close to the
investigation. “The suspect used an opportune moment to enter the
company’s safe room,” the source says. “He took the cash, put it in bags
and had it driven to an unknown place by his accomplice.” The
perpetrators used a company vehicle typically used to transport clients’
money to drive away with the stolen cash, giving them more time before
G4S staff was able to uncover the heist, the online news server
Aktualne.cz reported. The company, a subsidiary of international
security and cash transport agency Group 4 Securitas, is offering a 2
million euro reward to anyone who helps catch the perpetrators. The
stolen sum is equivalent to G4S’s annual turnover, according to a
statement of the company’s local branch. In an effort to map Procházka’s
route, police have asked the public to provide them with any information
about the getaway vehicle, a white Volkswagen utility vehicle with a
1L74973 license plate and a sticker with the company’s logo. “The
suspect used this vehicle and was driving it at the time the robbery
occurred,” Knolová says. The vehicle was found abandoned on Kandrtova
street in Prague 8 late on the evening of Dec. 2. “It’s possible that an
eyewitness noticed the suspect manipulating the vehicle in an abnormal
manner,” Knolová says. Police are also looking for information regarding
a gray metallic Volkswagen Passat with a 1L81115 license plate, which
the suspect may have used after disposing of the getaway car. If caught,
Procházka could face up to two years in prison, Knolová says.
Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC
July 8, 2009 Government Executive
The Federal Protective Service is failing to properly oversee its
13,000-strong contract guard force, causing grave security gaps at
federal buildings nationwide, Government Accountability Office officials
told senators on Wednesday. As part of a recent review, investigators
from the watchdog agency successfully entered 10 high-security federal
buildings carrying components for a bomb through doors being monitored
by contract guards. Once inside, the investigators assembled an
improvised explosive device and walked freely around the buildings and
into various legislative and executive branch offices with the IED in a
briefcase, GAO said in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee. Lawmakers called GAO's findings
disturbing, shocking and outrageous, and asked urgently and repeatedly
what they could do to help FPS gain control of the situation. "In this
post-9/11 world that we're now living in, I cannot fathom how security
breaches of this magnitude were allowed to occur," said Sen. Susan
Collins, R-Maine, ranking member of the committee. Chairman Sen. Joseph
Lieberman, I-Conn., said that in all his years of reading GAO reports,
this one represented "about the broadest indictment of an agency in the
federal government I've heard." Mark Goldstein, GAO's director of
physical infrastructure issues and author of the report, told lawmakers
the review revealed significant shortcomings in FPS' ability to monitor
and verify contract guard training and firearms certifications. In
reviewing 663 randomly selected guards, GAO found that 62 percent had at
least one expired certification. Goldstein said a lack of funding has
hindered the agency's ability to reach appropriate staffing levels and
provide the technological tools necessary to protect federal buildings.
But a number of the problems with the contract guard program are
unrelated to budgetary constraints, he said. "Not having national
standards and guidance for inspecting the guards, [and] better standards
for knowing when certifications have expired -- things like that, are
not resource-based," Goldstein said. "I think there has been a lack of
attention to this part of the protective requirements for federal
buildings." Lieberman said he and Collins are aware of management
problems at FPS and that is one reason why they have not pressed to
increase the agency's budget. "We didn't want to just throw more money
at the problem until we fix the agency," he said. FPS Director Gary
Schenkel did not dispute GAO's findings and said he takes full
responsibility for the failures as head of the agency. He assured the
committee that FPS officials have been making progress in addressing
deficiencies and are working even faster now that they are aware of
GAO's findings.
March 6, 2006 USA Today
The guards have taken their concerns to Congress, describing inadequate
training, failed security tests and slow or confused reactions to bomb
and biological threats. For instance, when an envelope with suspicious
powder was opened last fall at Homeland Security Department
headquarters, guards said they watched in amazement as superiors carried
it by the office of Secretary Michael Chertoff, took it outside and then
shook it outside Chertoff's window without evacuating people nearby. The
scare, caused by white powder that proved to be harmless, "stands as one
glaring example" of the agency's security problems, said Derrick
Daniels, one of the first guards to respond to the incident. "I had
never previously been given training ... describing how to respond to a
possible chemical attack," Daniels told The Associated Press. "I
wouldn't feel safe nowhere on this compound as an officer." Daniels was
employed until last fall by Wackenhut Services Inc., the private
security firm that guards Homeland's headquarters in a residential area
of Washington. The company has been criticized previously for its work
at nuclear facilities and transporting nuclear weapons. Homeland
Security officials say they have little control over Wackenhut's
training of guards but plan to improve that with a new contract. The
company defends its performance, saying the suspicious powder incident
was overblown because the mail had already been irradiated. Two senators
who fielded complaints from several Wackenhut employees are asking
Homeland's internal watchdog, the inspector general, to investigate. "If
the allegations brought forward by the whistle-blowers are correct, they
represent both a security threat and a waste of taxpayer dollars,"
Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Ron Wyden of Oregon
wrote. "It would be ironic, to say the least, if DHS were unable to
secure its own headquarters." Daniels left Wackenhut and now works
security for another company at another federal building. He is among 14
current and former Wackenhut employees — mostly guards — who were
interviewed by The Associated Press or submitted written statements to
Congress that were obtained by AP. A litany of problems were listed by
the guards, whose pay ranges from $15.60 to $23 an hour based on their
position and level of security clearance. Among their examples of lax
security: •They have no training in responding to attacks with weapons
of mass destruction; •Chemical-sniffing dogs have been replaced with
ineffective equipment that falsely indicates the presence of explosives.
•Vehicle entrances to Homeland Security's complex are lightly guarded;
•Guards with radios have trouble hearing each other, or have no radios,
no batons and no pepper spray, leaving them with few options beyond
lethal force with their handguns. Over the last two years, the Energy
Department inspector general concluded that Wackenhut guards had
thwarted simulated terrorist attacks at a nuclear lab only after they
were tipped off to the test; and that guards also had improperly handled
the transport of nuclear and conventional weapons. Homeland Security is
based at a gated, former Navy campus in a college neighborhood — several
miles from the heavily trafficked streets that house the FBI, Capitol,
Treasury Department and White House. Homeland Security spokesman Brian
Doyle said Wackenhut guards are still operating under a contract signed
with the Navy, and the agency has little control over their training. A
soon-to-be-implemented replacement contract will impose new requirements
on security guards, he said. Daniels, the former guard who responded to
the white powder incident, said the area where the powder was found
wasn't evacuated for more than an hour. Available biohazard face shields
went unused. Daniels said that after the envelope was taken outside, and
the order finally given to evacuate the potentially infected area,
employees had already gone to lunch and had to be rounded up and
quarantined. Former guard Bryan Adams recognized his inadequate training
one day last August, when an employee reported a suspicious bag in the
parking lot. "I didn't have a clue about what to do," he said. Adams
said he closed the vehicle checkpoint with a cone, walked over to the
bag and called superiors. Nobody cordoned off the area. Eventually,
someone called a federal bomb squad, which arrived more than an hour
after the discovery. "If the bag had, in fact, contained the explosive
device that was anticipated, the bomb could have detonated several times
over in the hour that the bag sat there," Adams said. The bag, it turned
out, contained gym clothes. Some guards who continue to work at
Homeland, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because of fear
of losing their jobs, said they knew of two instances in which
individuals without identification got into the sensitive complex.
Another described how guards flunked a test by the Secret Service, which
sent vehicles into the compound with dummy government identification
tags hanging from inside mirrors. Guards cleared such vehicles through
on two occasions, this guard said, and one officer even copied down the
false information without realizing it was supposed to match information
on the employee's government badge. Marixa Farrar, a former guard, said
two guards always should have been stationed inside the main building
where Chertoff had his office, but she often was on duty alone. One day
last fall a fire alarm rang. As employees walked by Farrar, they asked
if this was a fire or a test. "There were no radios, so I couldn't
figure out if it was a serious alarm," she said. There was no fire.
DuPont Laboratories, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
April 30, 2008 Philadelphia Daily News
A former postal employee serving a year's probation for stealing
bars of gold from an express-mail package was jailed yesterday for three
months for violating his probation. Edward Henderson, 22, of Dover
Street near W. York Street, ran afoul of the feds after he told his
probation officer he had been fired from his job as a security guard for
Wackenhut Security. Todd Schaffer, the probation officer, testified at a
hearing yesterday that Henderson found a SIM card for a cell phone in a
storage locker at DuPont Laboratories and used it for several months in
his own cell phone. A SIM card is a tiny data card that stores account
information. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joan Burnes said Henderson used the
SIM card between May and August 2007, ringing up charges of almost
$1,750 to call his girlfriend and family members. Henderson was charged
in Common Pleas Court last August with theft by unlawful taking and with
receiving stolen property. Those charges are still pending. A condition
of Henderson's probation was that he not commit any federal or state
crimes. U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Rice was not pleased. Last May,
Rice sentenced Henderson to a year's probation for stealing 15 bars of
.9999 fine gold from an express-mail package, valued by authorities at
about $11,850. Burnes said Rice had given Henderson an opportunity last
year to set himself straight but he blew it. Burnes asked that the judge
jail Henderson for three months. Henderson admitted he had "done a
foolish thing" but said he hadn't deliberately violated his probation.
Defense attorney Maranna Meehan said she thought three months in jail
was a "bit excessive." "I'm asking for a second opportunity for [him],"
she said, adding that Henderson was supporting his mother and his
3-year-old son. But this time, Rice was not so understanding. "I had
confidence in you, I gave you a chance," he told Henderson. "You made a
promise to me and you broke it." The judge was just getting warmed up.
"You just don't get it. I think you just thought you could get away with
it because you're wearing a uniform," Rice said, his voice rising a few
decibels. Rice also ordered Henderson to make restitution of $1,750 to
DuPont Labs. Rice ordered Henderson to be taken into custody
immediately.
El Cajon Boulevard, San Diego, California
April 3, 2007 Union-Tribune
A City Heights man accused of using his security guard badge to lure
victims and then rape them was sentenced yesterday to 12 years in
prison. Robert James Purdy, 42, pleaded guilty in San Diego Superior
Court to rape under color of authority and kidnapping charges involving
two teenage girls. He agreed to the 12-year prison term in February
under the terms of a plea bargain. Purdy was accused of a dozen felonies
corresponding to three attacks in September and November in Normal
Heights, Southcrest and North Park. Prosecutors said Purdy, a Wackenhut
security employee, got the girls into his car by showing his badge and
then demanded sex. He was arrested at his home on Nov. 9.
February 1, 2007 10 NEWS
A security guard who used his badge to lure young girls into his car
and then forced them to have sex pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts
of rape under the color of authority and one count of kidnapping. Under
the plea deal, Robert James Purdy, 42, will receive a 12-year prison
sentence. He must also register as a sex offender and has agreed to give
up all property seized by police, including his Ford Escort, according
to prosecutors. The defendant, who will be formally sentenced on April 2
by Judge Stephanie Sontag, would have faced more than 40 years behind
bars if convicted of a dozen felony charges, including sodomy and false
imprisonment by violence. Purdy, of City Heights, pleaded guilty to
raping two 15-year-old girls last Nov. 7 and Nov. 8. One of the victims
was moved from one location to another, according to the plea agreement.
Deputy District Attorney Evan Kirvin said Purdy was an employee of
Wackenhut Corp. when he used his badge to lure the victims into his car.
The victims were in an area known for prostitution when they were
victimized, but it was not established that either actually worked as
prostitutes, Kirvin said. Purdy was tracked down and arrested after an
officer recalled putting a citation on a vehicle that fit the
description given by one of the victims.
November 21, 2006 North County Times
A City Heights man accused of using his position as a security guard
to lure young girls into his car, where he allegedly forced them into
sex, pleaded not guilty today to 12 felony counts, including rape and
kidnapping. Deputy District Attorney Evan Kirvin said Robert James
Purdy, 41, is charged with raping two girls under the age of 16 on Nov.
7 and Nov. 8. Kirvin said there may be additional alleged victims, which
could lead to more charges. Anyone who thinks they may have been
victimized by Purdy should call San Diego police, the prosecutor said.
Judge David Szumowski set bail at $500,000 and scheduled a readiness
conference for Jan. 11. Purdy, a Wackenhut Corp. employee, allegedly
used his security guard's badge to persuade women and girls to get into
his car, where he forced them into sex acts. The alleged victims "were
in areas known for prostitution when they were victimized," San Diego
police public information officer Monica Munoz said. Kirvin, who would
not comment on whether the alleged victims were prostitutes, said at
least one girl was moved from one location to another. The defendant was
tracked down and arrested Nov. 9 after an officer recalled putting a
citation on a vehicle that fit the description given by one of the
alleged victims. As charged, Purdy faces more than 17 years in prison if
convicted.
November 11, 2006 KFMB
A suspected serial rapist is behind bars Saturday morning, being
held on $325,000 bail. Police have identified the suspect as Robert
James Purdy. Authorities say the 41-year-old man is a security guard who
works for Wackenhut Security Services. He’s a man who officers say used
his badge and his fake cop talk to target women working the streets
along El Cajon Boulevard. Investigators tell News 8 that so far they
know of four rape victims. All are prostitutes and two are minors.
Florence Correctional Center, Florence,
Arizona
February 6, 2009 Yuma Sun
An illegal immigrant injured in an automobile accident after his
arrest by the Border Patrol has received a $200,000 settlement. Jose
Sandoval reached the settlement with Corrections Corporation of America,
which had subcontracted with the Wackenhut security firm to transport
previously detained aliens for the Department of Homeland Security,
according to Yuma attorney Candy Camarena, who along with attorney
Virginia Zazueta represented Sandoval. Sandoval, who had been arrested
in the Yuma area in March, was being transported in a van with five
other people to Florence, Ariz., when a flat tire caused the driver to
lose control, according to Camarena and Miguel Escobar, Mexican consul
in Yuma. The van rolled over along Interstate 8 in Pinal County.
Sandoval was hospitalized with injuries to the arm and spinal column.
"He was deported to Mexico through Nogales, in precarious health
condition," Escobar said. "He was walking with a cane, and he contacted
the Mexican Consulate to get help. The consulate took care of him and
took him to San Luis Rio Colorado for medical care and we contacted the
attorney." Sandoval, a resident of Baja California, got the additional
medical attention but "the arm was broken in seven places," he said. "I
have metal pins here and there," Sandoval said Friday at a news
conference in San Luis Rio Colorado. "The spinal column splintered in
two parts, I suffer a lot of pain. All the time there is that pain in
the back." A carpenter by training, he had gone to the United States to
work in construction, he said Friday at a news conference, but will no
longer be able to do that kind of work. "I've tried to lift heavy
things, but it hurts. I can't do it." The legal case was nearly seven
months in preparation, Camarena said. "The biggest problems that we had
in this lawsuit was that federal court demands that the plaintiff in a
suit be present. Mr. Sandoval can't enter the United States, but we
reached an agreement to resolve the case." Sandoval received $80,000,
with the rest of settlement going for his medical and legal bills.
Florida
Department of Corrections,
Tallahassee, Florida
September 30, 2005 St.
Petersburg Times
Over dinner in midtown Manhattan, Florida Corrections Secretary James
Crosby met in July with two executives of a company seeking a
multimillion-dollar contract with his agency. Crosby paid his own tab
and said no state business was discussed. State bidding rules prohibit
vendors and agency staffers from discussing pending contracts, except
through official channels. The company, G4S Justice Services, later won
a three-year contract to monitor sex offenders in half the state,
including Pinellas and Hillsborough. It won because it submitted the
lowest price. More bad news surfaced Thursday. --Under criticism from
legislators, prison officials reversed course and decided not to hire
four companies to expand privatization of health care at South Florida
prisons. Instead, prison officials will redo the bids and hire one
company to provide medical, dental, mental health and pharmacy services,
a deal worth more than $100-million. Because of complex bid regulations,
hiring four companies invited a legal challenge, opponents said. --A
high-ranking prison health care official, John Burke, quit his
$95,000-a-year job amid questions about his past ties to a company that
has a prison contract to package medicine for inmates. In his
resignation letter, Burke cited "continued turmoil" over his
past work for TYA Pharmaceuticals of Tallahassee and another company,
MHM Services of Vienna, Va. Both companies were expected to seek parts
of the inmate health care program. "I have done nothing improper,
unethical or illegal during my tenure now or before," Burke wrote
Wednesday. Burke listed his past ties to TYA and MHM on a financial
disclosure form filed with the state Commission on Ethics, but prison
officials say he never disclosed it to them. G4S sales director Leo
Carson, who was at the dinner with the company's top executive, Fiona
Walters, said it was the kind of casual get-together that occurs
frequently at all professional conferences. "It was very impromptu,
very informal and very much in a conference atmosphere," Carson
said. "The first thing out of our mouths was, "We want to
avoid this topic, for the obvious reason. Agreed? Agreed."' Carson
said it would have been rude to snub Crosby, and that the dinner was
"115 percent above board." He said Crosby paid his own tab.
Crosby previously acknowledged having gone to concerts and sporting
events with Don Yaeger, a Tallahassee lobbyist for vendors seeking
contracts in the prisons. But as with the New York dinner, Crosby said
he always paid his own way.
September 8,
2005 St Petersburg Times
In a surprise twist to Florida's fast-growing sex offender tracking
system, a Texas firm tentatively hired to help run the program has quit.
The withdrawal by Satellite Tracking of People of Houston came after
more than two weeks of field tests of its new one-piece ankle bracelet,
known as BluTag. A contract with the state Department of Corrections was
contingent on successful testing of the global positioning system
devices. The state declined to say whether problems arose in the tests.
STOP declined to comment. STOP's vice president for business
development, Greg Utterback, sent the state a terse letter Tuesday
stating only that the company "is requesting to withdraw from
contract consideration." STOP's chief executive, Steve Logan,
declined to comment. STOP was one of two companies that submitted low
bids to expand electronic tracking of sex offenders under the Jessica
Lunsford Act, which includes a three-year, $3.9-million project to track
up to 1,200 offenders. The law, which took effect one week ago, was
passed in memory of the 9-year-old Homosassa girl who was abducted and
killed in February. Angry at the bid language, STOP filed a protest in
July and briefly brought the program to a halt. After the state removed
the words STOP did not like, the company dropped its protest and made
the lowest bid of seven firms. The Corrections Department split the
state into two regions, north and south. STOP was the low bidder for the
northern half, including Pasco, Hernando and Citrus, the county that was
home to Jessica Lunsford and to John Couey, a 46-year-old sex offender
charged with her death. G4S Justice Services, a subsidiary of London's
Group 4 Securicor, has been hired to provide tracking in the southern
half, which includes Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.
Florida Legislature, Tallahassee, Florida
May 7, 2008 Palm Beach Post
The chief of staff in training for de facto Senate President Jeff
Atwater is officially off the payroll, Atwater said Wednesday.
Millionaire "Budd" Kneip of Palm Beach Gardens earned a $7,000-a-month
salary from the state for one month and two days to learn the ins and
outs of the legislature, which was dealing with a $5 billion budget
deficit. Kneip was the founder and owner of the Oasis Group, a division
of Wackenhut Corp. He has no legislative experience but has run
campaigns, including the one for Palm Beach County's 2004 half-penny
sales tax increase to build schools. Normally, the chief of staff
assumes his position when the Senate president is appointed in the fall.
Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, is being challenged in his reelection bid
by Skip Campbell, D-Tamarac, who formerly served in the Senate with him.
Florida Democrats on Tuesday formally requested public records about
Kneip's hiring and asked Atwater use his campaign account to reimburse
the state for Kneip's salary. "Floridians are hurting, Sen. Atwater, but
your campaign coffers are not," Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen
Thurman said in a letter to Atwater on Tuesday. "We were going out
spending money foolishly when we don't have the money to spend,"
Campbell said. "Let's be honest about it. There is no chief of staff
until you become senate president." Before Thurman's letter became
public, Atwater said he had arranged in the final days of the
legislative session for Kneip to go off the payroll. The session ended
Friday. "Budd's assistance during session was invaluable. ... He has
returned home to continue developing a transition plan; I look forward
to Budd coming back to the Senate this fall," Atwater said. Thurman's
demands were a way to help Campbell, Atwater said Wednesday. "This is a
chairman trying to insert herself into a local race with no
information," he said.
April 12, 2008 Palm Beach Post
Sen. Jeff Atwater has hired an aide who will get on-the-job training
before he becomes Senate president chief of staff, and Atwater's
campaign opponent is criticizing the expenditure. Robert "Budd" Kneip is
a Palm Beach Gardens businessman with no legislative experience. He
founded The Oasis Group, an outsourcing division of Wackenhut Corp.
Kneip, who is earning $7,000 a month, needed to come on board early to
get the feel of how the legislature runs and how government budgets are
developed and negotiated before his new boss officially takes over,
Atwater said. Normally the chief of staff is appointed after the
legislative leader assumes his role in the fall. Atwater is being
challenged for reelection in November by Democrat Skip Campbell, a trial
lawyer who formerly served in the Senate alongside Atwater. Campbell
criticized Kneip's salary at a time when lawmakers are slashing about $5
billion from the state budget because of plummeting tax collections.
"How can we be hiring somebody for on the job training at 7K a month
when we're cutting education, food for the poor, Medicaid treatment for
the mentally ill? This is one of the most hypocritical actions I've seen
in government," Campbell said. Kneip has sat on the advisory boards for
Florida Atlantic University and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and
served as chairman of the Palm Beach County Task Force on Business
Development. In the latter role, he successfully pushed a 2004
referendum for a half-penny sales tax hike to pay for building schools
to comply with the constitutional amendment limiting class sizes.
Kneip's know-how at implementing state policy at the local level and
business acumen are why he's right for the job, said Atwater, a North
Palm Beach Republican. "He doesn't have the experience in this process,"
Atwater said. "To have him be able to watch how this works is going to
help me as we think about structure, the design, the flow and process of
work."
Gambia, Africa
November 28, 2005 Daily Observer
The two staff members of Wackenhut security firm, who were implicated in
the aborted groundnut theft at the Gambia Agricultural Marketing Company
Ltd (Gamco) a few months ago, were on Thursday arraigned before
Magistrate Mboto of the Banjul Magistrates' Court on a two-count charge
of conspiracy to commit felony and stealing.
Global
Solutions Limited
June 13, 2009 Perth Now
ONE of two guards suspended over the death of an Aboriginal elder in
a prisoner transport van, says she has been ''gagged'' from talking
about the tragedy. On Friday, State Coroner Alastair Hope recommended
Director of Public Prosecutions Robert Cock consider criminal charges
over the "unnecessary and wholly avoidable death'' of Mr Ward, 46, who
died on January 27 last year. Officers Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell
drove the Warbuton elder, whose first name cannot be released for
cultural reasons, for the 352km Outback journey between the Goldfields
towns of Laverton to Kalgoorlie. In his stinging finding, Mr Hope said
Mr Ward died when temperatures rose to 50C in the pod of the
commercially owned van which had no air-conditioning and little-to-no
air flow. Contracted transport company, G4S, formally known as Global
Solutions Ltd, stood down Ms Stokoe and Mr Powell on Friday. "The two
employees have been suspended and the findings of the coroner, the
coroner's report and recommendations will be considered carefully and it
will then be decided what the next step should be,'' G4S spokesman Tim
Hall told ABC radio yesterday. Ms Stokoe declined to comment on her
suspension, saying: "I can't talk about anything, I would like to, but I
can't''. Mr Ward's family is planning to sue G4S, which runs other
custodial services including court security, over the tragedy. Prison
Officer's Union secretary John Welch said the inquest had raised
questions about the privatisation of custodial services in WA. Mr Welch
said he feared G4S would be allowed to be apply for the contract to run
the recently announced Eastern Goldfields prison which was scheduled for
completion by the end of 2013. "You wonder why, in the light apparent
failures of privatisation, you would want to even consider looking at
having at private provider in the Goldfields,'' Mr Welch said. A
spokeswoman for Attorney-General Christian Porter said no decision had
been made on whether the prison would be public or private, and any
discussion on the potential awarding of a private contract was
speculative. Deaths in Custody Watch Committee chair Marc Newhouse said
another public protest was planned for the city on Saturday to lobby the
State Government for improvements.
June 12, 2009 WA Today
A man died a "terrible death" in the back of a prison van where
temperatures reached 50 degrees celsius, the West Australian coroner has
found. Coroner Alistair Hope, in his findings handed down on Friday,
said the 46-year-old Aboriginal man's death had been "wholly unnecessary
and avoidable". Mr Ward, whose first name cannot be released for
cultural reasons, died while being transferred 350km from Laverton to
Kalgoorlie in a transit van on January 27, after being picked up for
drink-driving on Australia Day. The air-conditioning unit inside the
prisoner's compartment of the commercially operated van was not working
and the coroner was told Mr Ward would have suffered through
temperatures of 50 degrees before his death. He received third-degree
burns where his body came into contact with the metal floor in the back
of the Global Solutions Ltd (GSL) vehicle. Mr Hope found Mr Ward, of the
Goldfields town of Warburton, died of heat stroke. He said his death was
the result of a "litany of errors" and accused the prison van drivers of
collusion and giving false evidence. He said the fact the prison van did
not have a spare tyre was an indication of GSL's "reckless approach". It
was a disgrace that a prisoner yet to be convicted was transported such
a distance in the oven-hot conditions, Mr Hope said. The prisoner's
compartment had little light, no restraints to protect the person inside
if the van was involved in an accident, had little air flow and the fan
did not work when tested, Mr Hope added. There was no proper method for
a prisoner to communicate with the drivers, he said. About 40 protesters
demonstrated outside Perth's Central Law Courts, where the coroner
delivered his findings. Amnesty International called it "a disgrace that
a prisoner should be transported in this way in the 21st century".
May 16, 2009 The West
He literally cooked to death. Trapped in a prison van for four hours,
suffocated by temperatures that climbed to more than 50C, the Aboriginal elder
had no way to communicate with security officers sitting just a metre away, in
the airconditioned cab. His only sustenance was a small bottle of water and a
meat pie. When he finally collapsed on the van floor, the metal was so hot it
seared his skin. Yesterday, Corrective Services Commissioner Ian Johnson
travelled to Kalgoorlie to publicly apologise to Mr Ward’s family, accepting
responsibility for the 46-year-old’s death in January last year. It was a
dramatic end to a coronial inquest that has revealed a litany of failures in the
justice and custodial systems in WA’s outback. Widow Nancy Ward and her children
will return to Laverton next week after sitting quietly and with dignity
throughout the case, which has attracted the attention of the United Nations and
the Australian Human Rights Commission. Mr Ward, a conservation worker, a
supporter and interpreter for local police and an advocate and educator for
children of the Gibson Desert, was an international ambassador for the
Ngaanyatjarra people. His family say he was treated like an animal. Mr Ward had
been drinking on Australia Day last year in the remote Goldfields town of
Laverton when he was arrested for driving with more than four times the legal
alcohol limit. Conducting a quasi-court hearing for Mr Ward at his cell door at
the local police station, justice of the peace Barrye Thompson remanded him in
custody to face court in Kalgoorlie the following day. Mr Thompson told the
inquest he had no formal training when appointed as a JP and could not even
remember whether he had read the Bail Act. The Aboriginal Legal Service was not
contacted. Guards and police officers testified the prison vans used by Global
Solutions Limited and maintained by the State were notoriously unreliable,
sub-standard and the air-conditioning was often faulty. GSL’s supervisor in
Kalgoorlie, Leanne Jenkins, had warned her management an incident would occur
unless the vehicles were replaced. At 11.20am, the GSL prison van pulled into a
secure area at Laverton police station where the guards were told they would
have a trouble-free passenger. Mr Ward made a comment about the warm day and a
guard told him “the quicker he got into the van, the quicker the
air-conditioning would kick in”. But the air-conditioning did not work: it had
been reported faulty in the GSL maintenance log more than a month earlier.
Before making the continuous 360km journey to Kalgoorlie, the guards did not
tell Mr Ward there was a duress alarm in the back of the van in case he needed
help. Towards the end of the trip, they heard a loud thump. Pulling over on to
the side of the road and opening the outer door of the van, the guards felt the
heat radiating from the rear pod and they saw Mr Ward face-down on the van floor
— unconscious and unresponsive. Reaching into the back of the van felt like a
“blast from a furnace”, according to Dr Lucien LaGrange, who assisted in
removing Mr Ward’s lifeless body at Kalgoorlie Hospital. Doctors found
full-thickness contact burns on his stomach and tried for 20 minutes to
resuscitate Mr Ward, whose skin felt like a “hot cup of coffee”. They managed to
get a brief return of a heartbeat, but after putting him in an ice bath, his
body temperature was still 41.7C. Coroner Alastair Hope is due to deliver his
findings on June 12. For now, the Ward family will have to return to a community
missing a leader. It is little comfort to them that money was allocated in this
week’s State Budget to replace the fleet of transport vans — four years after
the Department for Corrective Services undertook to do so. “I am sorry,” Mr
Johnson told Mrs Ward yesterday. “I have a deep regret but no matter what I say,
it’s not going to change what happened.”
May 14, 2009 The West
More than 30 family members and supporters of Mr Ward, an Aboriginal elder
who had a fatal heatstroke in the back of a prison van, gathered outside the
Kalgoorlie Courthouse yesterday to call for those responsible for his death to
face tribal punishment. Mr Ward’s widow Nancy and his four sons were among those
who wailed in grief as they demanded justice and answers to why the Warburton
elder died in such horrific circumstances. The family’s interpreter and
relative, Gail Jamieson, said that under traditional law, anyone found culpable
of the death should be speared. “The family is just devastated,” she said. “He
was treated with no respect and he was a well-respected, outstanding elder. If
they were in an Aboriginal culture, they would be speared because us Aboriginal
people are also going through two cultures.” The inquest was told no
disciplinary action was taken against the two GSL officers responsible for
transporting Mr Ward on the day he died. Mr Ward died after a four-hour journey
in a GSL prison van from Laverton to Kalgoorlie on January 27 last year when
temperatures reached 42C. Global Solutions Limited general manager John Hughes
said security officers Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell were stood down on full pay
and were reinstated when an internal investigation found they had not violated
company policies or procedures. Questioned by the family’s barrister Michael
Rynne, Mr Hughes said any reinvestigation would depend on Coroner Alastair
Hope’s findings. GSL’s multi-million-dollar contract could require it to pay a
penalty of 4.5 per cent of its value if found to have failed in its duty of
care. Mr Hughes said he understood GSL’s obligations included ensuring officers
minimised hardship to detainees, conducting regular checks to ensure their
safety, security and health and preventing injury. The inquest concludes today.
March 21, 2009 The West
The security guard who drove the van in which an Aboriginal elder
died of heat stroke has admitted he should take responsibility for the
death. Testifying for a second day at the inquest into the death of
46-year-old Mr Ward, Global Solutions Limited driver Graham Powell said
yesterday he regretted how Mr Ward died. “In hindsight, if I had to do
that journey again, I would certainly be doing it a lot differently,” he
said. He agreed with lawyer assisting the coroner, Felicity Zempilas, it
was inhumane to transport prisoners in the rear pod of the van over long
distances and that the vans were “certainly not designed for that”.
Coroner Alastair Hope told Mr Powell he was “troubled” over his evidence
about phone calls made after Mr Ward collapsed. Mr Hope said a delay of
two minutes between calls was a long time in an emergency. To questions
from his counsel Linda Black, Mr Powell said he should have checked the
airconditioning, made comfort stops and told Mr Ward explicitly how to
communicate with the officers if he was in distress. The inquest has
heard Mr Powell and colleague Nina Stokoe did not stop during the four
hours they had Mr Ward in the van in mid-40C heat while driving from
Laverton to Kalgoorlie in January last year. Mr Ward suffered a
full-thickness hand-size burn on his stomach from a hot metal surface
inside the van. Senior chemist David Tranthim-Fryer said the prison van
temperature would have been above 50C. Evidence from a police
re-enactment he helped with revealed the van floor reached 56C and the
air temperature at least 50C on a slightly cooler day. The temperature
would have been hotter with a person inside because there would have
been another heat source. “We opened the back doors and could feel the
heat coming out of the pods. The hot air affects you more than anything
else,” Mr Tranthim-Fryer said. Mr Ward’s body temperature was 41.7C
after 20 minutes of resuscitation in an ice bath while being fanned. The
van’s rear-pod airconditioning was not working, a fault noted in the GSL
maintenance log more than a month before Mr Ward’s death. Mr Powell said
he did not check the airconditioning in the pod despite knowing it had a
history of faults. He had assumed Ms Stokoe checked it. Mr Hope has
heard evidence from witnesses, including GSL’s Kalgoorlie supervisor
Leanne Jenkins, who spoke of substandard “unreliable” prison vans which
were not suitable for long distance travel. The inquest did not finish
within the two-week timeframe and Mr Hope adjourned it until May 11.
Outside, Mr Ward’s cousin Bernard Newberry said his family wanted those
responsible charged. The family has asked that Mr Ward’s first name not
be used.
January 30, 2008 Oldham-Chronicle
SECURITY guards were left red-faced after their prison van got stuck in
a town centre car park. Global Solutions Limited (GSL) is employed by
the Prison Service to transfer prisoners safely between court and jail.
But the driver caused a bit of a stir when the van became jammed in the
former Co-op car park at the back of Mecca Bingo on King Street. Police
went to investigate but found the prisoners had already been dropped off
at Oldham Magistrates’ Court. A police spokesman said: “The driver said
he had read the height restriction notice but thought the van would be
able to clear it.” The driver and his colleague then freed the van by
letting air out of the tyres.
January 29, 2008 News.Com.AU
THE West Australian desert town of Warburton was in mourning
yesterday over the death in custody of its former Aboriginal community
chairman, who was arrested on Australia Day for allegedly drink-driving.
Ian Ward, a 46-year-old father of five and one of the last nomads born
in the Gibson Desert, died the following day after collapsing in the
back of a security van during a 915km journey to jail in the goldfields
city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Major Crime Squad detectives are
investigating. Mr Ward was being driven by contractors for the
Department of Corrective Services, who noticed he had collapsed as they
neared their destination. Mr Ward's nephew Andrew Johns said his large
family was gathering in Warburton to remember a man who lobbied for his
people's native title rights. "We are very sad today," Mr Johns said.
The family understands Mr Ward died of a heart attack in hot conditions
in the back of the van. "It is a long way to go and very hot," he said.
Police had stopped Mr Ward last Saturday at 9.30pm in his remote home
town of Warburton, about 1500km northwest of Perth in the traditional
Ngaanyatjarra lands between the Gibson and Victoria deserts. He was
charged with one count of drink-driving and taken to the lockup in
Warburton. Mr Ward was driven 570km to the courthouse in Laverton, where
he appeared on Sunday morning and was remanded in custody. Police say he
was being transported to the nearest jail - the Eastern Goldfields
Regional Prison 352km away - when he collapsed. Mr Ward was being
transported by Global Solutions Ltd, having been picked up in Laverton
at 11.40am, police say. He was being taken in the rear of the GSL
security van. As the van neared Kalgoorlie, he was found to have
collapsed. He was conveyed to Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital, where he
died a short time later.
November 29, 2007 The Telegraph
Group4Securicor is in talks to buy Global Solutions, a company it used
to own, for around £350m. Earlier this year, private equity firm
Cognetas appointed investment bank UBS to carry out a strategic review
of Global Solutions, which runs a number of Britain's prisons and
detention centres. However, the credit crunch forced Cognetas to put the
review of Global Solutions on hold. Since then, the company has received
a number of approaches, including one from Group4Securicor. Cognetas
bought Global Solutions, which also manages hospitals, schools and
tourist offices, from Danish security firm Group 4 Falk for about £200m
three years ago. Group4Securicor is now understood to be carrying out
due diligence on the business. However, it is not the only company
bidding. Sources said US group GEO and several private equity firms have
also made approaches for the company. Global Solutions has previously
come under the spotlight for the way it runs its prisons and detention
centres, following the Government's privatisation of the sector. Earlier
this year, there was a Panorama investigation by an undercover BBC
reporter, who worked as a custody officer, in one of Global Solutions'
prisons at Rye Hill. None of the parties involved would comment.
MANCHESTER'S new £30m
court is at the centre of a new storm after dozens of prisoners were
hours late arriving from their cells. Furious lawyers sat around
for up to three hours yesterday waiting for their clients to arrive from
police stations, including Bootle Street less than a mile away.
GSL, the private security firm that ferries prisoners to the court,
blamed "logistical problems" and has apologised to court
authorities. It is the latest in a string of problems at the court
since it opened in May. Around 40 people were due to be
moved from holding cells in Manchester to the court before 10am
yesterday, in time for morning hearings. Less than half were
delivered on time and more were dropped off at 11am and 11.45am. Lawyers
were still waiting for at least eight clients at 12.30pm. GSL, part of
Group 4, said the final transfer was made at 12.45pm. Court bosses
have already threatened to fine GSL for previous failures to get
prisoners into court on time. (Manchester Online, August 31, 2004)
Group 4/Securicor (AKA Wackenhut,
GS4, ArmorGroup), UK
February 19, 2010 Miami-Herald
Democratic Senate candidate Maurice Ferre is calling on his primary
rival, Kendrick Meek, to return $10,000 in campaign contributions from
Wackenhut's political action committee -- a week after the company
agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle claims it systematically overbilled
Miami-Dade County. "Kendrick Meek was part of the team that enabled
Wackenhut to bilk Miami-Dade taxpayers out of millions of dollars," said
Ferre. "Floridians need a Senator who will put their interests before
special interests and Meek has proven he is not the man for the job."
Meek sold security contracts for the company from 1994 to 2002, and his
Senate campaign received the maximum $10,000 donation its political
action committee. Meek's wife, Leslie, and his mother, Carrie, have also
lobbied for the company, Ferre noted, adding that Carrie Meek lobbied
for both Wackenhut and Miami-Dade County while the two were fighting
over billing. "The Democratic establishment is making a big mistake in
anointing Kendrick Meek," said Ferre. "Meek has never faced a real
election and has never answered for his wheeling-and-dealing as an
elected official. Congressman Meek's record would not hold up to the
intense scrutiny applied by the Republican machine in a general
election."
February 19, 2010 Miami Herald
Miami-Dade Commissioners voted 8-3 Thursday to approve a
settlement with Wackenhut Corp., formally ending the testy dispute
between the county and security firm that guarded Metrorail stops for
two decades. Under the deal, Wackenhut will pay $3 million to the county
and $4.5 million to a former Wackenhut employee and her lawyers who
filed a whistle-blower suit alleging bogus billing practices. In return,
Wackenhut gets a clean bill of health with the county and can compete
for Miami-Dade government contracts in the future. A Miami-Dade audit
previously found Wackenhut overbilled the county anywhere from $3.3
million to $5.8 million for work it never performed. Other estimates put
the number much higher. Last year Miami-Dade leaders said they would bar
the firm from doing business with the county. Wackenhut, which stopped
guarding railway stops in November, denied overbilling the county and
filed a $20 million lawsuit last year against Miami-Dade. While
commissioners approved the deal, some were uneasy. ``We're not getting
back what we're owed,'' said Commissioner Joe Martinez, who voted
against the settlement.
February 16, 2010 Grand Rapids News
Less than a month after a federal judge rejected James and Glenna
Chandler's bid to punish the security company that employed five men
convicted of killing their daughter in Holland in 1979, the couple has
filed an appeal, pushing their case forward. Janet Chandler's father
filed the appeal Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth
District in Cincinnati, records show. The Chandlers have claimed
Wackenhut Corp. -- which employed five of the six people convicted of
Janet Chandler's slaying -- did not conduct sufficient employee
background checks, or properly supervise their workers. They also
contended Wackenhut helped hide the employees' involvement in the
murder, which took nearly three decades to solve. The family was seeking
cash damages for the mental pain and suffering inflicted by the death of
Janet, a 22-year-old Hope College student. On Jan. 19, U.S. District
Judge Janet Neff dismissed the Chandlers' claims against the Florida
security firm, which hired guards during a strike at a Holland area
plant. Neff said the allegations were filed after a three-year statute
of limitations.
February 16, 2010 Miami-Herald
Heading to an end: the long-running dispute between Miami-Dade
County, Wackenhut Corp. and a whistleblower named Michelle Trimble over
millions in alleged overbillings for phantom workers at Metrorail. On
Thursday county commissioners are scheduled to vote on a proposed
settlement in which all parties would drop their competing lawsuits,
Wackenhut would pay $7.5 million, and Miami-Dade would end its bid to
keep the private security firm from doing business with the county. It
would promise not to use the facts of this case against Wackenhut on
current or future contracts. Out of the $7.5 million Wackenhut has
agreed pay, $3 million would go to the county, $1.25 million to Trimble
and $3.25 million to her attorneys, led by plaintiffs lawyer Mark Vieth
and the Miami firm Josephs Jack. The proposed settlement comes nearly a
year after a final audit by Miami-Dade County concluded that taxpayers
were overbilled by Wackenhut -- which provided security at the county's
Metrorail stops for two decades -- by $3.3 million to $5.8 million. In
the proposed settlement, the county also agreed to clarify its final
audit by Miami-Dade's chief auditor Cathy Jackson, saying her comments
``should not be construed to mean that the principals or management of
Wackenhut engaged in fraud.'' In a memo to commissioners, County Manager
George Burgess defended the proposed settlement, writing that the deal
avoids the risks associated with trial and required ``all parties to
make some compromises.'' Drew Levine, Wackenhut's president, declined to
comment. Trimble could not be reached for comment. Vieth, who has been
leading the civil case against Wackenhut since August 2005, did not
return calls. Michael Josephs of the Josephs Jack firm declined to
comment. If approved, the settlement will end a dispute that's been part
of a broader history of waste and mismanagement underscoring the
county's stewardship of the transit system. In this case, the county has
been criticized for responding slowly to allegations that taxpayers were
paying for guards who did not show up at Metrorail stops. In August 2005
the whistleblower lawsuit against Wackenhut was filed alleging phony
billing practices; the suit is called a Qui Tam action, in which a
private citizen sues on behalf of the government. Trimble worked as a
guard at the county's Juvenile Services Department, where Wackenhut also
previously provided security services. The county balked at
participating in the case, instead ordering its own audit that was not
finished until 2008. The inquiry found that Wackenhut billed the county
for service not rendered. It wasn't until a year later, in April 2009,
that a final audit was issued -- again concluding taxpayers were bilked.
County manager Burgess had said he would replace Wackenhut once its
contract expired in November and pledged to bar the firm from doing
business with the county in the future. Burgess also said the county
would cooperate with the Qui Tam lawsuit. At the time, plaintiff
attorney Vieth said the ``evidence of overbilling has been overwhelming
and existing for four years.'' For its part, Wackenhut denied wrongdoing
and subsequently filed a $20 million suit against the county, saying the
future damages it will suffer ``as result of this unfair and malicious
taint'' on the firm's reputation ``are incalculable.'' Last month -- on
the eve of trial in the whistleblower case -- the proposed settlement
was reached, according to Burgess' memo.
February 11, 2010 KATU News
In a Seattle bus tunnel a 15-year-old girl was viciously attacked while
security guards did nothing but call 9-1-1. The incident, in addition to
sparking outrage, has many asking whether security guards in Portland are
allowed to step in. Disbelief and disgust was the reaction by people who were
shown surveillance footage of a girl being repeatedly kicked in the head by
another girl while private security guards stood by at arm’s length and did
nothing but call 9-1-1. “I know the transit isn’t exactly the same over there
(Seattle), but I know it’s still good and that’s, that’s horrible,” said one man
after watching the video at a MAX station. “Somebody’s getting hurt, I mean you
don’t want them to get hurt, I don’t know, like, do something,” said another man
at a MAX station. TriMet and its private security contractor Wackenhut, said if
one of their guard’s is near a fight, they won’t just stand back and dial 9-1-1.
Wackenhut project manager, Maj. Ellis Bremer, said there’s no question employees
can and will get directly involved to stop fights. “We will not stand by,” he
said. “We are here to protect the employees and assist the employees of TriMet
and in so far as the ridership goes, of course, protect the ridership and inform
the ridership.” The state only requires eight hours of classroom work to get a
license to be a private security guard, but Wackenhut said it requires its
people to go through an initial minimum of 80 hours and then a 16-hour refresher
course every year. Most riders said they believe security should mean more than
just dialing 9-1-1. Transit officers in Seattle say they are reconsidering the
limits put on their private security guards.
December 24, 2009 Miami-Herald
The former chairman of the Florida Board of Medicine and another
Fort Lauderdale physician have agreed to pay substantial sums to settle
federal civil charges of insider stock trading. Dr. Mammen P. Zachariah,
appointed to the board of medicine by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2004, and Dr.
Sheldon Nassberg allegedly reaped illegal windfalls by acting on stock
tips supplied by Mammen Zachariah's brother, prominent Broward heart
specialist and major Republican fundraiser Dr. Zachariah P. Zachariah.
Zach Zachariah, who has raised millions of dollars for Republican causes
and candidates, including both presidents Bush, faces similar charges,
but has declined to settle his case. A federal magistrate has set trial
for Aug. 23, 2010. That trial promises to offer a unique look at
Republican fundraising and how political access is bought and sold.
Among the expected highlights is witness testimony from two of South
Florida's better-known corporate chieftains -- The Geo Group's George
Zoley and Phil Frost, formerly of IVAX. The Zachariah brothers and
Nassberg, all of whom practice at Fort Lauderdale's Holy Cross Hospital,
were named in a May 2008 civil complaint brought by the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission. The complaint accuses them of collecting more
than a half-million dollars in illegal profits during a fraudulent
stock-trading scheme in 2005. Without admitting or denying the
government's allegations, Mammen Zachariah, 61, agreed to pay nearly
$136,000 in what a judge labeled ``ill-gotten gains,'' plus an equal
amount as a civil penalty. Nassberg, an endocrinologist, agreed to
similar payments totaling $52,668. He admitted no wrongdoing. Both men
are required to pay up by the end of the month. The final judgments
signed by U.S. Magistrate Linnea Johnson on Wednesday also include
permanent injunctions that restrain both doctors from future securities
law violations. Zach Zachariah, another past chairman of the Florida
Board of Medicine, is alleged to have used nonpublic information to buy
and sell shares of two unrelated Florida companies, Miami-based generic
drug maker IVAX and Sarasota's Correctional Services Corp. (CSC).
Zachariah was on IVAX's board of directors in July 2005 when company
chairman Phil Frost informed him that IVAX had agreed to be acquired by
Teva Pharmaceuticals for $26 a share. Within minutes, Zachariah bought
35,000 IVAX shares for about $21 a share, the SEC said. At the time of
the alleged purchase, company insiders were forbidden from trading in
IVAX stock. Zachariah also allegedly tipped off his brother, who bought
2,000 IVAX shares for about $23 a share on the last trading day before
the deal was announced in July 25. Zachariah allegedly used inside
information to make even more money trading shares of CSC, which was
acquired by The GEO Group of Boca Raton in 2005. According to the SEC,
the Zachariah brothers and Nassberg turned $380,000 in quick profits.
The government says Zachariah acquired that inside knowledge in a couple
of ways. One was through his son Zachariah ``Reggie'' Zachariah, who
worked in GEO's mergers and acquisitions department. Reggie Zachariah
has denied under oath tipping off his father to the deal. Another was
through Zachariah's own moonlighting work for GEO. The SEC says
Zachariah made ``millions of dollars'' as a corporate consultant,
service provider and lobbyist for GEO, a giant prison contractor once
known as Wackenhut Corrections. Zachariah, who owns a $2.3 million home
on the Intracoastal Waterway in secluded Sea Ranch Lakes, said under
oath last winter that he was paid to provide access for GEO chief
executive George Zoley to top federal and state Republican politicians.
Those politicians include former President George W. Bush, former Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist, former Florida Senate President Tom Lee and
House Speaker Alan Bense and former attorney general Charlie Crist, now
Florida's governor.
December 22, 2009 Aiken Standard
A long-serving member of the Savannah River Site's military-style
security force is suing his employer, claiming he was discriminated
against because of his race. His former employer, however, states they
fired him due to numerous arrests and his unwillingness to cooperate
with Department of Energy physicians who were assessing his "fitness for
duty." Lagone Melton of Hephzibah, Ga., filed a federal civil rights
lawsuit against Wackenhut Service Inc. recently, claiming he was treated
differently and more severely than white colleagues in similar
disciplinary actions. He further claims he was demoted, decertified and
terminated when he raised the issue of racial discrimination to union
officials. His former employer denies all of Melton's claims. Melton has
been employed by the security firm since 1990 and has received positive
performance evaluations since that time, he claims in his complaint. He
was fired from his position on July 9, 2007, under what he believes are
false pretenses. In December 2006, Melton was charged with reckless
driving, he wrote in his complaint. After reporting this to his
employer, they required Melton to attend alcohol and anger management
treatment, he claims. "Other white employees of the same rank, SPO III,
received driving under the influence charges but were not treated in the
same manner as the plaintiff," Melton's complaint reads. "They were not
required to enter into a treatment program." Court records show, as the
defendants claim in their response, that Melton was arrested Dec. 24,
2006, and charged with DUI and weaving over the roadway, but it was
reduced to reckless driving when Melton pleaded guilty. He was sentenced
to two days in jail, probation and had his car fitted with an ignition
interlock device which acts as a breathalyzer that will not allow
someone over the legal alcohol limit to drive. Wackenhut officials state
that this was not the first time Melton was arrested for DUI and that
they ordered alcohol dependence and anger management classes at the
behest of a clinical psychologist. "(The) plaintiff was arrested for
driving under the influence in December 2006; he had been arrested on at
least three previous occasions for (DUI) and on other occasions arrested
for other misconduct, and, as a result, ... he was referred to an
off-site clinical psychologist for evaluation for fitness for duty," the
response states. An outspoken proponent of employees unionizing, Melton
was made an administrator when the Local 125 organization was ratified
in January 2007. He states in his complaint that he was targeted for
termination after he expressed that African-American applicants were
being "denied hire" and that Wackenhut "demonstrated unwillingness to
work with African-American union executives." Wackenhut officials deny
all of this charge.
December 13, 2009 KESQ
Jimmy Hughes, wanted for a 1981 triple murder in Rancho Mirage, was
booked in a Riverside jail late Saturday night. Riverside County
Sheriffs detectives took him into custody at a Miami jail and flew him
to Ontario airport. Hughes is now booked at the Robert Pressley
Detention Center. His first scheduled court date is Thursday, December
17th at 8:00AM. On July 1st, 1981, Fred Alvarez, his girlfriend Patty
Castro, and friend Ralph Boger were shot to death at 35040 Bob Hope
Drive in Rancho Mirage. There was a house there that has since been
bulldozed. As previously reported on KESQ.com, This cold case is known
as the "Octopus Murders," a term coined by investigative journalist
Danny Casolaro in 1991, because the murder plot has tentacles that reach
into our police agencies, Indian tribes and political leaders.
Detectives now believe it was a contract killing and that, 52 year old
Jimmy Hughes is the hitman. Hughes was arrested as his plane was waiting
on the tarmac at Miami airport September. He was on his way to Honduras,
where he now runs a Christian ministry. Extradition for Hughes from the
Miami-Dade Pre-Trial Detention Center had been postponed for three
months until Hughes' attorney declared they would no longer fight
extradition earlier this month. Nearly 30 years ago, Hughes was security
chief for the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians. Tribal Vice Chairman Fred
Alvarez was going to blow the whistle on weapons manufacturing deals
between the tribe and defense contractors, including Wackenhut
Corporation. Those weapons deals later turned into database software
development that became a major spy scandal known as "PROMIS" with
national security impacts to this day. Rachel Begley, daughter of murder
victim Ralph Boger, confronted Hughes last year with a hidden camera and
demanded answers. Begley said to Hughes, "You were the 'bagman' in our
father's murder. I'd like to talk to you about that." Hughes, confronted
during a break at an evangelical conference in California replied, "I
have nothing to say about that. Can't can't. Can't say anything about
that" Hughes added, "I want to forget about a past that is ever so awful
and scary in my past. I don't live there anymore. I don't got nothing to
do with that. Screw the FBI. Screw the police. Screw everybody in my
past. The world I live in is screwed up." "I wake up in the morning with
a clear conscience. Let me tell you something about my past. My past is
dead. I don't care about my past. My past is my past. It's none of your
business. It's nobody's business. I don't care who died. I don't care
who got killed. I was trained in the military. I killed people all over
the world, right or wrong because the government ordered me to," said
Hughes. Hughes even admitted to shooting at least 6 people in the head
as a professional hitman on the website of the Full Gospel Businessmen's
Fellowship. Hughes explained to Begley, "Your parents got killed. In a
mafia hit. That's life. That's what happened. Your parents were involved
in some very dangerous things. Your dads. That's the only thing I can
tell you. Your dad and I were friends. I knew your dad. He touched... He
touched somebody. They gave an order and that is what happened to him."
"It's a lot bigger than the murder of this guy or the murder of that
guy. It is a big... You're talking political people," said Hughes. From
Richard Armitage to William Weld, those political people include a
"who's who" of past Republican Administrations. Documents obtained by
News Channel 3 show many of the weapons made on tribal land were meant
for the Iran-Contra arms deals. Hughes claimed, "I was investigated by
the FBI. I was indoctrinated by... I was messed around by them. So I
don't care. I can't tell you anything that the police don't already
know."
December 8, 2009 Reuters
The State Department will not renew the contract of a security
company embroiled in a scandal involving the U.S. Embassy in Kabul,
where guards were accused of drunken conduct and sexual hazing. U.S.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Tuesday Virginia-based
ArmorGroup would not have its contract renewed when it expires in June,
although it will receive a six-month extension to allow the contract to
be put up for new bids. Toner said officials had reviewed the contract
and "concurred that the next option year should not be exercised and
that work begin immediately to compete a new contract." He said the
review included both recent misconduct allegations against ArmorGroup
personnel and the company's "history of contract compliance
deficiencies." This week a report by the non-partisan Government
Accounting Office identified a number of shortcomings in the State
Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security including staffing shortage
and increased reliance on contractors in high-risk posts. The Kabul
embassy scandal broke in September, when a watchdog group accused
ArmorGroup of jeopardizing security at the embassy by understaffing the
facility and ignoring lewd, drunken conduct and sexual hazing by some
guards -- and provided graphic photos as evidence. ArmorGroup North
America, now owned by Florida-based Wackenhut Services, was also hit by
a federal whistle-blower lawsuit that said it had ignored brothel visits
by guards and other misconduct because of what a lawyer said was a
"myopic preoccupation with profit" in its five-year, $187 million
contract with the State Department. State Department officials said the
safety of embassy staff was never in jeopardy. But they subsequently
said 12 embassy guards had been removed or resigned, ArmorGroup's entire
senior Kabul management replaced and alcohol banned at the group's camp.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered a thorough review of how
contractors are used. The GAO report noted that worldwide, the U.S.
diplomatic security budget had grown to $1.8 billion in 2008 from just
$200 million in 1998, when truck bomb attacks on U.S. Embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania killed more than 300 people including 12 Americans. The
bureau's workforce has also doubled over the same period but is failing
to keep pace with rising security threats including those faced in Iraq
and Afghanistan, it said. "Staffing shortages in domestic offices and
other operational challenges -- such as inadequate facilities, language
deficiencies, experience gaps, and balancing security needs with State's
diplomatic mission -- further tax its ability to implement all of its
missions," the report said. The report urged the State Department to
develop a strategic plan to directly address the rising demands of
diplomatic security including increased staffing.
November 24, 2009 The Guardian
The brutal truth of child detention 2,000 asylum seekers' kids a year
are locked up, and the only beneficiaries seem to be firms running centres like Yarl's Wood A report by the novelist Clare Sambrook of End
Child Detention Now, which campaigns against the detention of 2,000
asylum seekers' children every year, asks the very reasonable question:
who does this expensive incarceration benefit? Clearly not the children
who, according to every study ever written on this issue, suffer acutely
from being taken from their homes on the orders of the UK Border Agency
and placed in a confined space for an indeterminate period. Many argue
that society benefits because it is protected from the asylum seekers
and their families. Sambrook wonders how that can be when there is no
evidence that asylum seekers are likely to abscond. So who benefits?
Clearly the private companies that run so much of this operation have a
lot to gain. G4S, the company that operates Tinlsey House, one of three
detention centres where last month 10-year-old Adeoti Ogunsola tried to
strangle herself after being forcibly redetained, recently reported
rising profits and growth in government business which had offset
weakness in commercial sectors. As Sambrook reports: "Last year G4S
handed chief executive Nick Buckles a £1.4m pay package. That's £3,835
every day. He owns £4m in G4S shares, tipped by the Daily Telegraph
recently as, 'a solid buy for these uncertain times'." Someone else who
may reasonably be said to benefit from this policy is Christopher Hyman,
the chief executive of Serco, who also earns in the region of £3,000 a
day. His company runs the notorious Yarl's Wood detention centre where
children have been detained far beyond the 28-day with charge maximum
allowed for terror suspects. "Traumatised child inmates, who must carry
ID cards at all times, refer to Yarl's Wood as 'prison' and 'the camp',"
says Sambrook. Among the indirect beneficiaries she also identifies John
Reid, the former home secretary, who is paid £50,000 a year as a
consultant to G4S for, among other things, hosting government and
security industry breakfasts. Meanwhile children are suffering. The
Lorek report in the peer review journal Child Abuse and Neglect says
detained children experience "increased fear due to being suddenly
placed in a facility resembling a prison … the abrupt loss of home,
school friends and all that was familiar to them". Some exhibit "sexualised
behaviour". Older children are so stressed they wet their bed and soil
their pants. Who benefits from this expensive and harsh policy? Sambrook
answers her own questions with this – " some extremely wealthy
grownups".
November 23, 2009 Wall Street Journal
G4S PLC (GFS.LN), an international security solutions group, said
Monday it Monday it has bought Champions of the West, Inc--trading as
All Star International from the Junge Revocable Trust and John P. Junge
individually, by its U.S. Government Services business, Wackenhut
Services, Inc. for $59.9 million in cash, on an enterprise value basis.
November 6, 2009 West Australia Today
The ongoing contract with a private prison transport company
responsible for the death of an Aboriginal elder in January last year
has sparked legal retaliation. The Deaths in Custody Watch Committee has
told radio 6PR that it was seeking independent legal advice to appeal
the decision to keep the $25million a year contract between the State
Government and contractor G4S. The State Coroner found that the company
was responsible for the death of 46-year-old Mr Ward, who had been
arrested for drink driving and was being transported 350kms to a
Kalgoorlie Court when he suffered heat stroke from the 50C heat inside
the unairconditioned truck. "It is outrageous and unimaginable that they
[G4S] could continue their contract. They have been responsible for six
deaths in Australia in less than nine years," committee spokesman Mark
Newhouse said. He said the company, under its current terms, could still
be responsible for two more deaths in custody and not have its contract
terminated before it expired in 2011. "What is even more concerning is
that in one incident, if there are four to five deaths, that is not
considered a breach of contract, which is outrageous," he said. The
group is also planning on mounting a public campaign to improve proper
approvals for public contracts and improving the monitoring of those
being transported while in custody. Mr Newhouse said there had been no
evidence from the company that any improvements had been made. G4S have
refused to comment on the grounds that it was a confidential contract.
The Attorney General Christian Porter was also unavailable for comment.
October 11, 2009 Weekly Standard
There seems no end to contractor abuse scandals in countries fighting terrorism
or undergoing "nation-building." The latest to be reported in the media involves
ArmorGroup North America, a private security firm guarding the American
embassies in Iraq and Afghanistan. It began in Baghdad on August 9, when an
ArmorGroup employee shot two of his colleagues dead. The victims were Darren
Hoare, 37, an Australian, and Paul McGuigan, 37, a Briton and ArmorGroup
executive. The alleged killer, Daniel Fitzsimons, 33, is also British.
ArmorGroup North America is owned by Wackenhut Services, Inc., a Florida-based
company, which is a division, in turn, of a Danish enterprise, G4S, that
advertises itself as the world's largest security company. The shootings
reportedly occurred late at night, inside the ArmorGroup compound in Baghdad's
international area known as the Green Zone. Fitzsimons, according to a Baghdad
source who declined to be named, is said to have shot his coworkers because they
claimed he was homosexual. After killing them, he shot an Iraqi, Arkhan Mahdi,
in the leg, then was arrested by Iraqi police (who now patrol the Green Zone).
Fitzsimons faces a possible death sentence. He will be the first foreigner
employed in Iraq since the beginning of the 2003 intervention to be held to
account under Iraqi law. Fitzsimons says he cannot remember the incident.
According to the London Sunday Times, Fitzsimons was seen on an earlier occasion
injecting Valium and morphine into his leg while already drunk. Another trail of
misconduct has led to an uproar in Kabul, where 16 U.S. embassy guards provided
by ArmorGroup were fired in early September for alleged drunkenness and for
forcing those under their control to engage in deviant and humiliating behavior.
U.S. press coverage of the Fitzsimons case has been minimal, and even the
contractors' misbehavior in Kabul, although documented by video, has mostly been
handled with discretion by the print media. The New York Times mentioned "lurid
details" and "lewd conduct" at weekly parties hosted by embassy guards. The
Kabul carousing was disclosed when the Project on Government Oversight (POGO)
released a report on September 1. More information emerged in a suit filed
September 9 by James Gordon, a New Zealander and former operations director of
ArmorGroup North America. Gordon says he is a "whistle-blower," forced out of
his job after warning company executives and the U.S. Department of State about
the situation at the embassy. According to the New York Times, the POGO report
stated that victims of "deviant hazing" included Afghans, whose conservative
Muslim culture left them especially repelled by such behavior; those who refused
to submit were dismissed from their jobs. The report described a " 'Lord of the
Flies' environment." Fitzsimons, the accused Baghdad shooter, has been treated
in the British media as a case of post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his
prior military service in Iraq and the Balkans. But it would be a mistake to
blame such dissolution on the stress of war alone. The Green Zone syndrome of
alienation from the local population, as chronicled by critics of the Iraq war,
is a ubiquitous feature of life among foreign administrators in conflict and
post-conflict areas across the globe. Sex trafficking and corruption of locals
have become prominent wherever operations are conducted by transnational
bureaucracies like the United Nations and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) along with the attendant ranks of nongovernmental
organizations and private contractors. I have observed similar patterns in the
Balkans for a decade.
September 30, 2009 ABC
The West Australian Government has officially responded to the
coroner's findings in the case of Mr Ward, who died of heatstroke in a
prisoner transport vehicle. The coroner said the Aboriginal elder's
death in searing desert heat was a disgrace, as the van was "not fit for
humans". But the Government has decided not terminate the contract of
the private company which transported Mr Ward. The Government says it
supports all of the coroner's recommendations - some of which have
already been acted on. But the full response has come three months after
the coroner handed down his findings, and 20 months since the tragedy
occurred. The Government agrees there should be more training and
monitoring of staff, and there should not be transportation of prisoners
over long distances. But the Attorney-General Christian Porter says the
contract with private operators G4S is likely to continue. Mr Porter has
suggested the company may have to pay a penalty. "The penalties that
you've spoken of, for a death for instance, I understand are $100,000
which seems to me to be ridiculous in the scope of what occurred here,"
he said. "But again, the question about termination is very
unfortunately a question about the legality of being able to terminate
under the terms of the present contract." The coroner called for the
prisoner transport fleet to be completely replaced. This will not happen
until the end of next year. Mr Porter says responsibility for
transporting prisoners could be brought back to the public sector. "The
final decision as to whether or not this service will be public or
private has not yet been made but I can say that if a determination is
made to keep this service in the private sector, the contract that
governs the process will be a completely different type of contract to
the one that presently exists," he said. The Deaths In Custody Watch
Committee says Group 4 and GSL staff have contributed to the deaths of
six people in Australia. The committee's Marc Newhouse says the contract
should have been terminated. "We're completely outraged that the
contract with G4S - he hasn't announced the termination of it, it has to
be terminated," he said. "They've been subject to critical reports by
the Australian Human Rights Commission. This company is not fit to
operate in this country and they should be terminated." Noongar elder
Ben Taylor says he believes racism in the system is causing Aboriginal
people to suffer. "There's a lotta racism there and the only ones who're
gonna suffer are my people, Aboriginal people," he said. "This is got to
go wider, and I'm on the Watch Committee with Marc and we're going to
keep hanging on here because there's more lives that are going to be
taken, and that's going to be blackfellas, Aboriginal people, my people,
and that's the full stop." Mr Newhouse says the committee had also
called for a speedier response in the wake of a death in custody. "That
the Coroner's Act is amended in line with the Royal Commission into
Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommendations, that a system of mandatory
reporting be put in place so that government and other relevant bodies
have to report within a certain time frame," he said. "The point of it
is to save lives and to prevent lives being lost." But Mr Porter says
the Labor state government should have ended the contract with the
company. But the Opposition Leader Eric Ripper says there were other
considerations. "You can't just terminate a contract without there being
financial consequences for taxpayers and the government does have a
responsibility to both protect prisoners and the interests of
taxpayers," he said. "That's why this matter needs careful examination
rather than a kneejerk reaction."
September 18, 2009 AP
A top executive of the private security contractor hired to protect the
U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan was informed in July 2008 of alleged illegal
and immoral conduct by guards, attorneys for a whistleblower suing the
company said Friday. The claim contradicts the sworn testimony of Samuel
Brinkley, a vice president for Wackenhut Services, the owner of
ArmorGroup North America. Brinkley told the Commission on Wartime
Contracting under oath on Monday that he and other corporate officials
outside of Afghanistan didn't know until a few weeks ago of problems
that reportedly included lurid parties and ArmorGroup employees
frequenting brothels in Kabul. But in a 10-page letter to the
commission, the attorneys say their client, James Gordon, told Brinkley
during a meeting on July 15, 2008, of alleged guard misconduct. The
meeting took place in Brinkley's office in Arlington, Va., Gordon said
in a separate e-mail through the lawyers. Gordon was ArmorGroup's
director of operations until February 2008. He says he was forced out of
the job after trying to get the company to fix a long list of
shortcomings with the $189 million embassy security contract that the
State Department awarded ArmorGroup in March 2007. He filed a lawsuit
earlier this month in federal court claiming the company retaliated
against him for telling the department about the deficiencies. Brinkley
and Wackenhut did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a
previous statement on the lawsuit, a Wackenhut spokeswoman called
Gordon's claims baseless and said he voluntarily resigned from the
company. Clark Irwin, a spokesman for the wartime contracting
commission, said the congressionally mandated panel is reviewing the
letter. At the commission's Sept. 14 hearing on ArmorGroup's
performance, Brinkley portrayed himself and other company executives as
being blindsided by the misconduct of a small number of employees. "I am
not here to defend the indefensible," Brinkley said. "Certain of our
personnel behaved very badly." During a series of heated exchanges,
commissioners pressed Brinkley to explain why he didn't tell the State
Department of reports that guards were behaving inappropriately,
potentially putting security of a key U.S. diplomatic outpost at risk.
Brinkley said ArmorGroup managers in Afghanistan only told him about an
Aug. 11 incident involving nine employees who got drunk at a bar near
their living quarters. Those workers were counseled by the on-site
manager and a temporary ban on alcohol was imposed. He said the State
Department was informed of this incident on Aug. 26. Brinkley said he
wasn't aware of the scope and duration of the misconduct until Sept. 1
when a watchdog group released a report with photos showing guards and
supervisors in various stages of nudity at parties flowing with alcohol.
The watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight in Washington,
also said guards were subjected to abuse and hazing by supervisors who
created a hostile work environment. The letter from Gordon's attorneys
says they are concerned Brinkley's testimony did not provide the
commission with a "full and accurate understanding of many of the events
in question."
September 16, 2009 The West Australian
The prison watchdog’s powers will be expanded to allow him to audit
individual cases as part of the Government’s response to a coronial
inquiry into the death of an Aboriginal elder in the back of a transport
van. A legislative package to be announced by Attorney-General Christian
Porter this morning will strengthen the powers of the Inspector of
Custodial Services in line with recommendations of State Coroner
Alastair Hope. The laws will include giving him the power to issue "show
cause" notices which require a response from the department of
Corrective Services. Mr Hope delivered a damning report in June which
found the Department of Corrective Services, prisoner transport company
G4S, formerly known as Global Solutions Limited, and the two guards who
drove the van had all contributed to Mr Ward’s death. Mr Porter said the
Government would not support the Opposition’s proposed legislation on
the recommendations, which is scheduled to be debated in State
Parliament this afternoon. He said the Labor Bill was flawed and the
Government’s legislative package would go further than the Coroner’s
recommendations, giving Inspector Neil Morgan the power to carry out
individual audits the treatment of up to about 40 prisoners each year.
Mr Porter said he would be seeking Cabinet approval for more money to
provide extra staff to conduct the audits. Today’s debate on the powers
of the inspector coincides with a "day of action" organised by the
Deaths in Custody Watch Committee, which is calling on the Government to
respond to the Coroner’s report on Mr Ward’s death.
September 14, 2009 Government Executive
The State Department should terminate ArmorGroup North America's
contract for security services at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, witnesses
and panelists said during a Commission on Wartime Contracting hearing on
Monday. The recent photographs and report from the Project on Government
Oversight detailing alleged lewd, drunken behavior by guards at the
embassy just describe the latest and most egregious violation by
ArmorGroup, witnesses told the panel. State Department Undersecretary of
Management Patrick Kennedy testified that the contract has required
"extensive oversight and management." Since awarding the contract to
ArmorGroup on March 12, 2007, State has issued seven deficiency notices
addressing 25 deficiencies, one cure notice and one show-cause notice.
Each notice demanded separate correction action plans to resolve
contractual issues and several involved serious allegations, including
that the contractor had deceived the government in its contract
proposal. Despite these problems, State has not terminated the contract
with ArmorGroup and has, in fact, exercised an extension of the contract
period. State officials said they are awaiting the results of an ongoing
investigation into the contractor's conduct at the embassy. Commissioner
Clark Kent Ervin pressed Kennedy to pledge State would terminate the
contract if the probe validates the allegations made against the
contract employees. While Kennedy was hesitant to speculate on a
hypothetical situation, he said he could imagine an outcome of the
investigation that would lead the agency to terminate the contract.
"We're seeing a serious case being made for termination," he said.
William Moser, deputy assistant secretary of State for logistics
management, told the commission a public hearing was not the proper
forum to talk about future contract actions. Regardless, he said the
department is discussing potential alternatives and approaching the
reevaluation of the contract "with a great deal of seriousness."
Danielle Brian, executive director of POGO, said the organization's
investigation shows State officials were notified of serious issues
relating to the ArmorGroup contract repeatedly, and took limited action.
"For the two years of this contract, State's response to whistleblowers'
sustained complaints and to its own finding of severe noncompliance
consisted mainly of written reprimands and the renewal of ArmorGroup's
contract," Brian said. "Simply documenting a problem or even levying a
fine is not effective oversight when those same problems continue to
occur." Brian said State has been "stubbornly defensive" in not
recognizing its own failures, and how those failures have caused
misconduct and potential lapses in security. While POGO strongly
believes the contract should be canceled and ArmorGroup -- or its parent
company, Wackenhut -- should be debarred from doing business with the
government, that will not prevent future problems, Brian said. To ensure
proper conduct by contractors overseas, State must shorten the rotations
of its regional security officers, perform more frequent audits and
independent verification of contractor reports of compliance, and
prioritize accountability, she said. "This cultural shift will be aided
by canceling contracts when the contractor consistently underperforms --
which will have the added benefit of acting as a deterrent to future
contractors -- and by disciplining the State Department officials who
are responsible for the failed oversight of the ArmorGroup contract,"
Brian said. Commissioner Linda Gustitus said State already lost
authority with industry by not terminating its contract with Blackwater
Worldwide in the wake of the Nissor Square shooting incident in Iraq.
"That helped to send a message to other contractors that you can do a
lot and not have you contract terminated," Gustitus said. Several
commissioners joined Brian in urging Kennedy to hold accountable the
State employees responsible for managing Armor Group by firing them,
withholding bonuses or taking some other disciplinary action.
September 14, 2009 Wayne Madsen Report
At a September 10 press conference at the National Press Club in
Washington, two former managers for ArmorGroup North America (AGNA),
headquartered in McLean, Virginia and a subsidiary of ArmorGroup
International (AGI), revealed a litany of contract fraud and abuse
charges against AGNA and AGI and provided further details of sexual
deviancy among AGNA security guards in Kabul tasked with protecting the
U.S. embassy. ArmorGroup is now owned by Wackenhut Services, Inc.,
headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The two former employees
are suing AGNA, AGI, Wackenhut, and Corporation Service Company for
wrongful termination, false claims, and conspiracy. John Gorman, a
retired Marine Corps veteran who was the camp manager at the security
guard force’s Camp Sullivan, blew the whistle on contract
non-performance, security pitfalls, and sexual deviancy, and was placed
under virtual house arrest in June 2007 by AGNA’s top manager in Kabul,
Michael O’Connell, and flown out of the country. Gorman was terminated
and confined for some 24 hours, along with two other AGNA managers,
James Sauer, a retired Marine sergeant major and Pete Martino, a retired
Marine colonel, who filed complaints to both AGNA and the Regional
Security Office (RSO) for the U.S. embassy in Kabul, also Marine Corps
veterans. Because they told the RSO they feared for their personal
safety after bringing the charges against AGNA, he offered them the
security of his apartment on the embassy compound, which they turned
down only to later have their cell phones and weapons confiscated by
AGNA and being confined before their flight out of the country. Gorman
said no one at AGNA “ever mentioned or indicated a concern for the
actual security at the embassy -- the greatest and only concerns were
the profit margin and the bottom line.” Gorman said the project manager
for the security contract, Sauer, a man with 35 years of experience as a
30-year career Marine with private security contractor experience in
Iraq and Afghanistan, was “ignored, second guessed, and rejected.” Sauer
had vehemently objected to allowing security personnel to be deployed to
Kabul who had engaged in “lewd and deviant behavior” during their
subcontractor training in Texas. After Gorman, Sauer, and Martino made
their complaints known to McConnell, the corporate executive replied
that ArmorGroup was a publicly traded company and could, therefore, not
hire more people “because he had a responsibility to the shareholders.”
The effect was the hiring of clearly unqualified personnel for the
security guard force. Gorman said that there were people hired as guards
who had “no DD214s, driver’s licenses, passports,” including one person
who had been fired from a previous security project for pulling a pistol
on another employee while drunk. AGNA, according to Gorman, covered up
the security contract failures because the firm was “to assume the $187
million a year security contract for the American embassy in Kabul in
less than two weeks and they were bidding on the more lucrative $500
million contract for the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. James Gordon, a New
Zealand citizen and New Zealand Army veteran who is married to an
American, worked for ArmorGroup Iraq as the operations manager, a
subsidiary of AGI, also spoke about corporate malfeasance involving AGNA.
He later became the business development director for AGNA headquarters
in McLean. In 2007, Gordon took over as operations director for the
Kabul embassy security contract and attempted to bring the contract into
compliance with State Department requirements. Eventually, Gordon was
forced out of the company because instead of correcting contract
violations the firm’s only goal was to “maximize profits.” Gordon said
among AGNA security personnel were unqualified personnel, some of whom
had serious criminal records. Some guard recruits had engaged in
“disgusting behavior” during their initial training at AGI’s
subsidiary’s training facility, International Training Inc. (ITI) of
Pearsall, Texas. Sauer, Martino, and Gorman had received reports that
some of the AGNA recruits, while undergoing pre-deployment in Texas, had
engaged in “lewd, aberrant, and sexually deviant behavior, including
sexual hazing, urination on one another and equipment, bullying,
‘mooning,’” exposing themselves, excessive drinking, and other conduct
making themselves unfit for service on the contract. The AGNA employees
who were later forced out of the company attempted to ensure that the
trainees in Texas never arrived in Kabul. Several email exchanges
(“e-pong”) show they tried to block the sexual deviants from duty in
Kabul. AGNA also misrepresented ethnic Nepalese Gurkha farmers hired as
security guards for the Kabul embassy job as Gurkha military veterans of
the British and Indian armies. In fact. the Gurkha farmers hired from
Nepal and northern India were not proficient in English as required
under the State Department contract. In fact, some could speak no
English. The language test had never been administered to the Gurkha
recruits. When some Gurkha guards walked off their jobs in May 2007
because of poor wages and treatment, Carol Ruart, AGI’s human resources
director in London, ordered AGNA management in Kabul to “lock [the
Gurkhas] in their rooms until they agree to work for less.” Gordon also
stated that AGNA never invested in secure vehicles to transport embassy
guards between the embassy and other locations. AGNA used broken down
vehicles called “white coffins.” After the State Department released
funds to AGNA to buy secure vehicles, the firm never bought the vehicles
but transferred the money to AGI in London. AGNA also hired a “rogue”
South African program manager for the embassy contract in Kabul,
according to Gordon. DuPlessis replaced Sauer. Jimmy Lemmon replaced
Martino as deputy program manager. During the tenure of the South
African, Nick duPlessis, ammunition went missing from Camp Sullivan
where the guards were bivouacked and illegal weapons were stored at the
facility. Moreover, duPlessis did not possess a security clearance to
receive classified briefings, a requirement for the program manager
position. In addition, Gordon stated that the AGNA logistics manager,
Sean Garcia, used contract funds to purchase counterfeit North Face and
Altama jackets and boots for the security guards from his wife’s company
in Lebanon, Trends General Trading and Marketing LLC of Beirut. Gordon
said, “the cheap knock-offs could never keep the men warm during the
cold winters in Afghanistan.” After Gordon notified the State Department
about the contract breach, the order to remove him was ignored and the
State Department continues to own sub-par counterfeit material. Gordon
sent an email dated September 3, 2007 to duPlessis and his staff in
Kabul. Gordon also said that the AGNA armorer in Kabul, responsible for
maintaining all the weapons, had to be “forcibly removed” from a brothel
in Kabul. Many of the prostitutes working in Kabul, according to Gordon,
are young Chinese girls who were taken against their will to Kabul for
sexual exploitation. When Gordon ordered the armorer’s immediate
termination, he discovered that the AGNA medic, Neville Montefiore, and
duPlessis, the program manager, had also frequented the brothels with
the armorer. Gordon also discovered that there had been an outbreak of
sexually-transmitted diseases among the AGNA guards in 2007 and this was
never reported to the State Department as required by the contract.
Prostitutes also frequently visited Camp Sullivan. Gordon also
discovered that the guard force routinely visited brothels in Kabul and
Montefiore’s replacement discovered the improper storage of regulated
narcotics at Camp Sullivan’s medical facility, including morphine. “You
can rest assured that there is no hiding of information from the DoS
[Department of State]. Anyone who thinks that they can get away with
this will probably end up in a Federal Penitentiary. It is our duty to
report on all aspects of the contract performance and we are required to
be transparent and honest in our dealings. Personally I wouldn’t accept
anything else.” Gordon’s plans to visit Kabul to conduct an
investigation were immediately shut down by ArmorGroup’s parent office
in London. Gordon said it is contrary to U.S. law for a foreign company
to direct or influence any activities on a classified contract.
Moreover, the British parent conducted their own investigation, which
resulted in a three-page whitewash. Gordon was denied access to all
information about AGI London’s investigation. After the whitewash,
Gordon received a report that an AGNA trainee wanted to be hired on as a
security guard at the embassy in Kabul because he knew someone “who
owned prostitutes there.” The trainee boasted that he could purchase a
girl for $20,000 and earn a handsome profit each month. The trainee,
according to Gordon, had previously worked in Kabul under duPlessis.
Neither AGNA nor the State Department conducted a follow-up
investigation of the violations of the U.S. Trafficking in Victims
Protection Act by AGNA employees. AGNA responded to Gordon’s warnings by
blaming him for all the contract’s failures and he was forced to leave
the firm on February 29, 2008. After Wackenhut Services Inc. bought
ArmorGroup, after Gordon left the company, he met with Sam Brinkley, the
vice president of Wackenhut, to discuss the contract problems. Brinkley
promised to remove duPlessis and investigate all the charges of
misconduct. On June 10, 2009, Gordon was present during hearings held by
Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Gordon said that Brinkley and the State
Department testified to McCaskill’s subcommittee on contracting
oversight that AGNA was “fully compliant” on the security contract for
the embassy in Kabul. Brinkley told the subcommittee that he “was proud”
of the way the company had been managing the embassy security contract.
Gordon said the situation at Camp Sullivan had worsened and the U.S.
Embassy was facing a grave security threat. McCaskill and ranking
Republican member Susan Collins (R-ME) never heard testimony from any of
the whistleblowers on AGNA’s poor security record in Kabul. The only
witnesses heard were Brinkley and William Moser, the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for Logistics Management. Brinkley, in addition to
the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, has responsibility for the security contract
for the U.S. Naval Support Activity in Bahrain, which, according to ex-AGNA
sources, may be using untrained Gurkha farmers from the Indian
subcontinent as crack veterans of the British and Indian armies. The
Gorman/Gordon lawsuit states that on October 10, 2007, the AGNA security
force in Kabul was involved in a number of serious incidents, including:
detaining a group of Afghan civilians and involuntarily transporting
them to the U.S. embassy; verbally and physically engaging in an
altercation with Afghan Ministry of Interior policemen and handcuffing
the policemen; confronting an Afghan general and several Ministry of
Interior policemen; refusing an order from the embassy RSO to withdraw
from a checkpoint to defuse a potentially explosive situation. The
statements of the two ex-AGNA employees reveal a culture of depravity
and unprofessional behavior that Gordon stated still exists to this very
day in Kabul.
September 14, 2009 AP
A member of a federal commission investigating wartime spending said
Monday that photos showing private security guards in various stages of
nudity at drunken parties may be as damaging to U.S. interests in
Afghanistan as images of detainee mistreatment at Abu Ghraib were in
Iraq. Dov Zakheim, a former Pentagon comptroller, made the comment at a
hearing Monday held by the Commission on Wartime Contracting on
allegations of lewd behavior and sexual misconduct by employees of
ArmorGroup North America, the company hired to protect the U.S. Embassy
in Kabul. Zakheim said the photos are circulating heavily on the
Internet and give Muslims in Afghanistan a negative image of the United
States. Patrick Kennedy, the State Department's management chief,
acknowledged the department should have been paying closer attention to
the activities of the ArmorGroup guards at their living quarters near
the embassy. The private security contractor hired to protect the
embassy said Monday it erred by not immediately telling the State
Department about an alcohol-related incident involving its guards that
proved far more serious than company officials first believed. "I am not
here to defend the indefensible," said Samuel Brinkley, vice president
of Wackenhut Services, the company that owns the contractor, ArmorGroup
North America. A manager for ArmorGroup counseled nine guards after they
got drunk at a bar near their living quarters in Kabul on August 10. But
after photos surfaced showing the guards had been at a party where
ArmorGroup employees engaged in lewd and inappropriate behavior, they
realized they made a mistake by not alerting U.S. officials. Photos
showed guards and supervisors in various stages of nudity at parties
flowing with alcohol. Brinkley said the manager's response, which
included a temporary ban on alcohol, seemed adequate at the time. "In
retrospect, we were wrong in not notifying the State Department,"
Brinkley said in testimony before the independent Commission on Wartime
Contracting. Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, told the
commission the State Department is very concerned about ArmorGroup's
delays in reporting its knowledge of any misconduct by its employees.
The State Department has been sharply criticized for its management and
oversight of the security contract at one of the country's most
important diplomatic outposts. In addition to the allegations of
misconduct, other problems have included a shortage of guards and
inferior equipment. As the department's top management officer, Kennedy
said he takes full responsibility for having failed to prevent the
problems that reportedly ranged from out-of-control parties to Armor
Group supervisors frequenting brothels in Kabul. The State Department
has launched an investigation into ArmorGroup's handling of the $189
million contract embassy security contract. Kennedy told the commission
that the misconduct "dishonored" the State Department in Afghanistan,
where "the success of U.S. objectives depends on the cultural
sensitivity of all mission personnel, including employees under
contract." But he and other State Department officials said no decision
will be made on whether to terminate the contract with ArmorGroup until
the investigation is complete. Members of the commission pressed Kennedy
to be more aggressive, saying the evidence already available is enough
to warrant firing ArmorGroup, which was awarded the contract to protect
the embassy in March 2007. "To me, it's just totally out of control and
it's been going on for a long time," said Michael Thibault, co-chairman
of the commission. Commissioner Clark Ervin asked Kennedy to pledge to
terminate the contract if the investigation proves all the allegations
prove to be true. Kennedy refused to commit, saying the inquiry needs to
run its course. However, Kennedy added, "We are seeing a very, very
serious case being made for termination."
September 13, 2009 Washington Post
In 2005, the State Department hired a Northern Virginia company to
provide security for the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan. Diplomats quickly
became concerned about whether the new guards, who barely spoke English,
could protect such a sensitive site. "They had serious problems,"
recalled Ronald E. Neumann, who was ambassador at the time. The
department then brought in another security contractor, ArmorGroup North
America. But the difficulties didn't cease. In recent days, evidence of
ArmorGroup's failings has burst into public view -- photos depicting its
guards in semi-naked hazing rituals and official documents showing
persistent staff shortages. Harold W. Geisel, the acting inspector
general of the State Department, told Congress last week that his
investigators are checking for possible criminal conduct by ArmorGroup,
and a congressional hearing is scheduled for Monday. Lawmakers and
watchdog groups are questioning how the department could have continued
to employ a company that, in addition to tolerating bullying and
understaffing, failed to ensure that its guards had proper security
clearances and sufficient equipment -- or that they spoke English. The
criticism is particularly intense because the State Department had
promised to improve oversight after a 2007 shooting incident in Iraq
involving bodyguards from security contractor Blackwater that left 17
Iraqi civilians dead. "State's management of these contracts has been
self-evidentially abysmal," said Peter W. Singer, an expert on
government contracting at the Brookings Institution. ArmorGroup's
efforts to guard the Kabul embassy were troubled from the start,
according to congressional hearings, internal State Department documents
and interviews. The McLean-based company submitted "an unreasonably low
price" in 2007 for the contract, said Samuel Brinkley, an official with
Wackenhut Services, the firm's parent company, at a congressional
hearing in June. Former ArmorGroup supervisors have said in interviews
that the company slashed guard staffing so it could squeak out a profit.
State Department officials have expressed outrage about the lewd
behavior shown in the photos. Still, they defend their selection of
ArmorGroup, saying they are legally required to award such contracts to
the lowest qualified bidder and noting that ArmorGroup was
well-regarded. They also insist that the embassy was never endangered by
the guard problems -- even though internal department documents say it
was. "The fact you find something is wrong means something is wrong. But
you find it," the department's undersecretary for management, Patrick F.
Kennedy, said in an interview. He emphasized that many of the guards'
failings emerged in documents written by department officials. "There
was oversight present," he said. The troubles at the Kabul embassy raise
questions about how authorities will manage what is expected to be a
surge in the number of contract guards at U.S. facilities in Iraq as the
American military presence declines. The scandal has also given new
impetus to a debate over whether too many government wartime jobs are
being outsourced. "The State Department should consider whether the
security for an embassy in a combat zone is an inherently governmental
function, and therefore not subject to contracting out," Danielle Brian,
executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, wrote to
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton this month. Brian's group
released the photos of what it called near-weekly sessions of hazing and
sexual humiliation of ArmorGroup guards at their camp. The State
Department has for years used local contract guards to secure the
perimeters of its embassies, while generally keeping a modest Marine
contingent for interior access. But in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
department decided not to use local guards because of vetting concerns,
officials say. Instead, as the military withdrew forces from around
those embassies in recent years, the department turned to contractors
such as ArmorGroup. But the department, which suffers from a shortage of
contracting staff, has had a rocky history of managing such guard
contracts. Each of its three contracts in Kabul has come under fire. The
first was awarded to McLean-based Global Strategies, to replace a Marine
combat force withdrawing from the U.S. Embassy in March 2005. The
department justified the $6-million-a-month sole-source contract by
saying it had received late notification of the Marines' departure. But
the inspector general found that the Defense Department had given six
months' official notice, and scolded the State Department for poor
planning. By July 2005, the State Department had signed a contract with
MVM of Ashburn, cutting its guard costs to less than $2 million a month,
according to the inspector general's report. But MVM could not provide
enough guards, partly because it was paying much less than its
predecessor, according to Neumann. And, he said, the guards spoke so
little English that they could not understand instructions. "We went
back to the State Department and said, 'These people are unacceptable,'
" Neumann said. State canceled MVM's contract and kept on the Global
guards temporarily. MVM's chief executive, Dario O. Marquez, did not
return a call seeking comment but told the Wall Street Journal last year
that the State Department did not give him enough time to fix the
problems. Neumann said the department was handicapped in selecting guard
companies because of regulations stipulating that the contract go to a
qualified U.S. firm that offers the lowest bid. "People low-bid, and
then they're not competent," he said. Finally, in March 2007, the
department turned to ArmorGroup. The firm, which also guarded the
British Embassy in Kabul, was one of only two bidders deemed technically
qualified by the department's acquisition and security specialists. Its
price was about $3 million a month, officials say. "ArmorGroup was not a
small, undercapitalized, underfunded, fly-by-night organization,"
Kennedy said. "They put forth a proposal that met every requirement."
But within weeks of the company starting work, the State Department sent
ArmorGroup a warning that its deficiencies -- including shortages of
guards and armored vehicles -- were so serious that "the security of the
U.S. Embassy in Kabul is in jeopardy," according to the House
Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight. State Department officials issued
eight more warnings to the company over the next two years, including
one last September threatening to terminate the contract. Despite the
problems, the department stuck with ArmorGroup, agreeing this summer to
extend its contract for a year. State Department officials have said
that the company appeared to be making progress and that changing firms
would be disruptive. A spokeswoman for Wackenhut, which took over
ArmorGroup North America last year, declined to comment. In a lawsuit
filed last week, former ArmorGroup supervisor James Gordon accuses the
company not only of failing to properly staff the embassy but also of
lying to the State Department about its capabilities. The operation "was
a complete shambles," he said.
September 12, 2009 New York Times
When a security guard at the United States Embassy in Kabul,
Afghanistan, was leaving for breakfast Monday morning, he froze at the
sight of a crude poster of a rat hanging on his door. “Warning!” the
poster said in stark, black letters. “Rats can cost you your job and
your family.” The guard was a whistle-blower who had told of security
lapses and lewd, drunken bacchanals by fellow workers, sparking an
outcry and enraging Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Now he
wonders whether he should have kept his mouth shut. “Threats are still
running rampant here,” he said in a telephone conversation from Kabul,
speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “So even though
it looks like State may finally turn things around, no one’s ready to
celebrate yet.” Such skepticism may be warranted. A review of two years
of e-mail messages, letters and memos reveals that the State Department
had long known of the serious problems with ArmorGroup, the contractor
chosen to protect its embassy. The complaints went beyond the lurid
pranks that made headlines, the documents show, and included serious
understaffing, bullying by management, petty corruption and abusive work
conditions. In fact, the deficiencies became so severe that they
threatened the security of the compound, the documents show, and State
Department officials withheld payments to ArmorGroup as a way to compel
it to comply with the terms of its agreement. On a few occasions,
government officials warned the company that if it did not correct the
most egregious problems it would lose the five-year, $189 million deal.
Yet both times the contract came up for renewal, in 2008 and 2009, the
State Department opted to extend it, officials confirmed. The troubles
with the ArmorGroup contract, and the State Department’s frustrated
dealings with the company over two years and through two
administrations, illustrate how the government has become dependent on
the private security companies that work in war zones, and has struggled
to manage companies that themselves are sometimes loosely run and do not
always play by the government’s rules. With a stretched military, the
government relies on the security companies themselves to vet, train,
and discipline the guards, all at the lowest cost. “It’s expensive for
the State Department to withdraw a contract from one company, rebid the
project and award it to a new one,” said Janet Goldstein, a Washington
lawyer who represents one of the ArmorGroup whistleblowers. “So
businesses know that once they get a contract, State may ding them
around a little bit, but it’s not going to fire them.” The perils of
this reliance were most graphically illustrated in Iraq in 2007, when
security guards from another contractor, Blackwater, were involved in
shootings that left 17 civilians dead on a Baghdad street. But
interviews and documents show that the ArmorGroup affair, in its
mundane, unsavory details, offers perhaps a more representative look
inside the troubled relationship between contractors and the government
in war zones. State Department officials acknowledge they had a litany
of complaints about the company, none of which, they insist, compromised
the security of the embassy. But they profess to being deeply
embarrassed by reports of parties where security guards were
photographed naked, fondling and urinating on each other. “I’ve been
doing this for 37 years; I’m proud of what I do,” said Patrick F.
Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for management who oversees outside
contractors. But, he added, “This is humiliating.” Mr. Kennedy, however,
defended the State Department’s overall handling of the contract. The
frequent letters of complaint the government sent to ArmorGroup, he
said, were evidence that the department was keeping close tabs on the
company. The “greatest majority” of the failures cited in the letters
were addressed, he said. Part of the problem, officials said, was that
the guards are housed in a complex six miles from the embassy, Camp
Sullivan, with little oversight by State Department officials. Susan
Pitcher, a spokeswoman for Wackenhut Services, the American subsidiary
of the Danish company that owns ArmorGroup, referred questions to the
State Department, saying only that it was cooperating with the
government’s investigation. On Monday, the independent Commission on
Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan will hold a hearing to
examine the State Department’s oversight of the contract. Christopher
Shays, a former congressman and co-chairman of the commission, said
there was “a serious failure on the part of the State Department in
being unable to compel the contractor to fulfill its commitment.” The
disclosures, which were originally made by a nonprofit organization,
Project on Government Oversight, deeply rattled the State Department. At
a staff meeting following the release of the group’s report, senior
officials said, Mrs. Clinton vented her anger about the lurid pictures.
Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired Army general who became President Obama’s
ambassador to Afghanistan last May, was livid, an official said, because
he had never been briefed about the problems. Despite their unease with
contractors, officials acknowledged the department had no choice but to
keep using them. “In situations where there is a surge of intense
security requirements, it is a real challenge,” said Jacob J. Lew, the
deputy secretary of state for management and resources. “We cannot
reduce the security presence.” The State Department was not in a buyer’s
market when it looked for a company to protect its embassy in Kabul. It
picked ArmorGroup in March 2007, after its previous choice, MVM, proved
unable to marshal the necessary personnel or equipment, officials said.
Of the eight companies that bid for the contract the second time around,
only two were deemed technically capable. ArmorGroup was the cheapest.
The company’s most recent contract extension was granted in June this
year, after a Senate hearing in which one of its executives, Samuel
Brinkley, a Wackenhut vice president, said in sworn testimony that his
company was in full compliance with the terms of its contract, and a
State Department official, William H. Moser, a deputy assistant
secretary of state, also under oath, said he was satisfied with the
company’s performance. In interviews, ArmorGroup whistleblowers said
they felt betrayed by the testimony. By many measures, they said, things
were worse, not better. After largely uneventful company barbecues
morphed into what have been described as scenes from “The Lord of the
Flies,” at least a dozen of the men started a document trail of their
own, sending e-mail messages and photographs to the Project on
Government Oversight. According to interviews and those documents, from
July 2007 to April 2009, the State Department issued ArmorGroup at least
nine warnings, nearly one every other month, about contract violations
that ranged from mundane concerns about the company’s ability to keep
accurate personnel logs, to more critical concerns about corruption
among company managers and the hardships faced by sleep-deprived,
underpaid guards — the majority of them Gurkhas from Nepal — who could
not understand simple commands in English. While the Gurkhas were
largely the source of the language problems, the lewd hazing rituals
were largely the activity of the native English speakers, a mix of
Americans, South Africans, New Zealanders and Australians. In 2008,
after ArmorGroup was acquired by the Danish company, G4S, Wackenhut
informed the State Department it was taking control of the Kabul
contract, and promised to fix any problems. Government officials agreed
to give the new owners a chance. According to their own correspondence,
their optimism seemed to dim fairly quickly. On Aug. 22, 2008, the State
Department wrote to ArmorGroup to express concerns that staffing
shortages were so severe the company might not be able to provide
security after a situation with mass casualties. On Sept. 21, 2008, the
State Department deducted $2.4 million in payments from ArmorGroup,
warning that its failure to provide a sufficient number of guards
“gravely endangers the performance of guard services.” In March 2009,
the department again advised ArmorGroup that it had “grave concerns”
about staffing shortages, noting that inspectors on a recent tour found
18 guardposts left uncovered. In April, it denied ArmorGroup’s request
for a third waiver to the requirement that it teach its foreign guards
English. A month later, without much explanation, ArmorGroup told the
State Department that deficiencies relating to language and staffing had
been resolved. And a month after that, a senior State Department
official told the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight that
“despite contractual deficiencies, the performance by ArmorGroup North
America has been and is sound.” “I sat in the audience that day, and
shook my head in disbelief,” said James Gordon, a former ArmorGroup
executive who has filed a whistleblower’s lawsuit against the company.
He says he was forced out for complaining about the problems. “I knew
that conditions at Camp Sullivan were deteriorating, that the contract
continued to be understaffed, that the conditions in Kabul were getting
more dangerous, and that the U.S. Embassy was facing grave threats.”
September 10, 2009 New York Times
Two former employees of a private contractor hired to provide
security at the United States Embassy in Afghanistan charged that State
Department officials were aware as early as 2007 that guards and
supervisors were involved in lewd conduct. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday,
one of the former employees, James Gordon, a native of New Zealand who
served as director of operations at the contractor, ArmorGroup North
America, charged that he had spoken numerous times with State Department
officials about significant problems that threatened security at the
embassy. Among other things, he said that ArmorGroup hired guards who
could not speak English and had no security experience; that the company
employed fewer guards than needed and worked them for longer hours than
at other embassies to cut costs; and that it allowed managers and
employers to hire prostitutes. “Their goal was to perform the contract
as cheaply as possible,” said Mr. Gordon, speaking by telephone from
Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, where he is now employed by another
private security contractor which he declined to name. “Their goal was
to do everything they could to prevent the State Department from
discovering their multiple contract violations and operational
shortcomings. Their goal was to provide a fig leaf of security at the
embassy, and to pray to God that nobody got killed.” Mr. Gordon and
another former supervisor, John Gorman, said they warned State
Department officials in Kabul several times that ArmorGroup was plagued
with problems and that it was determined to cover them up. They said
that as a result of their efforts to correct the problems and to make
the government aware of the issues, ArmorGroup forced them to leave
their jobs. As evidence to support his assertions, Mr. Gorman provided a
packet of memos and e-mail messages that he said he and two other former
employees gave State Department officials in June 2007, including a
three-page memo in which he outlined an array of contract violations.
Among them, he wrote: “The training program run for new hires has been
plagued with hazing and intimidation of students by students. This
included physical threats and perversions.” Senior State Department
officials said they were unaware that guards had engaged in that kind of
activity at their living quarters at a base in Kabul. The officials
spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak about a
continuing investigation. The charges echoed those in a report released
last week by an independent group, the Project on Government Oversight,
which accused the guards and supervisors of deviant behavior. Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ordered an investigation, and about 16
guards and supervisors were fired or have resigned. ArmorGroup North
America, based in McLean, Va., was acquired in 2008 by a Danish security
company, G4S, and its American subsidiary, Wackenhut Services Inc. In a
written statement, Wackenhut described Mr. Gordon’s allegations as
“overstated, ill-founded, not based on any personal knowledge or
otherwise lacking in legal merit.”
September 10, 2009 AP
A former manager for the security contractor protecting the U.S.
Embassy in Afghanistan says the company lowballed its bid for the work
and then failed to hire enough guards or fix faulty equipment. The
allegations come after an independent watchdog group said last week that
ArmorGroup guards were subjected to abuse and hazing by supervisors who
created a climate of fear and intimidation. On Thursday, James Gordon,
former director of operations at ArmorGroup North America, alleged the
company bid too low in order to win the contract and then cut corners to
keep profits up. Gordon says he was fired for reporting the problems. He
also claims ArmorGroup withheld from Congress information about
employees who went to brothels. Wackenhut Services, ArmorGroup's parent
company, had no immediate comment.
September 2, 2009 The Guardian
Pictures have emerged showing private contractors at the embassy holding
'deviant and lewd' parties.The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton,
has ordered an investigation into allegations that private contractors
employed to protect the American embassy in Afghanistan were engaged in
"deviant and lewd" parties that have been compared to Lord of the Flies.
The decision to launch the inquiry came after an independent group sent
her a 10-page dossier yesterday claiming that the security guards at the
embassy had been engaged in drunken parties involving prostitutes and
the kind of ritual humiliation associated with gang initiation. Pictures
and video footage were attached to the dossier. The dossier, compiled by
the independent investigative group Project on Government Insight,
includes an email allegedly from a guard currently serving in Kabul
describing scenes in which guards and supervisors are "peeing on people,
eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of
[buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drnken
[sic] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating
in this activity". The allegations are an embarrassment at a time when
the Obama administration is struggling to win hearts and minds in
Afghanistan and the Muslim world in general. It comes against the
backdrop of the continuing controversy over the widespread use by the US
of private contractors in war zones, of which the most notorious was
Blackwater, now named Xe. The group at the centre of the new allegations
are the ArmorGroup, part of the Florida-based Wackenhut group, one of
the biggest private security organisations in the US. The organisation
did not respond immediately today to the allegations. The Project on
Government Insight, which was established in 1981 to track military
procurement and bring to light evidence of any corruption, described the
environment at Camp Sullivan, where the guards were housed outside
Kabul, as comparable to the anarchy in William Golding's Lord of the
Flies. It said about 300 of the 450 ArmorGroup guards are Gurkhas and
the rest are a mix of Australians, South Africans and Americans. In the
dossier, it said that guards were "engaging in near-weekly deviant
hazing and humiliation of subordinates" . It claimed that some guards
had barricaded themselves in their rooms out of fear that the alleged
hazing might harm them physically. It further claims that guard force
supervisors "made no secret that, to celebrate a birthday, they brought
prostitutes into Camp Sullivan, which maintains a sign-in log."
According to the report, Afghan nationals, as Muslims, were humiliated
by the behaviour and the apparently free-flowing use of alcohol. The
pictures could be picked up by the Taliban and used as propaganda
against the US and its allies. But the Project on Government Insight
stressed that comparisons should not be made with the pictures of abuse
at the Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, because no allegations of torture are
being made. The report says that the general breakdown in discipline
poses a threat to the security of the embassy. Ian Kelly, the state
department spokesman, said of the reports of wild, anarchic partying:
"These are very serious allegations, and we are treating them that way."
Clinton has "zero tolerance" for the behaviour described and has
directed a "review of the whole system" for farming out security to
private contractors that may have threatened the safety of embassy
personnel, Kelly said. The embassy said today: "Nothing is more
important to us than the safety and security of all embassy personnel -
Americans and Afghan - and respect for the cultural and religious values
of all Afghans." It added: "We have taken immediate steps to review all
local guard force policies and procedures and have taken all possible
measures to ensure our security is sound." Senator Claire McCaskill, a
Democrat who heads a subcommittee on contractor oversight, wrote to the
state department calling for the inquiry in the light of the report.
McCaskill's committee earlier this year conducted its own hearings on
the involvement of ArmorGroup in Afghanistan.
September 1, 2009 Washington Post
Private security contractors who guard the U.S. embassy in Kabul
have engaged in lewd behavior and hazed subordinates, demoralizing the
undermanned force and posing a "significant threat" to security at time
when the Taliban is intensifying attacks in the Afghan capital,
according to an investigation released Tuesday by a government watchdog
group. The Project on Government Oversight launched the probe after more
than a dozen security guards contacted the group to report misconduct
and morale problems within the force of 450 guards that lives at Camp
Sullivan, a few miles from the U.S. embassy compound. In one incident in
May, more than a dozen guards took weapons, night vision goggles and
other key equipment and engaged in an unauthorized "cowboy" mission in
Kabul, leaving the embassy "largely night blind," POGO wrote in a letter
to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton outlining the security
violations. The guards dressed in Afghan tunics and scarves in violation
of contract rules and hid in abandoned buildings in a reconnaissance
mission that was not part of their training or mission. Later two heads
of the guard force, Werner Ilic and Jimmy Lemon, issued a "letter of
recognition" praising the men for "conspicuous intrepidity (sic)" with
the U.S. State Department logo on the letter head. "They were living out
some sort of delusion," one of the whistle-blower guards said Tuesday in
an interview with The Washington Post from Kabul. "It presented a huge
opportunity for an international incident," said the guard who spokes on
condition of anonymity because he feared retribution. The report
recommends that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates immediately assign
U.S. military personnel to supervise the guards and remove the
management of the current force. It also calls on the State Department
to hold accountable diplomatic officials who failed to provide adequate
oversight of the contract. The report also found that supervisors held
near-weekly parties in which they urinated on themselves and others,
drank vodka poured off each other's exposed buttocks, fondled and kissed
one another and gallivanted around virtually nude. Photos and video of
the escapades were released with the POGO investigation. "The lewd and
deviant behavior of approximately 30 supervisors and guards has resulted
in complete distrust of leadership and a breakdown of the chain of
command, compromising security," POGO said in the letter to Clinton. The
guards work for ArmorGroup, North America, which has an $180 million
annual contract with the State Department to secure the embassy and the
1,000 diplomats, staff and Afghan nationals who work there. The State
Department renewed the contract in July despite finding numerous
performance deficiencies by ArmorGroup in recent years which were the
subject of a Senate subcommittee hearing in June. Susan Pitcher, a
spokeswoman for Wackenhut Services, Inc., the Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
company that owns ArmorGroup, declined to comment on Tuesday's POGO
report. Conduct of contractors providing security in Iraq and
Afghanistan has been the subject of controversy and other investigations
in recent years. The government relies heavily on such contractors for
security and other needs. A new Congressional Research Service report
has found that as of March, the Defense Department had more contract
personnel than troops in Afghanistan. The 52,300 uniformed U.S. military
and 68,200 contractors in Afghanistan at that time "apparently
represented the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by DOD
[Defense Department] in any conflict in the history of the United
States," the report said. Some 16 percent of the contractors are
involved in providing security, a much higher percentage than the 10
percent that were used in Iraq. Although contractors provide many
essential services, "they also pose management challenges in monitoring
performance and preventing fraud," according to Steven Aftergood, who
first disclosed the congressional report on his Secrecy News Web site.
September 1, 2009 AP
Guards hired by the State Department to protect diplomats and staff
at the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan live and work in a "Lord of the
Flies" environment in which they're subjected to hazing and other
inappropriate behavior by supervisors, a government oversight group
charged Tuesday. In a 10-page letter to Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton, the Project on Government Oversight contended the
situation has led to a breakdown in morale and leadership, compromising
security at the embassy in Kabul where nearly 1,000 U.S. diplomats,
staff and Afghan nationals work. The group is urging Clinton to launch
an investigation of the contract with ArmorGroup North America. It also
recommends that she ask the Pentagon to provide "immediate military
supervision" of the private security force at the embassy. The oversight
group's findings are based on interviews with ArmorGroup guards,
documents, photographs and e-mails. One e-mail from a guard describes
lurid conditions at Camp Sullivan, the guards' quarters a few miles from
the embassy. The message depicted scenes of abuse including guards and
supervisors urinating on people and "threats and intimidation from those
leaders participating in this activity." Multiple guards say these
conditions have created a "climate of fear and coercion." Those who
refuse to participate are often ridiculed, humiliated or even fired,
they contended. The group's investigation found sleep-deprived guards
regularly logging 14-hour days, language barriers that impair critical
communications, and a failure by the State Department to hold the
contractor accountable. Wackenhut Services, ArmorGroup's parent company,
had no immediate comment on the allegations. The State Department also
had no immediate comment. The State Department has been aware of
ArmorGroup's shortcomings, the letter says, but hasn't done enough to
correct the problems. It cites a July 2007 warning from the department
to ArmorGroup that detailed more than a dozen performance deficiencies,
including too few guards and armored vehicles. Another "cure notice" was
sent less than a year later, raising other problems and criticizing the
contractor for failing to fix the prior ones. In July 2008, however, the
department extended the contract for another year, according to the
notice. More problems surfaced and more warning notices followed. Yet at
a congressional hearing on the contract in June, State Department
officials said the prior shortcomings had been remedied and security at
the embassy is effective. The contract was renewed again through 2010.
Nearly two-thirds of the embassy guards are Gurkhas from Nepal and
northern India who don't speak adequate English, a situation that
creates communications breakdowns, the group says. Pantomime is often
used to convey orders and instructions. On the Net: Project on
Government Oversight: http://www.pogo.org/
August 16, 2009 Sunday Mail
A SECURITY guard took a day off... so he could steal £40,000 from a
shop where he usually delivered cash. John Liddell used his own motor as
the getaway car and was caught when it was spotted speeding away from
the scene on CCTV. He later claimed he had been paid £1000 for
information which he used to pay off drug debts. Liddell, 33, sat in the
car with an unnamed getaway driver while a third gang member Gary Owen
pounced on his Group 4 Securicor colleagues. Owen, 21, snatched the cash
from guards Ann McIntosh and Roderick O'Donnell, who were delivering
money to fill the cash machine at a Spar store in Barrhead, East
Renfrewshire. The female guard was barged to the ground before being
punched and kicked on the head. Prosecutor Andrew Miller told the High
Court in Glasgow: "The shop would normally have been covered by Liddell.
"However, he and his usual partner were on leave with the result
McIntosh and O'Donnell dealt with the delivery." Shamed dad-of-one
Liddell, of Carmyle, Glasgow, was identified as being the front
passenger in the car. His home was searched and £8580 from the raid was
seized. The remaining £31,420 was never recovered. Liddell admitted the
Ford Mondeo getaway car was his but denied knowing who committed the
robbery. He claimed he had been "afraid" of the people behind the raid
and had been paid £5000 from the stolen money. Mr Miller added: "He
stated that he told 'them' where the security van with the money would
be and that he provided this information to repay a drug debt of £1000."
Liddell and Owen, of Shettleston, Glasgow, face jail when they are
sentenced next month after admitting assault and robbery. The pair were
also accused of stealing a security box holding £40,000 at a shop in
Castlemilk last March. Owen faced further allegations that he was
involved in two other security raids, stealing a total of £35,300.
However, not guilty pleas to those charges were accepted. G4S Cash
Services said: "This employee was immediately dismissed upon being
charged."
July 8, 2009 Government Executive
The Federal Protective Service is failing to properly oversee its
13,000-strong contract guard force, causing grave security gaps at
federal buildings nationwide, Government Accountability Office officials
told senators on Wednesday. As part of a recent review, investigators
from the watchdog agency successfully entered 10 high-security federal
buildings carrying components for a bomb through doors being monitored
by contract guards. Once inside, the investigators assembled an
improvised explosive device and walked freely around the buildings and
into various legislative and executive branch offices with the IED in a
briefcase, GAO said in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee. Lawmakers called GAO's findings
disturbing, shocking and outrageous, and asked urgently and repeatedly
what they could do to help FPS gain control of the situation. "In this
post-9/11 world that we're now living in, I cannot fathom how security
breaches of this magnitude were allowed to occur," said Sen. Susan
Collins, R-Maine, ranking member of the committee. Chairman Sen. Joseph
Lieberman, I-Conn., said that in all his years of reading GAO reports,
this one represented "about the broadest indictment of an agency in the
federal government I've heard." Mark Goldstein, GAO's director of
physical infrastructure issues and author of the report, told lawmakers
the review revealed significant shortcomings in FPS' ability to monitor
and verify contract guard training and firearms certifications. In
reviewing 663 randomly selected guards, GAO found that 62 percent had at
least one expired certification. Goldstein said a lack of funding has
hindered the agency's ability to reach appropriate staffing levels and
provide the technological tools necessary to protect federal buildings.
But a number of the problems with the contract guard program are
unrelated to budgetary constraints, he said. "Not having national
standards and guidance for inspecting the guards, [and] better standards
for knowing when certifications have expired -- things like that, are
not resource-based," Goldstein said. "I think there has been a lack of
attention to this part of the protective requirements for federal
buildings." Lieberman said he and Collins are aware of management
problems at FPS and that is one reason why they have not pressed to
increase the agency's budget. "We didn't want to just throw more money
at the problem until we fix the agency," he said. FPS Director Gary
Schenkel did not dispute GAO's findings and said he takes full
responsibility for the failures as head of the agency. He assured the
committee that FPS officials have been making progress in addressing
deficiencies and are working even faster now that they are aware of
GAO's findings.
July 2, 2009 WA Today
The Director of Public Prosecutions has begun his inquiries into the
death of an Aboriginal elder in the back of a prison van, giving his
family and supporters hope that charges could be laid. The victim was
46-year-old Warburton man Mr Ward, who was effectively roasted in the
van during a four-hour journey between Laverton and Kalgoorlie in
January last year. A coronial inquest found Mr Ward's death was "wholly
avoidable", and State Coroner Alistair Hope recommended charges should
be laid over the incident. The inquest was told that Mr Ward - whose
first name cannot be published because of cultural reasons - had endured
temperatures in excess of 50 degrees in the pod of the van. Mr Hope
found "inhumane treatment'' led to the elder's death and said the
company involved, Global Solutions Ltd (GSL), its two guards Nina Stokoe
and Graham Powell, and the Department of Corrective Services had all
contributed to Mr Ward's "terrible death''. Today, DPP Robert Cock QC
met with two detective sergeants from the Major Crime Squad about the
"horrendous" incident and said he had asked them to conduct further
inquiries into the man's death. Mr Cock has also been in touch with the
Coroner's Court and asked for further information. His spokeswoman said
once he gathered all the information, he would then be in a position to
decide if charges should be laid. "I don't know how long the garnering
of all the information I require will take," Mr Cock said. "But as soon
as I have it all, I will make a decision about charges."
June 23, 2009 The West
The West Australian government is reviewing the contract of a
security company involved in the death in custody of an Aboriginal
elder, Premier Colin Barnett says. Global Solutions, which was acquired
by UK-based security services giant G4S last year, provided security for
government groups including the Department of Immigration and the WA
Department of Corrective Services. GSL employed two guards to transport
the elder, 46-year-old Mr Ward, who died in the back of a prison van on
a four-hour journey across the WA goldfields in January 2008. Mr Ward,
whose first name cannot be released for cultural reasons, was being
taken from Laverton to Kalgoorlie to face a drink-driving charge. He
died of heat stroke after suffering temperatures of 50C in the rear pod
of a van driven by the guards, Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell. Earlier
this month, WA coroner Alistair Hope apportioned blame for the “wholly
avoidable” death among the guards, GSL and the WA Department of
Corrective Services. The Director of Public Prosecutions is considering
whether charges should be laid over the matter. Mr Barnett said today
that G4S would be scrutinised before their government contract was
renewed. “It is an absolute tragedy that a prisoner in the care of the
state could end up dying in that condition,” Mr Barnett said. “The
coroner’s reported, the attorney-general is dealing with that issue, and
we will certainly look at the contract and the performance, and ensure
that it is never repeated in Western Australia again.” The transport
tender for corrective services is due to come up next year. Mr Barnett
said G4S would be judged on their performance. “I’m not involved
directly in the administration of that contract, but I assure you we
will leave no stone unturned to ensure that future prisoners are treated
with respect and safely,“ he said. “It would be quite inappropriate for
me to comment on a tender process, but obviously their performance will
be one of the factors that will be taken into account when that future
tender is awarded.”
June 23, 2009 Brisbane Times
A sacked security guard has offered her apologies to the family of an
Aboriginal elder who died in custody, while the West Australian
government says it's reviewing her former employer's contract. Nina
Stokoe, one of two guards who had charge of the man when he died of
heatstroke in the back of a secure van during a 360km drive, accused
authorities of providing inadequate vehicles to transport prisoners.
Security giant G4S last week sacked Ms Stokoe and the other guard,
Graham Powell, claiming the pair failed to follow directions to check on
prisoners every two hours during the fatal four-hour journey. Mr Ward,
whose first name cannot be released for cultural reasons, died after
suffering temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius in the rear of the
privately operated van which had no air-conditioning. He was being taken
from Laverton to Kalgoorlie on January 27 last year to face charges of
drink-driving. WA coroner Alastair Hope, who in his findings said Mr
Ward had suffered "inhumane treatment", has asked the director of public
prosecutions to consider laying charges over the incident. Mr Hope found
that Ms Stokoe, Mr Powell, Global Solutions Ltd (since acquired by G4S)
and the Department of Corrective Services had all contributed to Mr
Ward's "terrible death". Ms Stokoe on Tuesday broke her silence in an
interview with the Nine Network, saying she is distraught over Mr Ward's
death. In excerpts aired on Fairfax Radio on Tuesday, Ms Stokoe broke
down while offering an apology to Mr Ward's family. "I am very sorry
that it's happened and I can understand how they feel," she said. "I
only wish that it never happened and that he was still around. "I am so
sorry that it happened. "Mr Ward will always be on my mind, always, he
will never go away." Mr Stokoe said guards endured terrible conditions
in the vans supplied by authorities but were afraid of complaining lest
they lose their shifts. She accepted her part in Mr Ward's death but
said the prison vans were "untrustworthy". "(We've) probably been
scapegoats, but at the end of the day we were the ones that were driving
the vehicle," she said. "We had no choice what vehicle to drive. "At the
end of the day, every day in Kalgoorlie when we drove out to pick up
prisoners it's pot luck. "There's many times we have been sat by the
side of the road broken down. "Sometimes 15, 20-odd hours those vehicles
have been stuck out in the middle of nowhere, broken down, with
prisoners on board and without prisoners on board. "Those vehicles were
untrustworthy." WA Premier Colin Barnett said the government was
reviewing G4S' contract. "It is an absolute tragedy that a prisoner in
the care of the state could end up dying in that condition," Mr Barnett
said on Tuesday. "The coroner's reported, the attorney-general is
dealing with that issue, and we will certainly look at the contract and
the performance, and ensure that it is never repeated in Western
Australia again." The transport tender for corrective services is due to
come up next year.
June 19, 2009 Brisbane Times
Two security guards who had charge of a prison van in which an
Aboriginal elder died of heat stroke have been sacked, their employer
says. UK-based security services giant G4S said on Friday it had
terminated the employment of the two guards, Nina Stokoe and Graham
Powell, following the completion of a coroner's hearing into the man's
death. West Australian Coroner Alastair Hope last Friday delivered a
finding that the man, known only as Mr Ward for cultural reasons, had
died of heat stroke. He said he had suffered through temperatures of 50
degrees Celsius in the un-airconditioned pod of a van during a 360km
journey between Laverton and Kalgoorlie on January 27 last year. Mr Hope
apportioned blame for Mr Ward's death between Ms Stokoe and Mr Powell,
the private company Global Solutions Ltd (GSL), which has since been
acquired by G4S, and the WA Department of Corrective Services. G4S
Public affairs director Tim Hall said Ms Stokoe and Mr Powell had
disregarded orders to check on prisoners at least once every two hours.
But he said their dismissal was a result of the Department of Corrective
Services withdrawing their work permits on Monday. "The withdrawal of
their work permits effectively made any other considerations
unnecessary," Mr Hall told AAP on Friday. Mr Hope has asked the Director
of Public Prosecutions to consider whether charges should be laid over
the incident.
June 15, 2009 Four Corners
The company linked to the death of Mr Ward was the subject of a damning
report in 2005. An investigation by the ABC's Four Corners program found
GSL (now G4S) was the subject of a damning report, published in 2005, by
Queensland officials regarding the transportation of immigration
detainees in 2004. In that incident, none of the detainees was given
food during a seven-hour leg of a lengthy trip from Melbourne to South
Australia, and only two were given water. The man who wrote the report,
the former head of Queensland's corrective services, Keith Hamburger,
says he is concerned about the issues raised by the subsequent death of
Mr Ward in Western Australia. The Human Rights Commission later found
that one of the detainees was so thirsty that he was forced to drink his
own urine. Last week the state's coroner found Mr Ward had died of heat
stroke after being carted through the desert in 40 degree-plus heat in a
prisoner transport van that had faulty air conditioning. The Aboriginal
elder, who had been arrested for drink driving, was found with a
third-degree burn on his stomach where his body had come into contact
with the van's floor. The coroner found the private security guards who
drove the van, the company which employed them, GSL, and the WA
Department of Corrective Services all contributed to his death. "The
criticism of the company related to our procedures and processes," GSL
spokesman Tim Hall has told ABC radio. "We accept that there was some
ground for criticism." However it is not the first time GSL's procedures
have been criticised. Mr Hamburger's findings were equally damning. He
found GSL was "responsible for placing the safety of detainees at risk",
"humiliating" them, and "disregarding appeals for assistance from
detainees in obvious distress". The guards had driven the first leg of
the journey to South Australia non-stop for seven hours. None of the
detainees was given food, and only two were given water. "I felt quite
appalled actually," Mr Hamburger told Four Corners. "I sat in the van. I
talked to the staff that did the escort. I saw the CCTV footage. I was
very shocked by the whole thing." One of the asylum seekers, now settled
in Australia, describes for the first time the journey he endured.
"People was in the back shouting and crying and I was banging as well
because I needed to go to the toilet," he said. "And they didn't stop
for anything. And I have to do it in the car." 'Great concern' -- One
year after the Hamburger report was released, the WA government gave the
contract for prisoner transport in the state to GSL. "If these issues
are being repeated that's a matter of great concern, because this is not
rocket science," Mr Hamburger said. "We're dealing here with, as I've
said, duty of care. "We've had many years of experience across the board
in corrections and detention and police in dealing with these
situations. "There's a whole body of evidence around I guess on how to
do these things, and so it is concerning. "They should know better."
June 13, 2009 Perth Now
ONE of two guards suspended over the death of an Aboriginal elder in
a prisoner transport van, says she has been ''gagged'' from talking
about the tragedy. On Friday, State Coroner Alastair Hope recommended
Director of Public Prosecutions Robert Cock consider criminal charges
over the "unnecessary and wholly avoidable death'' of Mr Ward, 46, who
died on January 27 last year. Officers Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell
drove the Warbuton elder, whose first name cannot be released for
cultural reasons, for the 352km Outback journey between the Goldfields
towns of Laverton to Kalgoorlie. In his stinging finding, Mr Hope said
Mr Ward died when temperatures rose to 50C in the pod of the
commercially owned van which had no air-conditioning and little-to-no
air flow. Contracted transport company, G4S, formally known as Global
Solutions Ltd, stood down Ms Stokoe and Mr Powell on Friday. "The two
employees have been suspended and the findings of the coroner, the
coroner's report and recommendations will be considered carefully and it
will then be decided what the next step should be,'' G4S spokesman Tim
Hall told ABC radio yesterday. Ms Stokoe declined to comment on her
suspension, saying: "I can't talk about anything, I would like to, but I
can't''. Mr Ward's family is planning to sue G4S, which runs other
custodial services including court security, over the tragedy. Prison
Officer's Union secretary John Welch said the inquest had raised
questions about the privatisation of custodial services in WA. Mr Welch
said he feared G4S would be allowed to be apply for the contract to run
the recently announced Eastern Goldfields prison which was scheduled for
completion by the end of 2013. "You wonder why, in the light apparent
failures of privatisation, you would want to even consider looking at
having at private provider in the Goldfields,'' Mr Welch said. A
spokeswoman for Attorney-General Christian Porter said no decision had
been made on whether the prison would be public or private, and any
discussion on the potential awarding of a private contract was
speculative. Deaths in Custody Watch Committee chair Marc Newhouse said
another public protest was planned for the city on Saturday to lobby the
State Government for improvements.
May 14, 2009 The West
More than 30 family members and supporters of Mr Ward, an Aboriginal elder
who had a fatal heatstroke in the back of a prison van, gathered outside the
Kalgoorlie Courthouse yesterday to call for those responsible for his death to
face tribal punishment. Mr Ward’s widow Nancy and his four sons were among those
who wailed in grief as they demanded justice and answers to why the Warburton
elder died in such horrific circumstances. The family’s interpreter and
relative, Gail Jamieson, said that under traditional law, anyone found culpable
of the death should be speared. “The family is just devastated,” she said. “He
was treated with no respect and he was a well-respected, outstanding elder. If
they were in an Aboriginal culture, they would be speared because us Aboriginal
people are also going through two cultures.” The inquest was told no
disciplinary action was taken against the two GSL officers responsible for
transporting Mr Ward on the day he died. Mr Ward died after a four-hour journey
in a GSL prison van from Laverton to Kalgoorlie on January 27 last year when
temperatures reached 42C. Global Solutions Limited general manager John Hughes
said security officers Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell were stood down on full pay
and were reinstated when an internal investigation found they had not violated
company policies or procedures. Questioned by the family’s barrister Michael
Rynne, Mr Hughes said any reinvestigation would depend on Coroner Alastair
Hope’s findings. GSL’s multi-million-dollar contract could require it to pay a
penalty of 4.5 per cent of its value if found to have failed in its duty of
care. Mr Hughes said he understood GSL’s obligations included ensuring officers
minimised hardship to detainees, conducting regular checks to ensure their
safety, security and health and preventing injury. The inquest concludes today.
May 17, 2009 Miami Herald
In the escalating showdown between Miami-Dade County and Wackenhut
Corp., former congresswoman Carrie Meek is on both sides. She lobbies
for Miami-Dade, which is accusing Wackenhut of bilking the county out of
$3.4 million. And she lobbies for Wackenhut, which is suing the county
for $20 million in damages. ''It's kind of hard to represent two
masters,'' said Robert Meyers, executive director of the Miami-Dade
Commission on Ethics and Public Trust. But Meek is asking county
officials to disregard the conflict of interests and allow her to
continue representing both Miami-Dade taxpayers and the security
company. She has received $150,000 from the county since mid-2007. She
declined to disclose her Wackenhut pay. ''I don't see any reason why I
can't continue to represent Wackenhut, and I've always been a strong
proponent of the county,'' said Meek, a civil-rights pioneer who
represented Miami-Dade in Congress from 1992 to 2001. Allegations that
Wackenhut was doctoring timesheets and leaving county transit stations
unguarded go back to a whistleblower's civil lawsuit filed in 2005. The
county auditor found evidence of overbilling in 2006 and released a
report in 2008. In early April, County Manager George Burgess said the
Palm Beach Gardens-based company should be barred from doing business
with Miami-Dade. Meek didn't file her conflict-waiver request until
April 27 -- a year after the audit became public. She said she didn't
know the county requires its lobbyists to give notice immediately in
case of an ''actual or perceived'' dispute with a private client. ''I
can tell you that Wackenhut feels that they're being unfairly judged,''
said Meek, who added that she did not know the lawsuit was coming. ``I
can't tell you who is right or wrong.'' LONG-STANDING TIES -- Meek
and her family have long-standing ties to the Palm Beach Gardens-based
security company. Her son, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami, sold
security contracts for the company from 1994 to 2002, and his Senate
campaign has received the maximum $10,000 donation from Wackenhut's
political action committee. Meek's wife, Leslie, registered with the
county to lobby for Wackenhut in 2004, according to public records. The
former congresswoman began lobbying for Wackenhut in April 2007, the
same month the county hired her to focus on transit issues. She asked
the county if she could continue representing both clients after she was
reminded last month about the county's policy regarding lobbying
conflicts, said Joe Rasco, director of the county Office of
Intergovernmental Affairs. ''I think it's time we asked and that they
proferred,'' Rasco said. ``I think it's a fair question and we'll be
taking a look at it.'' Miami-Dade's lobbying contract describes a
conflict of interest as a position contrary to county policy or its
financial interests. Representing a client at odds with the county
without permission ''shall result'' in the lobbyist's contract being
thrown out and/or the lobbyist being barred from working for the county
for up to three years. ''It is incumbent on the consultant and its
employees, partners and subcontractors to remain mindful of the county's
policy and fiscal interests and positions vis-a-vis other clients,''
reads the agreement. Meek didn't make the initial cut in 2006 when the
county decided to scale back its Washington lobbying team from eight to
three firms and put the contracts out for bid. The county had been
spending nearly $1.2 million a year. `SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE' -- ''Paying
this much for this many people was simply unacceptable,'' County
Commissioner Sally Heyman said in March 2006. But two months earlier,
Heyman directed staff to add Meek and former state Rep. Mike Abrams --
who came in fourth and fifth place -- to the lobbying team. ''This was
coming out of nowhere,'' Rasco told county investigators, who concluded
Heyman did not violate the ethics code because the lobbying office
reports to the commission. The commission unanimously approved hiring
Meek and Abrams on an ''as-needed basis'' and set their pay at a maximum
of $75,000 a year. County officials said the money would come from
reserves set aside for hiring outside experts in case of an emergency,
such as a terrorist attack or major hurricane. Two years later, Heyman
now says the county should consider paring down to two lobbying firms.
The county pays two full-time employees in Washington to lobby the
federal government, in addition to the team of three law firms plus Meek
and Abrams.
May 16, 2009 The West
He literally cooked to death. Trapped in a prison van for four
hours, suffocated by temperatures that climbed to more than 50C, the
Aboriginal elder had no way to communicate with security officers
sitting just a metre away, in the airconditioned cab. His only
sustenance was a small bottle of water and a meat pie. When he finally
collapsed on the van floor, the metal was so hot it seared his skin.
Yesterday, Corrective Services Commissioner Ian Johnson travelled to
Kalgoorlie to publicly apologise to Mr Ward’s family, accepting
responsibility for the 46-year-old’s death in January last year. It was
a dramatic end to a coronial inquest that has revealed a litany of
failures in the justice and custodial systems in WA’s outback. Widow
Nancy Ward and her children will return to Laverton next week after
sitting quietly and with dignity throughout the case, which has
attracted the attention of the United Nations and the Australian Human
Rights Commission. Mr Ward, a conservation worker, a supporter and
interpreter for local police and an advocate and educator for children
of the Gibson Desert, was an international ambassador for the
Ngaanyatjarra people. His family say he was treated like an animal. Mr
Ward had been drinking on Australia Day last year in the remote
Goldfields town of Laverton when he was arrested for driving with more
than four times the legal alcohol limit. Conducting a quasi-court
hearing for Mr Ward at his cell door at the local police station,
justice of the peace Barrye Thompson remanded him in custody to face
court in Kalgoorlie the following day. Mr Thompson told the inquest he
had no formal training when appointed as a JP and could not even
remember whether he had read the Bail Act. The Aboriginal Legal Service
was not contacted. Guards and police officers testified the prison vans
used by Global Solutions Limited and maintained by the State were
notoriously unreliable, sub-standard and the air-conditioning was often
faulty. GSL’s supervisor in Kalgoorlie, Leanne Jenkins, had warned her
management an incident would occur unless the vehicles were replaced. At
11.20am, the GSL prison van pulled into a secure area at Laverton police
station where the guards were told they would have a trouble-free
passenger. Mr Ward made a comment about the warm day and a guard told
him “the quicker he got into the van, the quicker the air-conditioning
would kick in”. But the air-conditioning did not work: it had been
reported faulty in the GSL maintenance log more than a month earlier.
Before making the continuous 360km journey to Kalgoorlie, the guards did
not tell Mr Ward there was a duress alarm in the back of the van in case
he needed help. Towards the end of the trip, they heard a loud thump.
Pulling over on to the side of the road and opening the outer door of
the van, the guards felt the heat radiating from the rear pod and they
saw Mr Ward face-down on the van floor — unconscious and unresponsive.
Reaching into the back of the van felt like a “blast from a furnace”,
according to Dr Lucien LaGrange, who assisted in removing Mr Ward’s
lifeless body at Kalgoorlie Hospital. Doctors found full-thickness
contact burns on his stomach and tried for 20 minutes to resuscitate Mr
Ward, whose skin felt like a “hot cup of coffee”. They managed to get a
brief return of a heartbeat, but after putting him in an ice bath, his
body temperature was still 41.7C. Coroner Alastair Hope is due to
deliver his findings on June 12. For now, the Ward family will have to
return to a community missing a leader. It is little comfort to them
that money was allocated in this week’s State Budget to replace the
fleet of transport vans — four years after the Department for Corrective
Services undertook to do so. “I am sorry,” Mr Johnson told Mrs Ward
yesterday. “I have a deep regret but no matter what I say, it’s not
going to change what happened.”
May 14, 2009 The West
More than 30 family members and supporters of Mr Ward, an Aboriginal
elder who had a fatal heatstroke in the back of a prison van, gathered
outside the Kalgoorlie Courthouse yesterday to call for those
responsible for his death to face tribal punishment. Mr Ward’s widow
Nancy and his four sons were among those who wailed in grief as they
demanded justice and answers to why the Warburton elder died in such
horrific circumstances. The family’s interpreter and relative, Gail
Jamieson, said that under traditional law, anyone found culpable of the
death should be speared. “The family is just devastated,” she said. “He
was treated with no respect and he was a well-respected, outstanding
elder. If they were in an Aboriginal culture, they would be speared
because us Aboriginal people are also going through two cultures.” The
inquest was told no disciplinary action was taken against the two GSL
officers responsible for transporting Mr Ward on the day he died. Mr
Ward died after a four-hour journey in a GSL prison van from Laverton to
Kalgoorlie on January 27 last year when temperatures reached 42C. Global
Solutions Limited general manager John Hughes said security officers
Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell were stood down on full pay and were
reinstated when an internal investigation found they had not violated
company policies or procedures. Questioned by the family’s barrister
Michael Rynne, Mr Hughes said any reinvestigation would depend on
Coroner Alastair Hope’s findings. GSL’s multi-million-dollar contract
could require it to pay a penalty of 4.5 per cent of its value if found
to have failed in its duty of care. Mr Hughes said he understood GSL’s
obligations included ensuring officers minimised hardship to detainees,
conducting regular checks to ensure their safety, security and health
and preventing injury. The inquest concludes today.
April 30, 2009 Miami Herald
Three weeks after Miami-Dade County declared that Wackenhut Corp. bilked
taxpayers of millions and would no longer do county business, the
security firm fired back with its own show of force: a $20 million
lawsuit against the county and two top officials. The escalating fight
centers on allegations that Wackenhut Corp. overbilled Miami-Dade
Transit for security services at Metrorail stops and failed to
adequately staff guard posts. The Palm Beach Gardens-based firm, which
does other security work for the county, has held the mass transit
security contract for 20 years, though its latest contract expires in
November. But the stakes for Wackenhut may go beyond its current
business with the county. In its lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S.
District Court in Miami, the security company said the move by
Miami-Dade to bar the firm from working for the county could jeopardize
contracts with other government agencies across the country. The future
damages we ''will suffer as a result of this unfair and malicious
taint'' on our ''reputation are incalculable,'' Wackenhut said in the
lawsuit, which seeks $20 million in damages and asks the court to stop
the county from relying on an audit which concludes time sheets were
doctored and transit stops unguarded. The suit also names as defendants
County Manager George Burgess and County Auditor Cathy Jackson.
Wackenhut contends the county audit used improper methodology. ''It has
no basis in reality,'' said Wackenhut President Drew Levine. ``We've
done our job and done it well.'' Miami-Dade County spokeswoman Victoria
Mallette said the county stands by the report authored by the
government's Audit Management Services department. ''We want to be made
whole,'' said Mallette. ``We haven't been made whole. It would be
irresponsible for us to continue doing business with an entity that we
believe has overbilled us.'' Earlier this month, Burgess wrote in a memo
to commissioners that as a result of the audit the county would seek to
recover $3.4 million in alleged overbillings and support an ongoing
whistle blower's civil case against Wackenhut. Burgess named several
firms to replace Wackenhut guards at Miami-Dade railway stops and bus
facilities, the Juvenile Services Department and Public Works
Department. The county manager also declared the county will seek
``debarment.'' The county move earlier this month and subsequent lawsuit
Wednesday come several years after charges of overbillings and so-called
''ghost posts'' were first raised. The county -- roundly rebuked for
poor stewardship of the transit system -- has been criticized for
reacting slowly to the allegations. The whistle blower's civil court
case against Wackenhut was filed in 2005 and the audit was completed in
2008.
April 11, 2009 Miami Herald
Four years after allegations surfaced that Wackenhut Corp.
fraudulently overbilled Miami-Dade Transit for security work it never
performed, the county is moving to replace the firm and support a
lawsuit aimed at recouping millions paid for alleged ''phantom'' workers
at Metrorail stops. County Manager George Burgess, in a memo to
commissioners Friday, said he also wants to bar the Palm Beach
Gardens-based security firm from doing business with the county in the
future. The move is sure to escalate the testy fight between Miami-Dade
County and Wackenhut, which has denied wrongdoing and hired a bevy of
lobbyists, including former Congresswoman Carrie Meek, to press its
case. Wackenhut has held the contract to patrol mass transit stations
for 20 years, although the latest agreement -- a no-bid contract that
pays the company as much as $17 million a year -- expires in November.
Wackenhut issued a written statement late Friday saying it is ``shocked
that the County Manager has falsely accused us of intentionally
overbilling the county.'' It called claims of overcharging both false
and unsubstantiated, while asserting the county has ``a history of
mismanaged audits.'' The county action comes after several years of
criticism that Miami-Dade government failed to address allegations of
bogus charges for empty guard posts and doctored time sheets. The claims
were first raised in an ongoing 2005 lawsuit and later detailed in a
2008 county audit, which initially estimated $6.26 million in
overbillings but now pegs the total at $3.4 million. ''The evidence of
overbilling has been overwhelming and existing for four years,'' said
attorney Mark Vieth, who filed the 2005 lawsuit pending in Miami-Dade
Circuit Court. He contends that the Wackenhut overcharges are much
higher than the county's number. After the May 2008 county audit, County
Mayor Carlos Alvarez declared that the security firm had 90 days to
rebut the findings or repay the county. Wackenhut did neither, yet the
county didn't move until now -- with six months left on the contract.
Burgess defended the pace of the audit and the time it's taken to decide
a course of action, calling the issues complex and voluminous.
April 6, 2009 Palm Beach Post
More than two years after a federal investigation found guards were
sleeping on the job at Florida Power & Light Co.'s Turkey Point nuclear
plant, the utility has paid a six-figure fine to resolve the case. FPL
sent the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a check for $130,000 in January.
Six guards slept or served as lookouts for other guards who were
sleeping "on multiple occasions" between 2004 and 2006, the NRC found in
the 2006 investigation. In one case, in April 2006, a guard was
"sleeping while on duty at a post in a vital area of the reactor,"
according to the NRC. All of the guards were contractors with Palm Beach
Gardens-based Wackenhut Corp. None remained on the job after the
violations were announced last year. Also last year, FPL paid the NRC a
$208,000 fine for four other security violations that involved Wackenhut
guards at Turkey Point. In that case, the NRC said FPL didn't properly
equip armed responders after two Wackenhut guards disabled their weapons
by removing or breaking firing pins. The agency also said FPL provided
it with incomplete and inaccurate information.
April 3, 2009 The Age
THE Federal Government is set to dump controversial company G4S as
operator of immigration detention centres. The Department of Immigration
has announced that Serco, which runs prisons and immigration centres in
Britain, is its preferred tender to run Australia's six detentions
centres. The contract is believed to be worth up to $500 million. But
human rights advocates have hit out at the decision, saying Serco has a
poor record in Britain, and detention centres should be operated by the
public sector. Advocate Charandev Singh said Serco's record in Britain
showed a "prison mentality" would be brought to its operations in
Australia. "The Government just wants a clean skin in Australia —
somebody with no blemishes (here)," Mr Singh said. "G4S and Serco are
basically the same company. They come from the same corporate
background, running prisons."
March 21, 2009 The West
The security guard who drove the van in which an Aboriginal elder
died of heat stroke has admitted he should take responsibility for the
death. Testifying for a second day at the inquest into the death of
46-year-old Mr Ward, Global Solutions Limited driver Graham Powell said
yesterday he regretted how Mr Ward died. “In hindsight, if I had to do
that journey again, I would certainly be doing it a lot differently,” he
said. He agreed with lawyer assisting the coroner, Felicity Zempilas, it
was inhumane to transport prisoners in the rear pod of the van over long
distances and that the vans were “certainly not designed for that”.
Coroner Alastair Hope told Mr Powell he was “troubled” over his evidence
about phone calls made after Mr Ward collapsed. Mr Hope said a delay of
two minutes between calls was a long time in an emergency. To questions
from his counsel Linda Black, Mr Powell said he should have checked the
airconditioning, made comfort stops and told Mr Ward explicitly how to
communicate with the officers if he was in distress. The inquest has
heard Mr Powell and colleague Nina Stokoe did not stop during the four
hours they had Mr Ward in the van in mid-40C heat while driving from
Laverton to Kalgoorlie in January last year. Mr Ward suffered a
full-thickness hand-size burn on his stomach from a hot metal surface
inside the van. Senior chemist David Tranthim-Fryer said the prison van
temperature would have been above 50C. Evidence from a police
re-enactment he helped with revealed the van floor reached 56C and the
air temperature at least 50C on a slightly cooler day. The temperature
would have been hotter with a person inside because there would have
been another heat source. “We opened the back doors and could feel the
heat coming out of the pods. The hot air affects you more than anything
else,” Mr Tranthim-Fryer said. Mr Ward’s body temperature was 41.7C
after 20 minutes of resuscitation in an ice bath while being fanned. The
van’s rear-pod airconditioning was not working, a fault noted in the GSL
maintenance log more than a month before Mr Ward’s death. Mr Powell said
he did not check the airconditioning in the pod despite knowing it had a
history of faults. He had assumed Ms Stokoe checked it. Mr Hope has
heard evidence from witnesses, including GSL’s Kalgoorlie supervisor
Leanne Jenkins, who spoke of substandard “unreliable” prison vans which
were not suitable for long distance travel. The inquest did not finish
within the two-week timeframe and Mr Hope adjourned it until May 11.
Outside, Mr Ward’s cousin Bernard Newberry said his family wanted those
responsible charged. The family has asked that Mr Ward’s first name not
be used.
March 20, 2009 The West Australian
The guard responsible for transporting an Aboriginal elder who died
in custody was previously demoted for breaching procedures and
compromising prisoner safety. Giving evidence at a coronial inquest into
the death of 46-yearold Mr Ward, Global Solutions Limited security
officer Graham Powell said he had been stood down as a supervisor
because he breached the company’s policies and procedures. The inquest
in Kalgoorlie was told Mr Powell was stood down from GSL for six months
in January 2007 because he compromised prisoner security when he failed
to ensure prisoners were loaded into a prison van in a secure area. He
also breached procedure by smoking in prison vans and allowing staff and
prisoners to smoke in cells. Mr Ward’s relatives travelled from around
the State to attend the inquest yesterday. Mr Ward’s widow Nancy cried
when Mr Powell told how he and fellow security officer Nina Stokoe heard
a “loud thud” when Mr Ward collapsed in the back of a prison van. Mr
Ward died of heatstroke after collapsing in the back of the GSL prison
van during a fourhour, non-stop journey from Laverton to Kalgoorlie-Boulder
on January 27 last year. Mr Powell said when he arrived at the hospital
he checked the airconditioning in the rear pod of the prison van. “I put
my arm inside the prisoner compartment and it appeared to me there was
no air coming out the vents,” he told State Coroner Alastair Hope. Mr
Powell said he had not checked the prison van’s air-conditioning before
leaving for Laverton because it had not been included on a vehicle
inspection check sheet. He agreed with Mr Hope that it was highly
dangerous not to check the air-conditioning before transporting
prisoners.
March 18, 2009 Perth Now
TWO guards responsible for transporting an Aboriginal elder 352km across
the West Australian outback joked about how he must have been "freezing
his balls off" hours before he died of heatstroke in the back of a
corrective services van, an inquest has been told. Giving evidence via
video link yesterday, Global Solutions Ltd officer Nina Stokoe said she
did not check that the air-conditioning in the back of the corrective
services van in which the prisoner died was working - even though it had
been faulty and the outside temperature had soared to 42C - because it
was not part of procedure. Ms Stokoe said she assumed the
air-conditioning was working in the rear because there was no problem
with the air-conditioning in the front cab and Ward, whose family does
not want his last name published for cultural reasons, would have banged
on the side of the van if there was a problem. According to Ms Stokoe,
during previous trips, other prisoners often complained that the
air-conditioning was too cold, and she and fellow officer Graham Powell
joked that, while they were too hot, Ward would be the opposite. "I had
a joke with Graham," she told the inquest into Ward's death. "(I said) I
bet he's freezing his balls off while we're sitting here stinking hot."
Coroner Alastair Hope asked whether it would have been prudent to check
the air-conditioning on such a hot day when it had been known to break
down and Ward was in a section of the van with only metal seats. "It
(the air-conditioning) wasn't on the check list ... I wouldn't know how
to check it," Ms Stokoe replied. Ward died on January 27 last year after
attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. He was being transferred from
Laverton to prison in Kalgoorlie after being arrested for drink driving
on Australia Day. Mr Hope was yesterday also told how the Kalgoorlie-based
supervisor for GSL, Leanne Jenkins, warned her superiors just four
months before Ward's death that someone would "eventually die" if the
company's outdated and poorly maintained vans were not replaced. Ms
Jenkins said the only response she received was that any vehicles in
need of repairs should not be driven. She said the two vans based at
Kalgoorlie always had problems and were not suitable for long trips. Ms
Stokoe and Mr Powell made no stops on the 3 1/2-hour journey until they
heard a thud in the back of the van when they were just outside
Kalgoorlie. When they pulled over to check on Ward, Ms Stokoe said, they
did not open the van's back doors completely because it was not
procedure and Ward might have been trying to escape. "If he was mucking
around and it was an escape attempt, we would look like idiots," she
said. After realising he only had a faint pulse, the officers rushed
Ward to hospital. The inquest continues today.
March 17, 2009 Perth Now
AN Aboriginal elder who died in the back of a prison van arrived at
hospital, unconscious and with third-degree burns, an inquest has heard.
Lucien LaGrange, who was working in the emergency department of
Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital when Ward arrived in the non-airconditioned
van, said a blast of hot air hit him when he opened the back of the
vehicle. Respected elder Ward - whose family does not want his first
name mentioned for cultural reasons - did not appear to be breathing.
"It was like a blast from a furnace - it was extremely hot," Dr LaGrange
told Coroner Alastair Hope. "I was struck by how wet and slippery he
was. It was almost like he had been coated in soap - he just slid." Dr
LaGrange said that despite medical staff placing ice over Ward's body,
his body temperature was 41.7C. That day, January 27 last year, the
outside temperature climbed to 42C. After many resuscitation attempts,
Ward was declared dead about 90 minutes after arriving at the hospital.
Ward was being transported 352km from Laverton to Goldfields Regional
Prison in Kalgoorlie after being charged with drink-driving on Australia
Day. The inquest was told that the company responsible for transporting
Ward, Global Solutions Ltd, raised concerns with the West Australian
Government about the poor state of its vans before Ward's death, but was
told no new vehicles were available. Under a multi-million-dollar
contract, GSL is responsible for transporting prisoners, while the
Department of Corrective Services is responsible for maintaining the
fleet of vehicles. Former GSL employee Thomas Akatsa told the hearing
that after the company failed to secure new vans from the Government, he
raised concerns with the company's supervisors, including
airconditioning faults and overheating, but was told not to talk about
it. Mr Akatsa said the vans used to transport prisoners were
sub-standard, did not contain toilets and were not suitable for
travelling long distances. Despite regular problems with airconditioning
in the back of the vans, Mr Akatsa said there was no requirement for
staff to check the airconditioning was working. He said that while he
always did check, not all officers did, including one of the officers
who transported Ward on that day, Graham Powell. The inquest heard that
Mr Powell, who is to give evidence today, had been demoted from a
supervisor to a driver before the death. One of his colleagues at the
time, Lynette Corcoran-Sugars, testified that she requested not to work
with Mr Powell, accusing him of breaching procedures and inappropriately
using constraints on prisoners. Ms Corcoran-Sugars and Mr Akatsa said
that when they transported prisoners from Laverton to Kalgoorlie, they
made at least one stop and offered prisoners water, food and a toilet
break. The inquest has heard that no stops were made during Ward's
journey and that he was given only a 600ml bottle of water and a pie
before leaving Laverton. Questions were raised about whether Ward should
even have been in custody, with barrister Lachlan Carter for the
Aboriginal Legal Service claiming a proper bail hearing, as defined by
the act, did not take place. The inquest heard that GSL's motto was
"safety first". Mr Hope questioned how this could be the case when the
company allowed staff to transport prisoners in vehicles that did not
have a usable spare tyre. The inquest continues today.
March 14, 2009 Sunday Mail
Former Defence Secretary John Reid faced fierce criticism yesterday as
it emerged the world's largest security firm had won a huge contract
from the Ministry of Defence weeks after taking him on as a consultant.
Mr Reid - who ran the MoD until May 2006 before resigning from the
Cabinet while Home Secretary in June 2007 - was hired by G4S three
months ago for £50,000 a year to offer 'strategic advice'. This week, it
was awarded a four-year contract to supply private security guards for
around 200 MoD and military sites across Britain in a deal thought to be
worth tens of millions of pounds. While many former ministers have taken
private-sector jobs, it is unusual for such a senior Government figure
and sitting MP to work for a company so closely linked to their former
department. Opposition MPs last night said Mr Reid's earnings from G4S
were 'totally inappropriate', while the Taxpayers' Alliance campaign
group called for the rules governing employment for ex-ministers to be
reviewed urgently.
March 12, 2009 ABC
A coronial inquest into the death in custody of an Aboriginal elder
from the Central Desert will resume today in Kalgoorlie, in
south-eastern Western Australia . Mr Ward died in Kalgoorlie hospital in
January last year after being transferred in the back of a prison van
from Laverton. Temperatures on the day were mid-40 degrees Celsius and
the journey lasted for four hours. In Warburton earlier this week, the
inquest heard the airconditioning in the back of the van was not working
and that Mr Ward died of heatstroke. Mr Ward's family testified he was a
hard working and respected elder. The inquiry will today hear from
police officers who arrested Mr Ward for drink driving and officers from
the private transport company Global Solutions Limited which transported
him to Kalgoorlie.
January 22, 2009 Morning Star
DAVID Miliband said that the war on terror was an error, but some
people don't regret it. Private security companies like Group 4 made a
mint. Now, it wants to spread its good fortune - this month, Group 4
Security gave a £50,000 position to former Labour minister John Reid as
an "adviser." Reid fits in this part-time job when he isn't too busy
representing the good people of Airdrie and Shotts as their Member of
Parliament. Group 4 has plenty of reasons to want access to the contact
book of a former home and defence secretary - the firm now supplies the
armed guards looking after British officials in Iraq and Afghanistan
while locking up prisoners, asylum-seekers and "terror suspects" in
Britain, so Reid is worth every one of the five million pennies that
they are giving the man. Reid was once a Communist Party member, but
abandoned Marxism in favour of new Labour. This is odd, because his
career seems to illustrate the crudest and most determinist kind of
Marxism. For years, Marxists have been grappling with the subtle and
sophisticated ways in which the capitalist class dominates society, but
Group 4 opted for a very unsubtle approach - the capitalists just hired
Labour's representative. Reid hasn't always hawked his brawn for the
money men. Back in 1992, Reid signed a House of Commons motion calling
on Sir Norman Fowler to resign from the board of Group 4. The motion
said that the House "regrets that the right honourable Member for Sutton
Coldfield (Norman Fowler), chairman of the Conservative Party, has not
seen fit to resign his directorship of another Group 4 company, Group 4
Securitas, and urges him to do so." It added: "The government should
suspend all further moves to privatisation within the criminal justice
system." Reid's call for Fowler to resign from Group 4 and for the
government to shun the firm came after the company let a number of
prisoners escape from their vans on the way to court. Whizz forward a
decade and a half and Reid, having demanded that Fowler abandon Group 4,
has himself taken a job with the firm. In the meantime, Conservative and
Labour governments have not stopped their "privatisation of the criminal
justice system," they have expanded it. Group 4 has men with truncheons
in Britain and men carrying guns in Iraq. Nor has the firm become any
less accident-prone. Group 4 Security prefers to be called G4S because,
in ad people's language, the brand is tarnished. Group 4 was even
described as a "national laughing stock" by the government's own lawyers
in court in 2003 after a riot at an immigration detention centre that it
ran which was later burned to the ground. Things haven't improved since.
Reid himself sent the firm to new frontiers, where the firm ran new
fiascos. When Reid was home secretary, the Law Lords told him that just
labelling foreigners "terror suspects" didn't mean that he could lock
them up without trial. Reid turned to Group 4 for help. It cobbled
together something called "control orders," a house arrest for these
"terror suspects" administered by Group 4 and other private firms.
Control orders were simultaneously too draconian and too lax -
prisoners, including vulnerable men who had been tortured in their home
countries, were tagged and monitored by Group 4. Those who stuck by the
rules were pushed to the edge of mental illness by the isolation of the
strict house arrest. At the same time, Group 4 allowed another prisoner
to simply disappear. This may have been embarrassing for the firm and
for Reid, but they manfully hid their red faces and entered into a new
relationship when Reid left government. Group 4 has risen thanks to the
crudest economic determinism - Reid, who authorised the signing of
cheques for Group 4 as a minister, ends up getting cheques from the
firm. Reid is not alone. A small squad of politicians worked to get
Group 4 where it is today. First, Tory chairman Fowler helped the firm
get into the prisons business in the 1990s. Group 4 tightened its grip
on British jails last year when it took over rival private prisons firm
GSL. It bought GSL from an investment company called Englefield Capital,
which employs another Labour ex-minister, former defence secretary
George Robertson, as an adviser. Group 4 then broke into the
international mercenary trade by buying a company called Armor Group,
whose armed men guard British officials in Iraq and Afghanistan. Up
until this, Armor Group's chairman had been another top politician -
leading Tory MP Malcolm Rifkind. Twenty years ago, the idea that a
private company would run our jails and wars would have looked like
science fiction. By hiring politicians, the "security industry" made it
a reality.
January 11, 2009 The Observer
John Reid, the former home secretary, has cashed in on his ministerial
experience by taking a £45,000-a-year job with private security company
G4S, the Observer has learnt. His appointment comes just days after a
parliamentary committee warned that former ministers have been
exploiting their insider knowledge "with impunity". Formed from a merger
of Group 4 and Securicor, G4S is Britain's largest security firm with
contracts ranging from private prisons to the armed guards defending
British officials in Iraq. The appointment was disclosed by the advisory
committee on business appointments, which polices former ministers' job
applications. Reid has been judged free to lobby ministers and officials
on behalf of the security company. The public administration committee
(PAC) called last week for all lobbying activity to be registered and
monitored by a tougher watchdog - claiming the industry's attempt at
self-regulation had entirely failed. "We are strongly concerned that,
with the rules as loosely and as variously interpreted as they currently
are, former ministers in particular appear to be able to use with
impunity the contacts they built up as public servants to further a
private interest," said a statement from the PAC.
November 11, 2008 South Florida Business
Journal
Broward County auditors are raising red flags over how county agencies
kept tabs on nearly $6 million in billings by Wackenhut Corp. for
security services last year. In a report to be presented to county
commissioners on Wednesday, county auditors noted several problems with
the way Wackenhut invoices have been processed. Specifically, the report
noted that county personnel were not reviewing and validating daily
entries on security logs that document hours worked by guards. The audit
also found that there was no evidence that hours billed were hours
actually worked. County Auditor Evan A. Lukic said the decision to
review the county’s oversight of Wackenhut grew out of news reports
earlier this year that alleged the Palm Beach Gardens-based security
company was overbilling Miami-Dade County for services that were not
performed. “We were concerned about the allegations we heard and whether
we were possibly experiencing the same thing here,” he said. “We wanted
to look at it from how are we controlling the contract and administering
it.” At this point in the auditing process, Lukic said, there was no
evidence Wackenhut engaged in any wrongdoing. However, based on the
audit’s findings Lukic said his department will take a closer look at
payments to “make sure that guards who we are paying for are present.”
In June 2005, Broward County entered into a three-year agreement with
Wackenhut to provide security services. Payments for fiscal years 2005,
2006 and 2007 totaled more than $14.8 million. In fiscal 2007, Broward
County’s Aviation Department topped the list with $2.1 million in
security services billings by Wackenhut. The county’s facilities
maintenance division paid out $1.66 million to Wackenhut, and the
county’s library division was billed nearly $633,000. The report found
that during a one-week period, the libraries division paid 233 hours of
overtime for security guards and found no evidence that Wackenhut
provided the required written notification and payroll documentation to
substantiate the overtime payments. When queried by the South Florida
Business Journal about the auditor's findings, Wackenhut issued the
following statement: "We've worked closely with facilities management
through the audit department to insure compliance and to improve our
processes." Questions also have been raised about matching guard
qualifications to pay rates. In some instances, the audit raised
concerns about guards with lesser qualifications billing at a higher
rate, resulting in overcharges. In an Aug. 22 letter, Broward’s director
of the facilities maintenance division advised Wackenhut President Drew
Levine that he would now require the company to provide documentation
that links guards’ qualifications with their job classifications. In the
meantime, Lukic is asking the Broward County Commission to direct the
county administrator to come up with procedures to ensure that billings
are validated, that the guards’ qualifications match their job
descriptions and that overtime charges are substantiated. In May, a
Miami-Dade County audit found that Wackenhut overbilled the county by as
much as $6 million over three years for services it did not provide to
Miami-Dade Transit, and then falsified records to cover up the over
charges. In its response to that audit, which Wackenhut published on its
Web site, the company said it has cooperated with the county’s
investigation, but “continues to question the audit methodology.”
Wackenhut said a lawsuit by a former guard, who accused the company of
padding its bills, has caused the increased scrutiny. “It is Wackenhut’s
belief that county entities … have been placed under undue pressure and
influence by unsubstantiated allegations in this ongoing disputed
litigation,” it stated. Miami-Dade continues to review Wackenhut’s
response to determine what actions should be taken, county spokeswoman
Suzy Trutie said.
June 18, 2008 NBC6
Miami-Dade County said it is poised to make good on its promise to
fire Wackenhut Security from its massive contract on Metrorail trains
unless it repays taxpayers millions of dollars. NBC6 has obtained
internal county memos that confirm that Miami-Dade County is asking
other security firms to submit bids to replace Wackenhut on Metrorail
trains and other facilities. The county said Wackenhut's only hope of
not getting fired is if it returns up to $6 million in taxpayer dollars.
The Metrorail and Metromover systems are guarded by Wackenhut Security
in a lucrative no-bid contract. The county said it is getting ready to
replace Wackenhut, cutting short the existing contract unless Wackenhut
makes amends. "It's very troubling," said Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos
Alvarez. In May, Alvarez threatened to fire Wackenhut. On Tuesday, it
was clear that was no idle threat. "We are prepared to cancel all
contracts with the Wackenhut corporation and demand that we get the
money that's owed to us," Alvarez said. The county said Wackenhut
scheduled guards to work partial shifts while billing taxpayers for a
full shift and sometimes billing taxpayers for a post that had no guards
at all, NBC6's Jeff Burnside reported. The allegations were the same as
those contained in an NBC6 investigation called "A Question Of
Security." The amount in question is up to $6 million. An independent
audit claimed it was much more. One problem is that any company that
replaces Wackenhut might need to hire some of Wackenhut's guards because
of the size of the contract. In an internal memo, Wackenhut called that,
"underhanded … tactics by third-party instigators." A labor union urged
county commissioners Tuesday to improve working conditions in any new
contract. Wackenhut had no response on Tuesday, Burnside reported.
Previously, the company has disputed the allegations.
May 9, 2008 Miami-Herald
The Wackenhut Corp. overbilled Miami-Dade County as much as $6
million over three years for phantom security guards at county transit
stations, according to a long-awaited audit released Thursday. County
auditor Cathy Jackson -- who reviewed a sample of the bills -- found
that Wackenhut, one of the country's largest security firms, routinely
charged the county for empty guard posts at Metrorail stations and along
bus routes, and relied on inaccurate and falsified records to try to
cover up the overbilling. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez has given
Wackenhut 90 days to repay the county or rebut the audit findings or he
will cancel the company's no-bid contract, along with a separate
Wackenhut contract for guards at a juvenile detention center. Jackson
said Wackenhut should also pay the county an additional $233,000 for
violating the terms of its contract. Wackenhut's billing is also being
examined by public-corruption detectives with the Miami-Dade Police
Department. 'There is no disputing that [Miami-Dade Transit] was billed
for hours not worked by Wackenhut security officers, which is a very
serious offense,'' County Manager George Burgess wrote in a memo to
Alvarez. Wackenhut, however, does dispute the audit. The company says
Jackson used unreliable records to determine that posts were uncovered,
and ignored other records that could prove guards were on duty. FIGURES
DISPUTED -- While Wackenhut says it will reimburse the county for any
''substantiated billing errors,'' the company says Jackson's conclusion
of $6 million in overbilling from 2002 to 2005 is an exaggerated
estimate based on a small sample. ''If you start with a false premise,
you end up with a false conclusion,'' said Bruce Rubin, a company
spokesman. ``We respectfully but forcefully disagree with the auditor's
methodology.'' Jackson based her estimate on a review of 505 billing
records -- only .25 percent of the bills submitted in the three years
studied -- which found $14,722 in questionable charges. She also found
$83,665 in suspicious charges, but these were not included in her sample
for estimation purposes. Wackenhut has been providing security for
Miami-Dade Transit since 1989, and the contract has been awarded without
bidding since 1994. The current contract, which pays Wackenhut as much
as $17 million a year, is set to expire in November 2009. The security
company, based in Palm Beach Gardens, has also spent the past three
years fending off an unusual lawsuit brought by a former guard at the
county's Juvenile Assessment Center, who accused her former employer of
padding its bill to the county. The former guard's attorney, H. Mark
Vieth, has said he believes the overbilling could be as much as $3.6
million a year. He has compiled sworn statements from ex-guards who said
they struggled to fill unmanned posts, submitted false records and
received pay for hours they didn't work. Jackson ''found exactly what
we've been telling the county for a while now,'' Vieth said. ''I could
have practically written that report for her. The only difference,
really, is that we're auditing 100 percent of the bills and she's found
this much fraud'' based on a far smaller sample. Wackenhut has denied
wrongdoing in the suit and has challenged Vieth to provide proof of
specific instances of overbilling. Vieth has enlisted a team of
investigators and bookkeepers to sort through Wackenhut bills, sign-in
sheets, log books and other records to prove his case, which is not yet
scheduled for trial. If he wins the case -- brought under the county's
False Claims Act -- his client will receive 25 percent of any damages
and the county will receive 75 percent. REFUSED TO TESTIFY -- Yet the
lawsuit has put Vieth at odds with the county. Last month he sought a
contempt of court order against Jackson after she refused to testify
about the audit before it was completed. Vieth plans to call her again
for a deposition next week. The audit was costly to Wackenhut even
before its release. The company had been selected by county staffers to
win another $4.8 million county security contract -- before county
commissioners, worried about the audit findings, decided Tuesday to
scrap the bids and start over. In her audit, Jackson said Wackenhut
constantly shifted guards around to cover unguarded posts, pulling in
supervisors or patrols from the bus routes, but the county was billed as
though all these jobs were filled. In some cases, log books at Metrorail
stations contained no notes to prove a guard was there, the audit found.
In other cases, the logs and other records showed guards in two
different locations at the same time. Records showed that one armed
guard was on duty for 34 ½ hours in a row -- violating a rule capping
guards at 13 ½ hours in a 24-hour period and ''leaving in question the
ability of armed employees to remain alert and responsive,'' the audit
said. Wackenhut officials said the log books were never intended to be
used for timekeeping, and said the absence of notes in the books do not
prove a guard wasn't on duty.
May 2, 2008 Edinburgh Evening News
TWO security guards who stole £10,000 of bank notes while on a
collection run have been jailed for six months. Group 4 Security workers
Gary Docherty, 41, and Hugh Drummond, 47, each helped themselves to a
£5000 bundle of £20 notes when a bag burst in their van. Staff at the
Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh immediately realised there was
something wrong when the pair delivered a case which should have
contained £50,000 with only £40,000 in it. Police were called in after
they found notes in Drummond's rucksack and the officers recovered the
rest from Docherty. They previously pleaded guilty to stealing £10,000
on March 28 this year – Docherty's birthday – and were sentenced today.
The pair had been collecting cash in plastic cases from branches of the
bank when one of the cases burst at Bruntsfield Place. They continued
with their run, arriving at the RBS cash collection centre in The Gyle,
where the theft was discovered. Solicitor Andy Gilbertson said Docherty,
of Clermiston Drive, had worked for the firm for 14 years before he
carried out the "spontaneous" crime and had lost his job as a result. He
said Docherty had been suffering stress. "It wasn't a matter of if this
crime would be detected but a matter of when," Mr Gilbertson added,
appealing for a community service order instead of custody. Solicitor
Nigel Bruce said Drummond, of Victoria Road, Harthill, Lanarkshire, had
spent seven years with the firm, before the "moment of madness".
April 12, 2008 Palm Beach Post
Sen. Jeff Atwater has hired an aide who will get on-the-job training
before he becomes Senate president chief of staff, and Atwater's
campaign opponent is criticizing the expenditure. Robert "Budd" Kneip is
a Palm Beach Gardens businessman with no legislative experience. He
founded The Oasis Group, an outsourcing division of Wackenhut Corp.
Kneip, who is earning $7,000 a month, needed to come on board early to
get the feel of how the legislature runs and how government budgets are
developed and negotiated before his new boss officially takes over,
Atwater said. Normally the chief of staff is appointed after the
legislative leader assumes his role in the fall. Atwater is being
challenged for reelection in November by Democrat Skip Campbell, a trial
lawyer who formerly served in the Senate alongside Atwater. Campbell
criticized Kneip's salary at a time when lawmakers are slashing about $5
billion from the state budget because of plummeting tax collections.
"How can we be hiring somebody for on the job training at 7K a month
when we're cutting education, food for the poor, Medicaid treatment for
the mentally ill? This is one of the most hypocritical actions I've seen
in government," Campbell said. Kneip has sat on the advisory boards for
Florida Atlantic University and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and
served as chairman of the Palm Beach County Task Force on Business
Development. In the latter role, he successfully pushed a 2004
referendum for a half-penny sales tax hike to pay for building schools
to comply with the constitutional amendment limiting class sizes.
Kneip's know-how at implementing state policy at the local level and
business acumen are why he's right for the job, said Atwater, a North
Palm Beach Republican. "He doesn't have the experience in this process,"
Atwater said. "To have him be able to watch how this works is going to
help me as we think about structure, the design, the flow and process of
work."
March 13, 2008 The Age
A NIGERIAN man who twice resorted to drinking his urine during a
nightmarish seven-hour transfer to Baxter detention centre without food
or water will be given $20,000 compensation. Four others who endured the
trip in the back of the van with him will also be compensated after the
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found they had been
subjected to "degrading treatment". The five detainees, whose plight was
revealed in The Age, were taken from Maribyrnong in Melbourne to Baxter
on September 17, 2004 by guards from GSL, the company that runs
Australia's detention centres. A report by commission president John von
Doussa found the van did not stop for any breaks in the seven hours from
Melbourne to Mildura, breaching the detainees' human rights. The report
said the drivers ignored signs that the detainees needed toilet stops,
having watched them urinate on closed-circuit camera, and disregarded
their banging on the walls. Nigerian man Austin Okoye, 26, suffered the
"additional indignity" of twice drinking his urine to relieve his
"excessive thirst", the report said. GSL guards were also accused of
using excessive force in removing 53-year-old Vietnamese detainee Huong
Hai Nguyen from his dormitory at Maribyrnong for the trip. The
Immigration Department initially denied Mr Nguyen's allegations. But the
department referred the case to the commission after receiving a second
complaint from Mr Okoye. In July 2005, Immigration Department secretary
Andrew Metcalfe said GSL would be fined $500,000 after the independent
report substantiated most of the allegations. Yesterday Mr Metcalfe said
GSL would also pay the compensation. "These people were mistreated and
they deserve to be compensated," he said. The report said Mr Okoye and
Mr Nguyen should get $20,000 each, and the others $15,000. GSL spokesman
Tim Hall said the company did not accept the claims about Mr Okoye being
forced to drink his urine. But he said GSL endorsed the rest of the
report and the Commonwealth would be fully indemnified. The report urged
the Government to locate the victims as soon as possible (three of them,
including Mr Nguyen and Mr Okoye, have been deported) to provide them
with their compensation and a formal apology.
February 22, 2008 The Green Left
A February 22 meeting between Western Australian prisons minister
Margaret Quirk, Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Dennis
Eggington and WA Deaths in Custody Watch Committee chairperson Marc
Newhouse resulted in some ministerial promises of reforms following the
the death in custody of an Aboriginal elder on January 27. The elder,
from the desert town of Warburton, died after collapsing in the back of
a prison van while being transported for four hours in 43oC heat to a
jail in the outback city of Kalgoorlie. He had been arrested on January
26 for alleged drink-driving while visiting relatives in the remote town
of Laverton, 352 kilometres north of Kalgoorie. The van was driven and
staffed by employees of Global Solutions Ltd, an Anglo-French prison
management company, which the WA government has contracted to transport
prisoners. Professor Richard Harding, the WA government’s inspector of
custodial services, told the news media on January 29 that he was not
surprised at the Warburton elder’s death, given the state of the
prisoner transport fleet. He said that the “government-owned vans are
continually breaking down, leaving prisoners stranded in searingly hot
conditions in remote areas”. Among other things, Quirk has agreed to
overhaul procedures followed when a prisoner is transported. New
procedures, to be in place by March 14, will include a health assessment
and provision of water and food.
February 4, 2008 News.com.AU
THE contractor that transported an Aboriginal leader who died in
custody last weekend has previously been criticised for the treatment of
detainees. Government contractor Global Solutions Limited has been
accused of the humiliation and sensory deprivation of detainees, who
were forced to urinate in their cramped compartments, inadequate
provision of food and fluids and the prank strip search of a prisoner.
The death of Ian Ward in the sealed compartment of a "bloody hot" van
last Sunday as the outside temperature climbed to 43C has prompted an
unprecedented attack on the Carpenter Government by the Inspector of
Custodial Services, who said the state's chronically deficient prisoner
transport system would probably not be tolerated if 95 per cent of
prisoners were white, instead of up to 95 per cent of them being
Aboriginal. Anger is growing in the desert community of Warburton in
WA's Ngaanyatjarra lands over the death of Mr Ward, who collapsed in
what may have been an unairconditioned or inadequately airconditioned
rear compartment while being transported 352km by GSL. The van
transporting Mr Ward left the town of Laverton about midday for Eastern
Goldfields Regional Prison to be remanded in custody on a drink-driving
charge when he vomited on himself and fell unconscious. His body was
wheeled into Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital at 4.30pm on Sunday after the
two GSL guards in the van found he had collapsed in the back. Witness
Jodie Aurisch said a female GSL guard told an emergency department
doctor: "It is bloody hot in the back of the van". GSL and its $70
million prison transport contract with the Carpenter Government are
likely to be examined as part of a coronial inquest into Mr Ward's death
in custody. It will not be the first time the company faces scrutiny. In
2005, GSL was fined almost $500,000 over mistreatment of immigration
detainees. In 2006, GSL was fined a reported $200,000 after guards at
Port Phillip Prison in Victoria jokingly strip searched a prisoner as
part of a prank called "Sausagegate". A federal government report into
GSL's transfer of five detainees from Maribyrnong Detention Centre in
Melbourne to Baxter Immigration Facility in South Australia over two
days in 2004 found the officers involved had not been adequately trained
and treated the detainees inhumanely. In his report into the incident
for the Howard government, investigator Keith Hamburger found the van
used was unsafe and inhumane and that the detainees had been denied
access to toilet facilities, forcing them to urinate in their
compartments. The officers were also found to have ignored appeals for
assistance from detainees in distress. Melbourne legal advocate
Chandarev Singh said GSL had shown "a pattern of lethal indifference".
GSL's director of public affairs, Tim Hall, said Mr Singh's "inaccurate
and unpleasant personal views" did not warrant comment.
February 1, 2008 The Western Australian
Police yesterday refused to reveal the results of a post-mortem
examination on the body of an Aboriginal elder who died after he
collapsed in custody while being taken to Kalgoorlie in the back of a
van. It is understood police received the results yesterday. Warburton
Aboriginal elder Ian Ward collapsed in the back of a Global Solutions
Limited van on Sunday after a four-hour trip from Laverton to Kalgoorlie
and died a short time later at Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital. The
46-year-old, who was being transferred to face a charge of drinkdriving,
was found unconscious in the back of the van in the middle of the
afternoon when temperatures outside exceeded 40 degrees. It is
understood the van’s air-conditioning broke down the previous week and
had to be replaced. The van is part of a fleet owned by the State
Government but managed by the private prison management company. The
State Government’s controversial deal with Global Solutions Limited, the
group responsible for prisoner transport, could be tested, depending on
the outcome of the investigation into Mr Ward’s death. Opposition Leader
Troy Buswell said the death in custody raised serious concerns over the
State Government’s “gifting” of the contract to GSL. GSL was
controversially awarded the $70 million prisoner transport, court
custody and security services contract last year when the company bought
out the previous contractor Australian Integrated Management Service.
Letters obtained under Freedom of Information laws revealed the
Inspector for Custodial Services, Richard Harding, told Corrective
Services Minister Margaret Quirk in April that the plan for GSL to take
over the contract was unwise and risky. Despite his advice, Cabinet not
only approved the takeover of the AIMS contract by GSL last July, but
days later it extended the deal by three years without any public tender
process. “Depending on the outcome of the investigation by police and
the coroner, the State Government needs to be examining every aspect of
the contract and take action against GSL if and when it is appropriate,”
Mr Buswell said. Ms Quirk said issues surrounding Mr Ward’s death,
including the contract with GSL, was a matter for the police
investigation and the coronial inquest and it was not appropriate to
speculate.
January 31, 2008 News.Com.AU
PRISONER transport contractors for the WA government were warned
about the "parlous state" of their fleet well before an Aboriginal elder
died in a prison van. Ian Ward, 46, of Warburton in the Goldfields, died
during a Global Solutions Ltd transfer from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in
hot conditions on January 27. It is unclear if the airconditioning was
off, or faulty. Drivers of the van took Mr Ward, who had been picked up
for drink driving on Australia Day, to Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital
after they found him collapsed. He died a short time later. WA Custodial
Services Inspector Richard Harding wrote to GSL last year outlining six
concerns, including 'GSL's capacity to cope with the logistical
challenge of running a transport service across such huge distances as
are involved with Western Australia''. "The parlous state'' of the
government-owned fleet upon which GSL would have to rely was among Mr
Harding's concerns. GSL is contracted by the WA government to provide
prisoner transport services and by the federal government to run
immigration detention camps and transport immigration detainees and
prisoners. Project SafeCom spokesman Jack Smit said there had been other
transportation issues under the watch of GSL, formerly US-owned but
bought last month by European security consortium Group 4 Securitas.
"This is an ongoing issue partly because it's an out-of-Australia
company ... you no longer have people employed who are directly
responsible, by contract, to the minister,'' Mr Smit said. A 2005
federal government inquiry found GSL failed to provide medical
assessments and treatments for injured detainees who were being
transferred to the Baxter detention centre in South Australia from
Maribyrnong in 2004. The probe found the van used to transport detainees
was "unsafe and inhumane'' with airconditioning design faults. The five
were sent an apology and compensated by the immigration department. WA
major crime squad detectives are investigating the latest death amid
calls from human rights groups for an independent investigation. WA
Deaths in Custody watch committee spokesman Marc Newhouse said Mr Ward's
death should not have happened. "Clearly the government has already been
warned about the state of that fleet, which is government-owned,'' Mr
Newhouse said.
January 22, 2008 St Petersburg Times
If you’re guarding a nuclear power plant, your gun better work.
That’s the message federal regulators sent Tuesday to Florida Power &
Light. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed a $208,000 fine for
four security violations at the utility’s Turkey Point nuclear plant,
including security workers who deliberately broke the firing pins on
their weapons. The violations occurred in 2004 and 2005, according to
the commission. The commission, a federal agency that oversees the
safety of the U.S. nuclear industry, also faulted the Juno Beach utility
for failing to promptly report the violations. Three of the four
employees involved worked for Wackenhut, and none of the four work at
the plant now, said FP&L spokeswoman April Schilpp. Wackenhut still
provides security, and the utility has improved training, she said. The
utility has 30 days to appeal the fine, but has no plans to, she said.
“The NRC confirms that at no time was plant security compromised,”
Schilpp said. “That’s the important thing.”
January 9, 2008
NBC TV6
The CEO of Wackenhut Security, a South Florida
company that has been surrounded by controversy, is stepping down. A
representative with the company declined to say why Gary Sanders made
the decision to quit pending a formal announcement on Wednesday. The
change at the top came at a time when Wackenhut Security was facing
mounting criticism in various cities, including some in South Florida
where its Miami-Dade County operation is the target of a criminal probe.
The county audit, which was detailed in an NBC 6 investigation of
Wackenhut billing practices, is examining whether Wackenhut overcharged
taxpayers millions of dollars. Sanders had been with Wackenhut for more
than 25 years.
December 18, 2007 Yahoo Business Wire
Cognetas, an independent mid-market pan-European private equity firm
specialising in complex deals, today announces the sale of Global
Solutions (GSL) for £355 million to G4S. The sale, subject to EU merger
clearance and South African competition commission clearance, is
expected to complete in 2008. GSL is a leading provider of outsourced
support services to public authorities and corporate organisations
worldwide. Services are typically provided under long-term contracts (5
to 30 years) either directly to the end customer or through joint
ventures and Public Private Partnerships with government and corporates.
GSL has operations in the UK, South Africa and Australia. Its service
offering covers three areas: Custodial services, including prison
management, escorting, immigration, custody and training; Public
Services, for example healthcare, education and Local Authority
services; and Business services, comprising utilities, office
accommodation and other managed services. Cognetas backed the original
MBO of GSL in 2004 in a £207 million (€309 million) transaction. At the
time, Cognetas underwrote equity and debt to facilitate certainty for
the vendor with an initial commitment of £105 million (€158 million) on
behalf of Cognetas Fund I. This was reduced within two months to £54
million (€81 million) by introducing senior debt. The balance of the
funding was provided by Englefield Capital on behalf of the Englefield
Funds. Since then Cognetas has supported management in the
implementation of a growth plan that has seen revenues increase from
£291 million in 2004 to over £400 million in 2007 through organic
growth, in fill acquisition and expansion of services in its sectors
over three continents with the number of staff employed increasing by
over 25% to more than 9,500. Nigel McConnell, Managing Partner of
Cognetas commented: “We are delighted to be associated with the success
of GSL over the past three years and we are pleased to see that the
dynamic management team has built the business into a worldwide quality
provider of outsourced services. We leave the business on extremely
sound and robust grounds which will help sustain its continued growth. I
am confident that being part of a larger global business like G4S will
take this business forward to a new level and I wish them well”.
December 10, 2007 NBC TV6
Miami-Dade and federal investigators raided the headquarters Friday
night of one of the county's largest government contractors. NBC 6 was
the first to report in May that Wackenhut Security is under a criminal
investigation for overbilling taxpayers millions of dollars, money for
work on transit and the downtown juvenile center. NBC 6 camera's filmed
public corruption investigators and police removing boxes filled with
documents from Wackenhut's Miami-Dade headquarters on Blue Lagoon Drive.
Investigators were there for several hours and were being assisted by
top Wackenhut executives. Wackenhut has repeatedly declined to be
interviewed, but said in a statement that the company was cooperating
with authorities. "The Wackenhut Corporation ('Wackenhut') continues to
cooperate with Miami-Dade County ('MDC'), and voluntarily provided MDC
additional records and documents yesterday to assist and facilitate
MDC’s investigation and audit of Wackenhut’s performance under its
security contract with the Miami Dade Transit Authority," said Drew
Levine, president of the Security Services Division. "Wackenhut is proud
of its service and performance under its contracts with Miami-Dade
County and is very confident that after a thorough investigation the
County will conclude that Wackenhut acted properly and performed its
responsibilities under the contract in a highly professional and
responsible manner." The company has previously denied overbilling
taxpayers. Miami-Dade County is nearing completion of an audit of
Wackenhut's billing practices. The preliminary audit found serious
discrepancies.
November 29, 2007 The Telegraph
Group4Securicor is in talks to buy Global Solutions, a company it used
to own, for around £350m. Earlier this year, private equity firm
Cognetas appointed investment bank UBS to carry out a strategic review
of Global Solutions, which runs a number of Britain's prisons and
detention centres. However, the credit crunch forced Cognetas to put the
review of Global Solutions on hold. Since then, the company has received
a number of approaches, including one from Group4Securicor. Cognetas
bought Global Solutions, which also manages hospitals, schools and
tourist offices, from Danish security firm Group 4 Falk for about £200m
three years ago. Group4Securicor is now understood to be carrying out
due diligence on the business. However, it is not the only company
bidding. Sources said US group GEO and several private equity firms have
also made approaches for the company. Global Solutions has previously
come under the spotlight for the way it runs its prisons and detention
centres, following the Government's privatisation of the sector. Earlier
this year, there was a Panorama investigation by an undercover BBC
reporter, who worked as a custody officer, in one of Global Solutions'
prisons at Rye Hill. None of the parties involved would comment.
November 20, 2007 This Is Hampshire
A SECURITY firm employee who was heavily in debt stole £25,000 following
an extraordinary blunder by two colleagues, a court heard. The cash had
been collected from the London Road branch of Nat West in Southampton -
and left overnight at the depot. The following day, Paul Dean spotted
the bag and stole it, dropping it off at home before continuing with his
deliveries. Police carried out a major investigation during which Dean
and a co-driver were suspended from their jobs with Group 4 Securicor.
Seven months after the theft last November, they executed a warrant at
Dean's home and recovered more than £10,000. Some of the proceeds had
been spent on a large slim line television, Mr Anderson added.
Southampton Crown Court heard the two men who had left the cash behind
were fired and Dean's colleague, though exonerated, had resigned. Dean,
51, of Maclean Road, Bournemouth, admitted theft and was jailed for 12
months. In mitigation, Christopher Gair said Dean lost his wife in a
road accident in 1994 and had debts of £24,000. A month before the
theft, he had been given two county court judgments against him. "In a
moment of madness he took advantage of the money left there," said Mr
Gair.
November 1, 2007 This Is Leicestershire
An "inside man" involved in a plot to steal £1 million from a Securicor
van has been jailed for four years. Ex-soldier Neil Colbourne, from
Hinckley, worked for the firm in the lead-up to the robbery bid, which
would have involved kidnapping a driver's wife. He was among six gang
members who were jailed in connection with the case. A court heard how
the plan involved two kidnappers seizing a driver's wife at her home in
Swanscombe, Kent, and holding her hostage while others raided her
husband's security van at gunpoint. But the plan to target a depot in
Dartford, Kent, was foiled when a seventh member of the gang, brothel
keeper Vincent Calleja, turned himself in to police. Police swooped on
the gang's headquarters the night before the heist last June and found
two guns and ammunition, balaclavas, and cable ties. They also found
keys to a stolen Renault Espace. Four of the men were found guilty on
June 29 of conspiracy to rob and were sentenced on Monday at Guildford
Crown Court. Ashley O'Driscoll (21), from Eaton Grove, in Mitcham,
Surrey, Billy French (22), from Steers Mead, Mitcham, and Michael
Cloherty (41), of no fixed address, were each sentenced to 15 years. The
father of Billy French, unemployed Clive Tedder (42), from Spencer Roady,
Mitcham, received 18 years. Colbourne, now 34, who had an address in
Hinckley and Orpington, Kent, had worked as a guard for Group 4
Securicor and was sentenced to four years, while 33-year-old Wayne
McKenna-Bruce, from Chislehurst, Kent, was sentenced to three years in
prison. The pair's conspiracy to steal pleas were accepted after a court
heard they had not known about the full scale of the plot. The seventh
member, Vincent Calleja (45), from Tadworth, has pleaded guilty to
conspiracy to rob and seven unrelated human trafficking and prostitution
charges, and is to be sentenced.
November 1, 2007 PR News
The Wackenhut Corporation ("Wackenhut" or "the Company") today filed a
civil action against the Service Employees International Union ("SEIU"
or "the Union"). The lawsuit is in response to the SEIU's malicious,
four-year, international corporate campaign to force Wackenhut to
recognize the Union as the employees' bargaining representative while
denying the employees their federal rights to free choice and a secret
ballot election. The SEIU's top-down, wholesale, organizing attack also
would compromise the quality of Wackenhut's services by forcing the
Company to deal with a union that also represents workers other than
guards which federal law specifically prohibits as an appropriate unit
for representation and bargaining. Filed in the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit alleges violations of the
federal Racketeering Influenced Corporations Act, 18 U.S.C. section 1961
et seq., and seeks injunctive relief, treble compensatory damages and
costs.
September 14, 2007 BBC
A security worker has been jailed for stealing almost £130,000 in
coins from parking meters on Teesside. Bryn Lynas, 47, of Ormesby,
Middlesbrough, was employed to empty the machines in Redcar and
Cleveland. At Teesside Crown Court, the former Group 4 Securicor Cash
Services employee pleaded guilty to the theft of £128,301 from January
2004 to May 2006. Jailing him for 21 months, Judge Tony Briggs told
Lynas he had grossly abused a position of trust. Group 4 was contracted
by Redcar and Cleveland Council to empty parking meters. An audit
revealed tens of thousands of pounds was missing and when Lynas was
arrested last year he told police: "I've got a bag full of money on my
back seat." He was interviewed and admitted taking cash from the
machines, but said he had been doing it for only 10 months The court was
shown footage from a camera covertly placed by police in Lynas' van, in
which he repeatedly attempts to prise open cash boxes with a
screwdriver. He also admitted money laundering between June 2004 and
last May, but disputed stealing £40,000 of the total, claiming that he
was not employed on some of the days stated in the case. But Judge
Briggs said "the loss of at least £80,000-£90,000" and "dishonesty of
this magnitude" required a significant sentence.
September 14, 2007 24 Dash
A security worker who stole nearly £130,000 in coins from parking
meters he was employed to empty is facing jail. Bryn Lynas, 47,
plundered the machines in Cleveland for two years before his bungled
get-rich-quick scheme was uncovered by his bosses. When Lynas was
arrested in May last year, after an audit revealed tens of thousands of
pounds were missing, he told police: "I\'ve got a bag full of money on
my back seat." Officers searched his vehicle and found a bag containing
more than £500 stuffed in the footwell of the Renault Megane. Lynas was
interviewed and admitted taking cash from the machines, but said he had
been doing it for only 10 months. Police inquiries revealed that his
partner, Susan Shaw, also 47, had received £23,655 in her bank account
from Lynas. She was arrested for a money laundering offence, but had the
charges dropped by prosecutors at Teesside Crown Court in August. Lynas,
of Ormesby, Middlesbrough, pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court on
August 8 to the theft of £128,301 between January 2004 and May last
year, and money laundering between June 2004 and last May. His case was
adjourned until today for reports. Lynas was employed by Group 4
Securicor Cash Services, which was contracted by the borough council to
empty parking meters. Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council said it was
pleased Lynas had been brought to justice but added the cash collecting
contract was re-tendered last year and given to a different company.
September 6, 2007 News Shopper
A FORMER soldier has been jailed for four years for his part in a
plot to steal more than £1m from security vans - including his own. Neil
Colbourne had worked for Securicor for two years when he was the
"victim" of an armed robbery outside the HSBC bank in Sydenham. But he
was an accomplice and slipped the money box containing £25,000 out of
the back of his van to a waiting vehicle before calling the police
claiming he had been robbed. Prosecutor Maria Kariaskos told Guildford
Crown Court the 33-year-old later changed his story, saying there was no
gun involved. He also failed to pick out the real "robbers" in an
identification parade. Officers arrested him after studying CCTV footage
of the incident on May 16 last year. He could be seen waiting for a
minute-and-a-half until the vehicle being used by the "robbers" arrived.
Colbourne, of Station Square, Petts Wood, admitted a charge of
conspiracy to steal. He also pleaded guilty to another count of
conspiracy to steal for helping a gang to plot a £1m theft from another
van. The cash handler and his old Army friend Wayne McKenna-Bruce, aged
33, gave the gang the van driver's name and the registration numbers of
his car and of two Securicor vehicles. This enabled them to follow their
intended target to his house and plan their attack. McKenna-Bruce, from
Sevenoaks, pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to steal and was
sentenced to three years in jail. James Scobie, representing
McKenna-Bruce, said the two defendants thought the driver in the second
incident was in on the plot and violence would not be threatened or
used.
August 26, 2007 Sunday Mail
A SECURITY van driver who claimed he was robbed by gunmen wearing fake
Mexican moustaches has admitted lying to steal more than £300,000. Ian
Watt, 44, made up the far-fetched tale about how his Group 4 van was
robbed at gunpoint because he was desperate for cash. Watt even went to
the trouble of driving himself to a forest outside Edinburgh and bound
his own hands to make it look as if he had been assaulted and robbed.
Police issued an appeal for witnesses through TV and newspapers and
quizzed 500 drivers close to where the alleged robbery was meant to have
happened. But they later found CCTV footage of Watt sitting in his
vehicle at a time he said he was being beaten, bound and blindfolded by
the desperado gang. Then they checked the tracking system on his van and
found it did not match his story. Detectives confronted the ex-soldier,
who admitted he had buried the load in a nearby wood. Last week he was
jailed for 16 months for stealing £271,963.94 in cash, £41,928.72 in
cheques and £236.61 in euros. He also confessed to wasting police time.
Watt claimed he took the money to help bail out his new girlfriend, who
was going through an expensive divorce. A police insider said: "This is
one of the most bizarre cases we have ever dealt with. "The guy went to
extreme measures to look convincing and on the face of it this was a
very serious robbery. "The guys working on the case were incredulous
when the truth emerged." Watt had been working for Group 4 security for
more than 20 years when he faked the robbery in May.
August 24, 2007 Narco Sphere
Another industry has been privatized in the United States by the Bush
administration. This time it is the transportation of migrants for
deportation. The Wackenhut Corporation, whose buses wait along the
border to be filled with migrants for deportation, is actually owned by
a Danish Corporation, Group 4/Securicor. It is known as G4S. Some border
residents are concerned that a foreign-owned corporation, and not a
U.S.-owned corporation, is handling security and deportations at the
border and profiting from it. Wackenhut/G4S took over these duties from
the U.S. Border Patrol. The executive director of the watchdog group
Private Corrections Institute, Ken Kopczynski, wrote to the Censored
Blog: "Great piece on the Minutemen and immigration but Wackenhut is not
connected to GEO Group. Group 4 bought out Wackenhut Corporation a
number of years ago and sold off the corrections unit to George Zoley
and friends. Part of the agreement was that they could no longer use the
name Wackenhut which currently is a subsidiary of Group 4/Securicor.
Hope this helps and keep at 'em, Sincerely, Ken Kopczynski, executive
director, Private Corrections Institute. Imprisoning migrants -- George
Zoley is chairman of GEO Group, Inc., which operates privatized prisons
across the nation, including prisons in Florence, Arizona. Building
prisons for immigrants has been profitable for the GEO Group. In 2007,
Geo Group won contracts for a prison in Eagle, Pass, Texas; an
immigration detention facility in Jena, La. and a detention facility for
U.S. Marshals service in Laredo, Tex., according to its news releases.
Headquarted in Boca Raton, Fla., GEO Group, announced in January that it
received a new U.S., 10-year contract, for the detention of 2,407
"criminal aliens" at the Reeves County Detention Complex in Texas. GEO
took over the county's contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Reeves County is located in southwest Texas, with its county seat at
Pecos. GEO said it believes that the facility is the largest
privately-operated prison in the world. In Taylor, Texas, another
for-profit company, Corrections Corporation of America, imprisons
migrant and refugee children at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center.
Recently, a prison guard exposed maggots in the food there.
March 23, 2007 The Telegraph
Ministers have been forced to act after receiving disturbing
evidence of equipment failures and doctored record-keeping within Group
4 Securicor Justice Services, which operates 60 per cent of tags for
offenders released early under the Home Detention Curfew scheme. A
130-page dossier obtained by a BBC journalist, who worked undercover for
five months in the security company's Nottingham operations centre,
includes the following allegations: A manager secretly taped saying that
three paedophiles were not being monitored. A prisoner incorrectly
returned to jail for seven weeks because of a blunder by the security
company. A violent offender breached his bail conditions by going into a
pub 10 minutes after removing his tag the night before his court
appearance. An employee mocked Victor Bates, a campaigner against
tagging whose wife Marian was shot dead in their jewellery shop after
the gunman's accomplice had ripped off his tag. A prisoner convicted of
indecent assault on home leave was unmonitored for several days because
his tagging equipment failed. The revelations will further undermine
confidence in tagging after figures revealed that inmates let out under
the system committed more than 1,000 violent crimes including four
manslaughters, one murder, 56 woundings and more than 700 assaults since
it was introduced in 1999. The investigation also discovered evidence of
staff fabricating records to save money. G4S is paid around £45 million
a year by the Home Office to administer the curfew system. After being
confronted with the evidence G4S, which has admitted there was faulty
equipment, has been forced to apologise and has suspended five employees
in Nottingham. A spokesman for the Home Office said: "Public protection
is the Government's first priority. The findings of this programme are
of concern. We are reviewing the contract and will be asking G4S urgent
questions to ensure that these allegations are thoroughly investigated
and issues arising are addressed." The investigation by a team from BBC
Inside Out East Midlands disclosed that the monitoring boxes in tagged
offenders homes, which relay information about their movements,
routinely broke down. One factor in the failure of the system could be
that G4S, which has admitted there was a batch of faulty equipment in
Nottingham, uses the mobile telephone network technology rather than
fixed lines. Steve Green, the Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire, said
the Home Office had to establish whether the Nottingham problems were
nationwide. "I want to urgently know if is this a Nottingham problem or
a G4S problem. If it is a G4S problem and this is the way company is run
then that puts a huge responsibility on the Home Office to tackle and
address because that is not acceptable," he said. Ian Ridgely, chief
operations officer at G4S, said: "We believe in a small number of cases
that we may not have been monitoring to the level that we would expect
to, we apologise for that, we accept that. From that point of view we
recognise that the Home Office requires us to work to a very high
standard and of course we are sorry that in some minor number of
instances, we may not have operated to those standards."
February 20, 2007 Great Yarmouth Mercury
An opportunist thief stole a Securicor van containing more than
£35,000 after a guard left the keys in the ignition and the engine
running, a court heard yesterday. The Securicor guard had just collected
the cash from Norwich city centre car parks leaving his security van
unlocked, when Martin Chapman, 31, saw his chance and stole the van
containing the cash, Norwich Crown Court heard. Duncan O'Donnell,
prosecuting, said the van was later found abandoned at Swanton Road
travellers site in Norwich and Chapman was later arrested and £26,000 of
the cash was recovered. However Mr O'Donnell said the security guard
responsible for leaving the van unattended had since lost his job.
Chapman, of Rosedale Gardens, Belton, near Yarmouth, admitted taking a
Securicor van and stealing £9,239.50 on October 18. He was given a
12-month jail sentence suspended for a year and ordered to do 200 hours
unpaid work. Guy Ayers, mitigating, said it was an unusual set of
circumstances. “It was purely opportunistic. He saw the van left in this
way and thought it was careless and took advantage of that particular
driver's way of working.” He said Chapman was genuinely sorry that the
guard had lost his job. Chapman who was of previous good character was
unlikely to re-offending, Mr Ayers added.
August 12, 2006 Daily Telegraph
INDIA'S biggest private airline Jet Airways would suspend a British
employee arrested in London over an alleged plot to blow up US
airliners, it said today. "(Asmin) Tariq is being suspended pending a
full investigation, having not reported for duty for the past couple of
days," an airline statement said. Tariq, a Jet security employee, was
among 24 people arrested in Britain earlier this week over the alleged
plot to use suicide bombers with explosives to blow US airliners out of
the sky. One person was later freed. Jet said Tariq, who holds a British
passport, was transferred to Jet in March from global security group G4S
- previously called Securicor - after the airline ended its contract
with the company. Jet, which flies to London and other international
destinations as well as serving Indian domestic routes, said under
British employment law, it had been obliged to take on employees working
for G4S before the contract ended.
May 23, 2006 The Mirror
IN THE latest major Home Office blunder, 2,700 innocent people were
branded as criminals. They were labelled robbers, thieves and sex
offenders because their names and dates of birth matched those of
convicted criminals. As a result, many were refused jobs, turned down
for university or threatened with the sack. The shambles was the fault
of the Home Office Criminal Records Bureau, which is managed by
private-sector IT firm Capita. Unions say the increasing involvement of
private firms in government departments will lead to more mistakes. A
Unison spokesman said yesterday: "So many different parts of our public
services are in disarray, and privatisation has played a big part in
this. "There's a conflict between the motivations of private companies
and their clients, the government. For private firms there's a pressing
need to be competitive and deliver profits to the shareholder. Prison
security COMPANY: Group 4 RESPONSIBLE for a catalogue of blunders,
including allowing seven prisoners to escape while ferrying them between
prison and court in the East Midlands and Yorkshire in 1993. In the same
year, a prisoner fled Group 4 custody at a Hull court. Two years ago,
killer Gordon Topen escaped from HMP Rye Hill. Now known as Group 4
Securicor, it detains and escorts asylum seekers, and made a profit of
£254million last year.
May 19, 2006 The Mirror
A WHISTLEBLOWER last night claimed the UK's deportation system is a
shambolic failure that does nothing to ease our spiralling immigration
crisis. The Group 4 Securicor officer, who escorts deportees back to
their home country, insists an amazing 6 in 10 efforts end in failure.
He says many manage to get sent back to UK detention centres by harming
themselves or their children on the way to the airport. Others cause
such uproar on the plane that pilots insist they are removed. In the
worst cases private jets allegedly have to be charted at vast expense to
get them home. And the officer claims it will take 23 years to clear out
huge backlog of illegal immigrants. He said: "It's about time people
knew what a state the system is in. We have a 60 percent cancellation
rate on deportations and it's getting worse. "The deportees will use
every trick in the book to avoid getting kicked out. The men will kick
and spit and scream that they have HIV. The officer said many corrupt
officials in foreign countries refuse to let the deportees in - unless
they get a large backhander. He said: "We are often going to banana
republics where the authorities will say they don't have the right
paperwork or deny the deportee is from their country. Then they ask us
for bribes." The officer claimed he and his colleagues often have no
choice but to pay the backhander with company cash or credit cards that
are supposed to be used for expenses. He added: "Although it's not our
money, we try and keep the price down as we resent paying bribes." The
whistleblower is a Detention Custody Officer with Group 4 Securicor,
which has the Home Office contract to run detention centres and escort
failed asylum seekers. He is from the West Midlands but works at Group
4's Overseas Escorting headquarters in Crawley, West Sussex. His duties
include collecting failed asylum seekers from UK detention centres and
escorting them home. He claims that for high-profile or troublesome
deportees, Group 4 Securicor charters a private jet to fly them home -
at a rate of up to £1,500-an-hour. The officer said: "It's a shocking
waste of taxpayers' money. But the bosses say it's the only way."
According to a 2005 National Audit Office report, the average cost of
deporting an illegal immigrant is £11,000 per person. Group 4 Securicor
last night denied company money was used to pay bribes. A spokesman
said: "We provide credit cards and petty cash to cover incidental
expenses. We deny paying bribes." The company said the whistleblower's
claims of a 60 percent failure rate were false, saying "Less than one
per cent of our removals result in immigration detainees being returned
to the UK." The firm refused to reveal how many deportees fail to leave
the UK. The Home Office admitted chartering flights "when economical and
efficient to do so". The spokesman added: "We strongly refute these
allegations and do not recognise the figures being quoted."
March 16, 2006 The Age
WHEN Devandar Naidu was at work his boss would kick his chair from
beneath him. The security guard was subjected over four years to names
such as "coconut head" and "monkey face". He would start work at 7am and
not be allowed to go home until 10pm. He had to ask his boss's
permission to go to the toilet. Yesterday, the NSW Supreme Court awarded
the former guard $1.9 million in compensation for the relentless
bullying that left him incapable of working again. Outside the court, Mr
Naidu's lawyer, Shaun McCarthy, described the award as a "rare victory
for the little man against a giant … conglomerate". "He had a nervous
breakdown, he will never work again," Mr McCarthy said. The abuse of Mr
Naidu at the hands of News Ltd's security and fire manager, Lance
Chaloner, was described as "extraordinary" by Justice Michael Adams. The
abuse started in 1992, when Mr Chaloner threw tantrums, would kick
chairs from under Mr Naidu, and call him names such as "black c---".
Although his hours were 7am to 4pm, Mr Chaloner made him work unpaid
until after 10pm. When Mr Naidu went on a rare holiday to Fiji with his
family, Mr Chaloner insisted that he telephone work every day, which
involved a 15-kilometre trip to a phone, and he had to pay for the
calls. When he returned, he was told to do manual work at Mr Chaloner's
home, and threatened with the sack if he didn't. Mr Chaloner was
dismissed by News Ltd in January 1997. The judge said that although Mr
Naidu remained at work until mid-1997, he could not operate effectively.
He had major depression and post traumatic stress disorder. News Ltd
will share the damages with Group 4 Securitas Pty Ltd, the bulk to be
paid by Group 4, which employed Mr Naidu.
June 30, 2005 The Statesman
Britain’s asylum policy came under renewed scrutiny on Monday as
dozens of Zimbabweans staged a hunger strike in protest at their
imminent deportation and Kurdish Turks mourned a teenage detainee who
has killed himself. The Archbishop of Canterbury and former Labour
leader Lord Kinnock joined protests over the decision to send failed
asylum-seekers back to Robert Mugabe’s regime. Dr Rowan Williams said
it would be “deeply immoral” to send failed claimants back to a
country where they could face persecution and torture. Lord Kinnock said
it would be better to let “a couple of dozen” unjustified claimants
remain in Britain than risk sending back people who needed protection.
Zimbabweans at the Campsfield detention centre in Oxfordshire said they
had been told the Government has delayed further deportations for two
weeks, which would forestall the embarrassing prospect of Tony Blair
hosting the G8 summit that will focus on the plight of Africa while
dozens of Africans are in Britain on hunger strike at his government’s
policy.
April
9, 2005 The Guardian
Security firms involved in the deportation of failed asylum seekers are
facing more and more claims of intimidation and assault. Group 4/Global
Solutions Ltd (GSL) topped the league table of complaints by asylum
seekers and their lawyers. Campaigners who studied 35 complaints now
being pursued by lawyers revealed GSL was involved in 30% of cases. GSL,
which deals with by far the majority of deportees in Britain, recently
won a 10-year Home Office contract to run Bicester Accommodation Centre
for asylum seekers. The firm was criticised last month after the
broadcast of the BBC documentary Asylum Undercover, which contained
claims of abuse by GSL guards. Most of the alleged assaults analysed
involve incidents on the way to or at airports. Most concern incidents
resulting in cuts, bruises and swelling, although deportees have
complained of head injuries, damaged nerves, and sexual assault.
March
31, 2005 IRR News
Recent unannounced inspections of centres used to hold asylum seekers in
transit to detention centres and to ports for deportation have found
that no centre meets the minimum requirements in relation to child
protection. Officials carried out their first (unannounced) inspections
into 'holding' centres for asylum seekers between June and October 2004.
The holding centres, all run by private company GSL Ltd, (formerly Group
4) were: Communications House (Old Street, London), Lunar House (Croydon),
Electric House (Croydon) and Dallas Court (Manchester). The report
states that 'all four holding centres had inadequate provision for
childcare and child protection. None had a child protection policy in
place, and staff likely to be in contact with children had not undergone
enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks.' At Lunar House the
inspection team reported that they 'spoke to one woman detainee with a
two-year-old child during the mid-afternoon. She and the child had been
in other areas of the building since 8am that morning. Neither she nor
her child had been offered anything to eat during that time and had to
wait for relocation to a residential centre that evening.' They found
that this was 'unacceptable'. At Dallas Court, the team found that 'a
weekend shift recently complained when they discovered a young woman in
the holding room who had miscarried a few days previously. She had been
collected from a hospital following psychiatric referral, had not eaten
for three days and had to be helped to and from the van. She was subject
to a live F2052SH self-harm monitoring form because she kept asking for
her baby and said she wanted to die. Having been delivered to the
holding room in the morning, she was not due to be collected by another
vehicle until more than six hours later.' For the first time it emerged
that other private contractors (unnamed in this report) are being used
to move asylum seekers - though GSL Ltd remains responsible for the four
holding centres inspected here. The inspection teams also found a
worrying 'absence of operational or independent oversight, compared to
other immigration detention facilities. There was no Independent
Monitoring Board, and no on-site monitor to provide daily oversight of
service provision, as there is in immigration removal centres (IRCs).
Senior Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) staff visited only
occasionally, and, with the exception of Dallas Court, had little
involvement with the centres.'
January
13, 2005 PR Newswire
The Wackenhut Corporation, the U.S.-based division of the large U.K. and
European security contractor, Group 4 Securicor, has apparently
persuaded the U.S. National Labor Relations Board ["NLRB"] to
pursue allies of Protects USA. Late last week, the NLRB notified
Protects USA ally at the non-profit Prewitt Organizing Fund ["POF"]
a formal investigation was under way. "They are requesting private
information on activists, allies and funding. It's clearly a
continuation of G4-Wackenhut's witch hunt for scapegoats," says
Protects USA spokesperson Adam Wilson. "Protects USA and POF are
not parties in any matter before the NLRB. We will notify the NLRB that
the request will be taken under advisement as it comes in tandem with
the intimidation lawsuit G4/Wackenhut filed last month to silence
Protects USA," said Wilson. Since last summer, Protects USA and
similar groups [Denver PROTECTS, New York/New Jersey PROTECTS,
California PROOFERS, Albuquerque-based BOCAS] have conducted more than
200 peaceful public information events in 14 states, aimed at educating
the public about the current condition of homeland security. U.K.-based
G4/Wackenhut filed a lawsuit in federal court on December 6 to silence
its U.S.-based critics and stop public advocacy conducted by Protects
USA. Protects USA, a citizen-based homeland security advocacy project,
seeks to educate the public on the perils of handing over the security
of our most sensitive sites to private profiteers with spotty records or
worse.
Police may
charge private security company Group 4 tens of thousands of pounds
after an 11-day hunt to recapture a dangerous escaped murderer.
Gordon Topen, who was 12 years into a life sentence for killing a
businessman, broke free fromtwoGroup4 security officer sat Walsgrave
Hospital, Coventry, on Good Friday. West Midlands Police launched
a huge manhunt for the murderer - who had been in hospital for a blood
transfusion - involving officers, sniffer dogs and helicopters but he
evaded capture. More than 20 Coventry detectives spent 11 days in
a nationwide operation to catch the killer who, it was feared, could try
to hunt down the Midland ex-girlfriend whose evidence put him behind
bars. He was finally snared when officers in London discovered
Topen holed up in a friend’s house following a tip-off. Now the
Sunday Mercury understands that West Midlands Police may hit Group 4
with a bill for the costs of the manhunt if it believes the security
firm was negligent in the escape. (Sunday Mercury,
April 25, 2004)
Hastings Youth Academy, Hastings, Florida
June 27, 2007 Florida Times-Union
A detention worker at the Hastings Youth Academy found himself behind
bars after a juvenile at the minimum security facility in western St.
Johns County told investigators he thought he was going to be stabbed in
a confrontation between the two. Kevin Dewayne Ford, 30, of Interlachen
was charged with aggravated assault after a surveillance tape showed him
pulling what looks like a knife from his pocket and flicking it open
during an argument with a 16-year-old Friday, investigators said. In the
recording from the center's surveillance system, Ford and the youth are
seen near a desk and making gestures as if arguing. Ford is then seen
pulling something from his back pocket and walking toward the juvenile,
who was then pulled away by another worker, according to police reports.
Moments later, Ford appears to put something in his shoe, according to
an offense report by the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office. No knife was
found but other workers who witnessed the argument said they saw one or
heard the juvenile being threatened. In addition to aggravated assault,
Ford was charged with taking contraband into the Hastings jail.
Employees are not permitted to take weapons into the facility. Ford,
who'd been with the academy a month, was released Tuesday from the St.
Johns County jail on $4,500 bail, according to jail records.
Heathrow
Airport,
England
April 15, 2009 The Independent
Thousands of foreign visitors and refugees who are detained at Heathrow
airport each year are forced to endure degrading living conditions and
"deep-seated" negative attitudes about their welfare, an independent report
concludes today. The findings will add to growing concerns about the treatment
of foreign people held in detention in the UK before they are granted entry
clearance or sent home. The report by the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB)
makes note of cockroaches in Terminal 4 kitchens and the absence of proper
washing facilities for detainees held overnight. The monitors were so angered by
one case, the comprehensive failure to care for the needs of a disabled visitor
who was travelling to the UK with her young son, that they sought personal
apologies from the staff concerned. Some of the visitors held at Heathrow are
incoming passengers detained for questioning or refused entry to the UK. Others
are brought to Heathrow from immigration removal centres, prisons or police
stations to be deported. The authors said: "The generic term 'detainee' casts no
light on the humanity of the men, women and children to whom it is applied. The
IMB perceives a deep-seated negative attitude towards their wellbeing while in
detention at the airport, at both policy and operational levels." Other language
which the report said reflected these views included the use of the phrase
"these people" to describe visitors held in what staff inappropriately referred
to as "pens". Between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport,
of whom 22,000 were detained in holding rooms and 11,100 in Queen's Buildings,
which is mostly used for holding failed asylum-seekers before they are returned
to their own countries. The UK Border Agency has hired G4 Securicor to staff the
short-term detention facilities but the report makes it clear that the IBM
thought the Government had "failed repeatedly to supervise its staff in key
areas, all impacting on detainees' welfare." The IMB called on G4 Securicor to
address these issues urgently. It said: "We urge the [UK Border Agency] to take
necessary steps, whether in terms of their own processes, or the performance of
G4S as escort contractor, to drive down the length of time many are detained.
Action is overdue."
June 15, 2008 Sunday Mail
SUSPECTED ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE BEING HELD IN "HOLDING rooms" at UK airports
and ports without regular independent scrutiny of their welfare and human
rights, three years after the prisons watchdog recommended in a report to the
home secretary that detainees should be monitored. The situation is affecting
thousands of people detained each year over visa and other document
irregularities by the UK Border Agency at three non-residential facilities run
by Group 4 Securicor at Edinburgh and Glasgow airports, and Scotland's
immigration reporting centre at Festival Court in Glasgow. Anne Owers, the chief
inspector of prisons in England and Wales - who has responsibility for
inspections because immigration is reserved to Westminster,
- recommended monitoring of the facilities after spot checks on Glasgow
airport and Festival Court in 2005. Heathrow, which has holding facilities at
each of its five terminals, is the only UK airport which has set up Independent
Monitoring Board (IMD) committees - members of the public who visit the
facilities every week. The UK justice department has not even begun talks with
its Scottish counterpart, which must approve the proposal, and it is feared it
could take another year to set up. One insider said: "It's shocking they have
been allowed to get away with this at a time when the Border Agency is targeting
more people coming into regional airports. "This is as big a political hot
potato as dawn raids. Even if these people are only detained for a matter of
hours before their cases are rejected and they are put on planes home, they are
still entitled to basic human rights, which includes access to full legal
representation. "There would have been an outcry had this happened at Dungavel
detention centre, which does have independent monitoring." John Wilkes, chief
executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, said: "In 2005, the chief inspector
of prisons had many reservations about the holding facilities in Glasgow
airport. She found people were not being given adequate information in their own
language about their reason for detention. Crucially, people were not offered
information on their legal rights and, as they had no access to phones, email or
fax, legal or other assistance was impossible. "In this report, three years ago,
she strongly recommended the need for independent monitoring, but this has not
yet happened in Glasgow. This must happen as a matter of necessity." Asylum
lawyer Fraser Latta said: "It's not uncommon for claimants to be detained on a
Friday and spend several hours in one of these places, and it must be extremely
frustrating if they can't get access to legal help." Latta said it was an
example of the breakdown of Westminster-Holyrood relations following former
first minister Jack McConnell's failure to win a separate asylum protocol for
Scotland. There has also been a sharp rise in the number of people being held at
the Glasgow facilities. Between January and the end of March 2005, 34 people
were detained. This year, over the same period, 242 people were held, including
some at Edinburgh airport. Most were held for less than eight hours, but one
person was held in Edinburgh for more than eight hours but less than 12,
according to the UK Border Agency. The August 2005 report claimed legal
information for detainees was "deficient"; childcare and child protection
provision was inadequate; and staff had not undergone enhanced Criminal Records
Bureau checks. Those held in Glasgow were not routinely seen by a health
professional, there were "insufficient" activities to relieve boredom and there
was no hot food available. Glasgow airport did not even have a television.
The inspectors could also see no evidence of notices or leaflets "designed to
inform detainees about legal rights or how to get immigration advice". At the
airport, accessing legal advice was "impossible" as no free phone calls were
automatically offered. Neil Powrie, head of the Association of Prison Visiting
Committees in Scotland, which hopes to help the IMB find volunteers, revealed he
has only recently been sent an email by the organisation asking him for "a chat"
about the plans. "When people are being detained there are always concerns if
their conditions are not being monitored," he said. "The fact the chief
inspector made the recommendation three years ago and nothing has been done
since is down to the Home Office. It would be a lot smoother if these issues
were devolved." Norman McLean, head of the IMB
Secretariat, said: "We are rolling out the programme gradually and it is a major
exercise. I don't want to be seen as intruding in Scotland and that's why we
must have approval from the executive." Tayside Police chief constable John
Vine, who has been appointed the first chief inspector of the UK Border Agency,
said: "I am very conscious of the fact we are dealing with human beings who in
many cases have a legitimate right to come to Britain and seek a better life.
Although I will principally be reporting to Westminster, I will have to
establish good relations with the devolved government as well." A UK Border
Agency spokesman welcomed monitoring of the facilities and added that Edinburgh
airport's holding facility is currently being refurbished.
January 16, 2007 IC Coventry
Conditions in holding centres for immigration offenders awaiting deportation
still need to be improved, the jails watchdog has said. Chief Inspector of
Prisons Anne Owers published reports on four immigration short-term holding
facilities at Colnbrook near Heathrow Airport, Sandford House in Solihull, and
Liverpool's Reliance House and John Lennon Airport. Inspectors found that
detainees at Colnbrook spent unacceptably long periods locked in single rooms,
and there was a lack of information and independent advice for people facing
removal. But it had avoided some of the problems seen in other facilities
because it was managed by the Immigration Removal Centre, offering access to
healthcare facilities, welfare and race relations support, Ms Owers said. Staff
at the three centres in Liverpool and Solihull - all run by Group 4 Securicor -
needed more training in the care and protection of children, her report found.
The facilities also required reorganising for a mixed population, it added. Ms
Owers said: "Accommodation still remains inadequate in many centres and the
needs of detainees in relation to healthcare, information and advice, and
preparations for release are not yet sufficiently met." Home Office Minister
Liam Byrne said: "I take very seriously the recommendations, and action plans
responding in detail are currently being drawn up to ensure further improvements
are made. "It is important to remember that non-residential short-term holding
facilities are intended to accommodate people for very brief periods of time."
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: "The inspector's report
confirms what has been apparent for some time: that, for the Government, these
people are out of sight and out of mind. "Any society should be ashamed when
people are treated like this just because they are to be deported."
April 6, 2006 Gulf Daily News
Holding cells used by British immigration officials at a French freight terminal
were so crowded and filthy that staff called them "the dog kennels," a prison
watchdog said yesterday. Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers also said staff
were unsure whether they could stop a detainee from fighting, trying to escape,
or committing suicide because they did not know whether English or French law
applied. Her report concerned the centres at Calais seaport and the Channel
tunnel freight and tourist terminals at Coquelles, which were set up on French
soil under an international treaty to hold detainees seeking entry to Britain.
Accommodation at Coquelles freight terminal was described by staff as the "dog
kennels," Owers said. The six 13 feet by 10 feet cells at Coquelles freight
terminal featured hole-in-the-ground toilets and on busy days one cell could be
used to hold six people. Furnishing, ventilation and heating were all
inadequate, her report added. Records suggested average detention time was seven
and a half hours, with the maximum nearly 12 hours. The chief inspector made 49
recommendations for improvement, including one that an independent monitoring
board should have regular access. Figures for May to July last year showed 661
detainees had been through Calais Seaport detention centre, 11 of whom were
children. The average period of detention was four hours, although the longest
was 17. In all, 17 per cent were given permission to enter Britain. At the third
centre at Coquelles tourist terminal, average detention time was three hours but
the maximum recorded was nearly 16 hours. None of the facilities, run by private
firm Group 4 Securicor, could appropriately separate men, women and children.
The chief inspector also published a report on detention facilities at Heathrow
airport, including the Queen's Building, which handles the greatest number of
forced removals from Britain. People could be detained there for up to 36 hours,
the report said. Owers complimented the staff's approach to welfare of detainees
but called the system inhumane. "Some of those we observed in detention had been
dealt with as though they were parcels, not people, and parcels whose contents
and destination were sometimes incorrect," Owers said.
Hernando
County Courthouse, Brooksville, Florida
September 13, 2009 St Petersburg Times
In its first week on the job, a private security firm hired by the
sheriff to protect the courthouse had to remove a guard who fell asleep,
the company has confirmed. The incident occurred Sept. 3, just three
days after Wackenhut Corp. began operating two security checkpoints at
the Hernando County Government Center under a $220,000 contract with the
Sheriff's Office. The armed guard was seen sleeping at a table in the
cafeteria on the third floor of the government center during his lunch
break. The company immediately suspended the guard and formally fired
him Wednesday, said Wackenhut's Jim Parrish, the general manager of the
Tampa office. "He dozed off, and having a weapon exposed at that point
is not tolerable," Parrish said. "We take that seriously. There is no
excuse for not protecting your weapon." Parrish would not identify the
guard, a retired law enforcement officer from Philadelphia, citing
company policy. This is not the first time the company and its parent,
Group 4 Falck AS of Denmark, have been embarrassed by sleeping guards.
In 2008, Florida Power & Light was fined $130,000 by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission when an investigation revealed that Wackenhut
guards repeatedly slept on the job at the power company's Turkey Point
nuclear plant. Parrish said the Hernando County incident should not
diminish the public's perception of security at the courthouse. Sheriff
Richard Nugent hired the Palm Beach Gardens-based firm in August, saying
it would save money and help him meet requested budget cuts.
Holden Wal-Mart, Holden, Texas
August 28, 2006 Tyler Morning Telegraph
Just days before jury selection was scheduled to begin on Tuesday,
Wal-Mart settled a wrongful death lawsuit for an undisclosed amount with
the parents of Megan LeAnn Holden, a clerk who was kidnapped from the
Tyler supercenter's parking lot and murdered. Attorneys for Ms. Holden's
parents, Sheri Kay Dunlap and James Vincent Holden, said the terms of
the Wal-Mart settlement were confidential. The Wackenhut Corp, which
provided security for the store, was also named in the lawsuit and
settled for $1.3 million, according to court records. Ms. Dunlap, "would
like to see this as a beginning to Wal-Mart making its parking lots
safer for its customers and employees, not just in Tyler, but
everywhere," said her attorney, John "Rusty" Phenix, of Henderson. Jury
selection for the case was scheduled to begin in U.S. District Judge T.
John Ward's Marshall court Tuesday, but, on Friday, Phenix sent a letter
to the court announcing the sealed settlement. Attorney Randell "Randy"
Roberts, of Tyler, said his client, Holden, was "very glad to have this
entire matter behind him." Ms. Holden was abducted Jan. 19, 2005, from
the Wal-Mart Supercenter by Johnny Lee Williams Jr., who pleaded guilty
last year to capital murder - kidnapping, sexually assaulting,
strangling and shooting to death Ms. Holden to death before he allegedly
discarded her body in a West Texas ditch. He also pleaded guilty to
aggravated robbery and was sentenced to five stacked life sentences.
Surveillance footage released by law enforcement showed Williams
following Ms. Holden to her pickup in the Wal-Mart parking lot, rushing
up behind her, shoving her into the vehicle and driving off. Before the
abduction, the video showed a security guard talking to the suspect.
Holston Army Ammunition Plant
Holston, Tennessee
Wackenhut (Group 4 Securicor)
December 7, 2007 PR Newswire
Checks, ranging from $200 to $50,000, were distributed to 280
employees at the Holston Army Ammunition Plant this week. Two years
after plant workers filed a formal complaint, the Department of Labor
awarded the Wackenhut Services Inc. fire and security workers $2.5
million in back pay. According to DOL findings, from 1999 to April 2007
Wackenhut violated the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act, which
requires federal contractors to provide pay and benefits commensurable
to those found prevailing in the locality. While the final settlement
was less than the workers claim, this is the largest SCA settlement for
Wackenhut workers to date -- about ten times the previous high. This
past June the Army stated, "The money is owed by Wackenhut. Wackenhut
should have known all along (the SCA wages applied) based on the
original (contract) solicitation." But, Wackenhut claims that federal
acquisition procurement regulations allow it to bill the Army for this
back pay. "It is shocking that a company with such lucrative government
contracts like Wackenhut lacks the necessary organization, experience,
accounting and operational controls to pay their employees what is due
to them according to federal contracting law," said Valarie Long, SEIU
Property Services Division Director. "Now the US Army has to make up for
almost a decade of shortchanging the workers."
June 3, 2007 AP
A U.S. senator and a congressman have taken up
the cause of contract workers who say they are owed more than $3 million
in back pay for fire-protection and security work at the Holston Army
Ammunition Plant. The Wackenhut Security Services employees filed a
complaint in 2005 claiming their pay and benefits since were below what
they are legally required to receive under federal law. There were 85
fire and security workers at the plant at that time and their claim has
yet to be resolved. Recently, U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and U.S.
Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., both have sent letters to Labor Secretary
Elaine Chao asking the department to resolve the workers' claims.
September 26, 2006 Business Wire
Group 4 Securicor, the London-based global security firm lobbying
hard to stay in the race to guard the 2012 Olympics – and which is
guarding this week’s Labour Conference – has been rocked by allegations
from its own guards at a U.S. ammunitions plant. Security officers have
exposed lax practices at the Holston Army Ammunition Plant guarded by
Wackenhut Services Inc. (WSI), which is wholly owned by Group 4
Securicor (G4S). The officers allege Wackenhut cheats during security
inspections, cuts back on perimeter patrols to save on petrol, and has
allowed civilians in rowboats, including teenage girls, to gain access
to the plant by water. The Holston plant in Tennessee produces
explosives used in various missiles, as well as C4, a military plastic
explosive. “I think you can safely say if it goes boom, it comes from
here," said an Army spokesperson. The plant is operated for the U.S.
Army by foreign-owned BAE Systems, which subcontracts to WSI. Wackenhut,
the largest provider of security services to the US government, has a
troubled performance record at nuclear weapons and nuclear power sites.
Wackenhut’s problems at Holston come as G4S is positioning itself to win
security contracts for the 2012 London Olympics, despite its record of
problems in Britain and elsewhere. In the UK G4S has been criticized for
racism and poor management at a UK prison; for poor services and
facilities for detained immigrants; and for slipshod implementation of
electronic tagging of criminals released from prisons, sometimes with
violent or even deadly consequences. G4S has been found to have violated
worker rights in Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, and the US.
International
Monetary Fund, Washington, DC
We
have received information that over the last few weeks Wackenhut (Group
4 Falck's subsidiary) has dismissed 2 workers for union activities. Both
were employed by Wackenhut in Washington DC and worked at the offices of
the International Monetary Fund (IMF). (Union-Network, March 19, 2004)
Iraq Private Security
October 11, 2009 Weekly Standard
There seems no end to contractor abuse scandals in countries fighting
terrorism or undergoing "nation-building." The latest to be reported in
the media involves ArmorGroup North America, a private security firm
guarding the American embassies in Iraq and Afghanistan. It began in
Baghdad on August 9, when an ArmorGroup employee shot two of his
colleagues dead. The victims were Darren Hoare, 37, an Australian, and
Paul McGuigan, 37, a Briton and ArmorGroup executive. The alleged
killer, Daniel Fitzsimons, 33, is also British. ArmorGroup North America
is owned by Wackenhut Services, Inc., a Florida-based company, which is
a division, in turn, of a Danish enterprise, G4S, that advertises itself
as the world's largest security company. The shootings reportedly
occurred late at night, inside the ArmorGroup compound in Baghdad's
international area known as the Green Zone. Fitzsimons, according to a
Baghdad source who declined to be named, is said to have shot his
coworkers because they claimed he was homosexual. After killing them, he
shot an Iraqi, Arkhan Mahdi, in the leg, then was arrested by Iraqi
police (who now patrol the Green Zone). Fitzsimons faces a possible
death sentence. He will be the first foreigner employed in Iraq since
the beginning of the 2003 intervention to be held to account under Iraqi
law. Fitzsimons says he cannot remember the incident. According to the
London Sunday Times, Fitzsimons was seen on an earlier occasion
injecting Valium and morphine into his leg while already drunk. Another
trail of misconduct has led to an uproar in Kabul, where 16 U.S. embassy
guards provided by ArmorGroup were fired in early September for alleged
drunkenness and for forcing those under their control to engage in
deviant and humiliating behavior. U.S. press coverage of the Fitzsimons
case has been minimal, and even the contractors' misbehavior in Kabul,
although documented by video, has mostly been handled with discretion by
the print media. The New York Times mentioned "lurid details" and "lewd
conduct" at weekly parties hosted by embassy guards. The Kabul carousing
was disclosed when the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) released a
report on September 1. More information emerged in a suit filed
September 9 by James Gordon, a New Zealander and former operations
director of ArmorGroup North America. Gordon says he is a
"whistle-blower," forced out of his job after warning company executives
and the U.S. Department of State about the situation at the embassy.
According to the New York Times, the POGO report stated that victims of
"deviant hazing" included Afghans, whose conservative Muslim culture
left them especially repelled by such behavior; those who refused to
submit were dismissed from their jobs. The report described a " 'Lord of
the Flies' environment." Fitzsimons, the accused Baghdad shooter, has
been treated in the British media as a case of post-traumatic stress
disorder caused by his prior military service in Iraq and the Balkans.
But it would be a mistake to blame such dissolution on the stress of war
alone. The Green Zone syndrome of alienation from the local population,
as chronicled by critics of the Iraq war, is a ubiquitous feature of
life among foreign administrators in conflict and post-conflict areas
across the globe. Sex trafficking and corruption of locals have become
prominent wherever operations are conducted by transnational
bureaucracies like the United Nations and the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) along with the attendant ranks of
nongovernmental organizations and private contractors. I have observed
similar patterns in the Balkans for a decade.
January 7, 2007 Chicagoist
On Wednesday it was discovered that an Orland Park firefighter was
arrested for felony theft for falsely claiming he was fighting for the
military in Iraq. Lawrence Masa was actually working for a private
security firm in Iraq and was being paid quite well. During this time
Masa made approximately $190,000 as a firefighter and $200,000 as a
private security worker. Yesterday, Steven Slawinski, a Lemont
Firefighter, was accused of the same crime. Slawinski, a friend of Masa,
is charged with Felony theft for falsely claiming he was fighting for
the military in Iraq. Slawinski too was working at a private security
firm, getting paid $27,000 from the Fire Department while in Iraq.
Officials looked into Slawinksi's claims after they realized the
relationship between the two and the timing of both men's return to
work. Slawinski was making $63/hour as a trainer in Iraq. Since the
start of the Iraq war tens of thousands of private security workers have
entered the country. With the ease these two had at falsely producing
documents stating they were serving in the military, we assume this is
much more of a widespread problem. This is just another addition to the
slew of problems we face with private military contractors in Iraq. The
U.S. Department of State currently recognizes 28 Security Companies
doing business in Iraq, it is not known which company Masa and Slawinski
were working for, but our look into the companies shows two which
specialize in both fire and security. Baghdad Fire and Security is
described as providing the following services,"Fire protection and
security equipment supply. Install, maintain and commission these
systems. Physical security and demining." The second, Group 4 Falck A/S,
provides, "Cashing sorting. Ambulance services (vehicles and
professional staff). Firefighting services (vehicles, products and
professional staff). Prisons and prison management. Global solutions.
Facility management and training services." The State Department's
disclaimer regarding these companies is, "The U.S. government assumes no
responsibility for the professional ability or integrity of the persons
or firms whose names appear on the list." The other problems we
mentioned above, include abuse at Abu Ghraib (following these
allegations the companies involved were awarded additional Pentagon
contracts) and a video of firms shooting at Iraqi citizens. Needless to
say, previously these firms were acting without any regard for, and any
repercussions from, the law. With five words slipped into the most
recent Pentagon Budget, however, this should change. Previously, if
Congress had not declared war the Military had no jurisdiction over
security contractors. Essentially leaving Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq, and
Afghanistan as playgrounds for the firms. We don't discredit the risk
the workers of these firms take, but it only makes sense they have some
sort of moral authority guiding them. The amendment included in the
budget bill simply took the word "war" and replaced it with "declared
war or a contingency operation." The Defense Tech article suggests that
Journalists embedded in contingency operation zones could also be
subject to the change, but this will most likely not remain true as
embedded journalists are unarmed and not considered contractors.
Kahului
Airport, Maui, Hawai'i
June 17, 2008 Maui News
A federal grand jury in Honolulu has indicted Robert “Butchie” Tam
Ho, a former Wackenhut supervisor, for tampering with a witness to an
arrest and alleged assault by Tam Ho at Kahului Airport in 2005. Tam Ho
has pleaded not guilty to the two felony counts, which carry penalties
of up to 10 years in prison. He could not be reached for comment. The
former assistant police chief already was being sued in a civil action
in 2nd Circuit Court over the same events. Phil Lo-wenthal — the Maui
lawyer who, with his lawyer son, Ben, is representing the plaintiffs —
said Monday, “We didn’t even know about the tampering” until the
indictment was handed up earlier this month. However, he said, the grand
jury account tracked closely with the narrative given by his clients:
Greg Kahlstorf, president of Pacific Wings; Kahlstorf’s business
partner, Frank Ford; William Goshorn, then a pilot for the airline; and
Kahealani Reinhardt, then also an airline employee. The name of the
witness is given in the indictment as “J.W.,” a Wackenhut employee. On
Oct. 20, 2005, Kahlstorf had demanded a meeting with Airports Division
and Wackenhut managers after one of his pilots was cited and detained by
Wackenhut for being in a restricted operating area — an offense
Kahlstorf denied. The airline and the guard company had had uneasy
relations since at least February 2004, when Wackenhut guards apparently
pressured Pacific Wings to board a passenger who had been turned back by
airline security because she did not have acceptable identification. The
grand jury reported that Tam Ho left the meeting after a shouting
exchange with Kahlstorf. When he returned with two other Wackenhut
employees, they made a “citizen’s arrest” and tried to handcuff
Kahlstorf for harassment. Kahlstorf did not cooperate, and he and the
two other guards fell to the floor. Tam Ho ordered the other Pacific
Wings employees out. They left, but one, identified as W.G. (Goshorn,
who related his story to reporters in 2005), came back to witness what
was happening to his boss. Tam Ho “adopted an aggressive fighting stance
and struck W.G. about the head and shoulders several times with his
fists,” according to the grand jury report. Goshorn did not fight back,
and others (not identified) pulled Tam Ho off Goshorn. Maui police
arrived, and Tam Ho, a former assistant police chief, demanded that they
arrest Goshorn. After an investigation that included an interview with
J.W., they did. Meanwhile, the private guards moved Kahlstorf and
Goshorn to the Wackenhut offices, which provides the basis for the civil
suit’s allegations of kidnapping. According to the grand jury, J.W. also
went to the offices, where Tam Ho told her “she should simply say she
was heading home for the day . . . and that she didn’t see what
happened.” Although that was not so, that is what J.W. told police. The
second count refers to the following day, when, the grand jury said, Tam
Ho dictated a written statement to J.W., who entered it into a Wackenhut
computer. The jurors said Tam Ho falsely had her write that Goshorn had
stopped the door and did not comply with Tam Ho’s request; and that J.W.
could not see what was happening but had “observed Tam Ho and him in a
scuffle.” The Airports Division investigated the incident and concluded
that there was “no evidence that the actions taken by its airport
security contractor . . . were inappropriate.” Tam Ho tried to get
county prosecutors to charge Kahlstorf and Goshorn with resisting arrest
or assault, but the prosecutors declined. They also dropped the initial
complaint against the pilot for entering a restricted area. The next
month, a Wackenhut guard confronted a Pacific Wings pilot about a
parking spot and in a lengthy, videotaped incident spat on and
threatened the pilot. That guard was barred from state facilities, and
Wackenhut was ordered to train its employees about conduct. The feud did
not end there. In another confrontation, Pacific Wings called Maui
police, who declined to intervene in what they determined was a civil
matter. “This is what the feds are supposed to do” when local police and
prosecutors are involved so closely in a dispute, Lowenthal said of the
tampering indictment. The civil suit alleges that Tam Ho and other
Wackenhut employees “assaulted, battered, kidnapped, unlawfully
restrained and intentionally inflicted emotional distress” on the four
Pacific Wings people. In April, Tam Ho and Wackenhut separately denied
those claims and asserted that the airline group contributed to the
incident themselves. Wackenhut could not be reached for comment, but the
company has demanded a jury trial. Lowenthal later also asked for a jury
trial, but he said Monday his suit will have to hold until the criminal
trial is settled, because of the Fifth Amendment implications if Tam Ho
were to be deposed for his clients. Tam Ho is free on $10,000 unsecured
bail.
June 13, 2008 KITV
The former head of security for Wackenhut at Kahului Airport pleaded
not guilty to federal charges on Friday. Authorities charged Robert Tam
Ho with two counts of witness tampering. Tam Ho told a subordinate to
lie and file a false report about an altercation between Tam Ho and an
executive of Pacific Wings, prosecutors said. Tam Ho joined Wackenhut
after leaving the Maui Police Department, where he was assistant chief.
If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.
June 8, 2008 Star Bulletin
A former Wackenhut of Hawaii security officer is facing federal
charges in connection with an altercation between Wackenhut employees
and Pacific Wings airline employees at Kahului Airport in 2005. A
federal grand jury returned an indictment yesterday charging Robert Tam
Ho with two counts of witness tampering. Tam Ho instructed a subordinate
Wackenhut employee to tell Maui police that she did not see Tam Ho
assault Pacific Wings security coordinator William Goshorn in an airport
conference room on Oct. 20, 2005, when in fact she did, according to the
indictment. Tam Ho also directed the worker to write a false statement
about the assault, the indictment says. Maui police arrested Goshorn on
third-degree assault charges and Pacific Wings President James Greg
Kahlstorf for alleged harassment and resisting arrest based on
statements from Tam Ho and other Wackenhut employees. Less than a month
later, Maui police arrested Wackenhut security officer Eric Brown for
allegedly threatening another Pacific Wings employee at Kahului Airport.
Wackenhut suspended Brown, and the state Department of Transportation
banned him from working on any state property or facility.
November 24, 2005 The Maui News
The Maui County prosecutors office is continuing an investigation into
allegations of assault, harassment and violations of airport security
rules by personnel with Pacific Wings, a county official said Wednesday.
Prosecutors have not "dropped" the case, which involves
conflicting claims by the Pacific Wings staff and airport security
guards with Wackenhut Corp. "On the contrary, the prosecutor is
still in the process of gathering all the reports," the county
statement said. "The prosecutor intends to fully investigate both
sides of the controversy, to talk to various state personnel who may
have knowledge of the case or some particulars thereof."
November 15, 2005 KGMB 9
A Wackenhut security guard was arrested Sunday after threatening to kill
a pilot at the Kahului Airport. Pacific Wings pilot Gabriel Kimbrell
caught the incident on videotape. "Don't take picture of me!",
yelled guard Eric Brown as he lunged toward Kimbrell, and then spit at
the camera. "I'm going to kill this (expletive). I don't
care," said Brown. "Give me your (expletive) gun. I'm going to
shoot this (expletive) in the head." Maui police arrested Brown for
second degree terroristic threatening. "The only thing I could
think of was to keep filming," said Kimbrell. "I was pretty
traumatized." Because of an ongoing beef with the guards, Kimbrell
had been ordered by his company's lawyer to videotape any encounters.
Sunday's incident stemmed from a parking ticket Kimbrell got when he
left his silver truck in this loading-zone at the Kahului airport. KGMB
called Wackenhut officials five times today. They did not return our
calls. But the Department of Transportation says Kimbrell had been
ticketed in that same spot last month. And this time, according to the
DOT, as the guard was about to write the ticket, Kimbrell could have
just moved his truck but he went to get his video camera instead.
"We believe that at this point Wackenhutt has followed proper
security procedures and we think they've done the job in checking on any
security violations," said Scott Ishikawa, spokesperson for the
DOT. While the state's Airports Division investigates the case, the Maui
Police Department has about 45-minutes of this tape. The Pacific Wings
airline only gave the media less than three minutes worth. The airline's
president says the rest of it shows a pattern of harassment. The
airline's president refers specifically to a meeting last month in which
he says security guards attacked him and handcuffed him. In the end, the
airline's president was charged with harassment and resisting arrest.
Complaints were filed, investigations launched, and there's still no
sign of a resolution.
Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
June 26, 2007 PR Newswire
The City of Los Angeles is launching an investigation into security
contractor Wackenhut Corporation/G4S' compliance with the city's
Responsible Contractor Policy, a probe that could result in debarment
from city contracts for five years. Prior to the investigation,
Wackenhut had more than US$5 million annually in contracts with the City
of Los Angeles to guard at least two dozen buildings and public places
including Los Angeles City Hall East; Mount Lee -- the home of the
famous Hollywood sign; the Ed Davis Training Facility, which is the
newest and most elaborate LAPD training facility; other parks,
performing arts centers, and the Watts and Van Nuys city halls. In
addition to launching the investigation, Los Angeles did not select
Wackenhut for future city work worth up to an estimated US$20 million
over three years. Wackenhut Corporation formerly had the largest piece
of this city account. They were first selected in 2004 for a three-year
contract along with four other contractors for the Los Angeles security
work. In its Notice of Investigation, the Los Angeles City Bureau of
Contract Administration (BCA) determined, "after researching [a]
complaint (regarding [Wackenhut's] contractor responsibility status)
that the issues raised are valid." Accordingly, Wackenhut "[has] been
placed under investigation for violations of [the Contractor
Responsibility Ordinance] of Los Angeles." Under the Responsible
Contractor Program (RCP), the City determines whether the prospective
contractor is one that has the necessary quality, fitness and capacity
to perform the work set forth in the contract. Irresponsible contractors
with poor performance of other contracts; failure to comply with
relevant laws and regulations; and shoddy record of business integrity
are not eligible for city contracts for up to five years according to
the Los Angeles Administrative Code Section 10.40.2(a), Ordinance No.
#17367. In March 2007, U.S. Congresswoman Diane Watson co-chaired a
public hearing where she heard current and former Wackenhut employees
testify to the company's long record of workplace discrimination, labor
violations, and management incompetence. In response to charges of
racial discrimination by Wackenhut within the Department of Energy's
elite anti-terrorist Protective Force, Congresswoman Watson declared,
"I'm appalled that we have contractors here with Federal government
contracts being paid by taxpayers' dollars ..... practicing the behavior
of the 1950's and the 1960's." California Assembly member Mervyn Dymally
(D-52) and California Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-26) also co-chaired
the Commission on Wackenhut and Security Standards that included Los
Angeles City Council member Wendy Greuel and Dr. Maulana Karenga,
Professor, California State University, Long Beach and National Chairman
of the Organization US. The Los Angeles Commission on Wackenhut and
Security Standards, a group of prominent religious, community leaders
and trade unionists, conducted the hearing. In addition to the hearing,
the group sent a letter to Los Angeles' head of the Bureau of Contract
Administration, John L. Reamer, expressing their concerns about the
company's "well documented record of racism, discrimination and poor
security that appears to violate the City of Los Angeles' Responsible
Contractor Policy." The March 28, 2007 letter was signed by Rev. Eric P.
Lee, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
of Greater Los Angeles and Rev. Dr. Lewis E. Logan II, senior Pastor of
the Bethel A.M.E. Church in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles BCA received
evidence that Wackenhut Corporation's answers on the contractor
responsibility questionnaire in January 2007 were less than truthful.
With respect to early termination of contracts within the past five
years, Wackenhut failed to mention losing contracts at Pilgrim Nuclear
Power Plant (August 2006), Indian Point #2 Nuclear Power Plant (2003),
and Utah Transit Authority (2002). In addition, Wackenhut's contract to
guard Dept. of Homeland Security Headquarters and Army Bases was not
renewed. As for recent employment litigation brought by workers,
Wackenhut overlooked a number of race discrimination and civil rights
cases, including an US$80,000 settlement in a sexual harassment case.
Wackenhut also failed to mention governmental investigations for
violating laws and rules including investigation leading to the loss of
the Dayton Transit contract in Ohio. Problems and failures there
included missing incident reports, sleeping on the job, concerns about
officers' qualifications, lack of supervision, and unprofessional
conduct. As for current investigations of false claim(s) and material
misrepresentation(s), Wackenhut neglected to tell the City of Los
Angeles about a fraud suit for services allegedly not performed on the
Miami-Dade County Transit contract and the County's Juvenile Assessment
Center. An ongoing investigation by the NBC affiliate in Miami on parts
of a preliminary Miami-Dade county audit revealed that "Wackenhut owes
taxpayers up to US$12.1 million for what it calls 'questioned hours' and
'questioned billings'" in addition to various other contract violations.
The company also omitted an ongoing investigation by the Department of
Energy's Inspector General of falsification of training records. After
the hearing, the coalition presented additional materials to the city in
the period of the last several months. While Wackenhut had been the
incumbent choice for more years of work, the city recently decided not
to choose the company for new work. This is in addition to beginning the
investigative probe toward potential debarment. Faith Culbreath,
president of SEIU Local 2006, which represents security officers at
other companies in the Los Angeles area said, "Security workers want to
be accountable to the community they serve. That means working for
companies that do the right thing by their workers and by the citizens
of Los Angeles. Wackenhut abused the public trust and the trust and
safety of its workforce."
Malawi
February 1, 2008 Daily Times
SOME of Standard Bank services have been negatively affected due to
the on going industrial action by Group 4 Securicor (G4S), the bank has
announced. In a statement published Thursday the bank says it has taken
some measures to find alternative means for the affected areas.
“However, we have been assured by Group 4 Securicor management that
normal services will resume soon,” reads part of the statement. The
strike started Wednesday with guards demanding a 30 percent annual
salary increment which management refused saying they could only manage
12 percent. The court however, stopped the strike after management got
an injunction Tuesday evening and employees were told to go back to work
on Wednesday morning as the workers’ union also went to court to seek an
injunction which the court refused to grant them. According to The Daily
Times investigations G4S charges it clients K18, 834.45 for a guard on a
12 hour shift. Those with an Malawi School Certificate of Education
(equivalent of O levels ), who are also known as commissioners, are at
K29,412.83 while those putting on Securicor Uniform are at K23,477.52.
The investigations also revealed that the rates customers pay for a Dog
and Handler is K40, 632.32 and a supervisor is at K23, 477.75 and the
patrol and alarm guards are at K10, 161.87. However despite netting so
much money for the company the starting salary for a guard is K3200 per
month (K8 per hour) and those with more experience get about K4000(K11
per hour).There is no guard who gets more than K20, 000. Government has
announced with effect from January this year a minimum wage of about
K129 per day for those in town up from K87 and K95 in rural areas from
K66. G4S is an international company that has branches all over the
world. In the United Kingdom their guards do not get less than 5.68
pounds per hour (about K1,700) or K40,000 per 24 hour shift.
September 4, 2007 The Daily Times
Ndirande Police have arrested seven people in connection with the
theft of assorted goods valued at over K500,000 on July 24 from
Blantyre’s Superior Hotel. Blantyre Police spokesperson Elizabeth Divala
Monday said four of the seven were security guards employed by Group 4
Securicor. The seven are Clifford Chatha, 26, Benjamin Chipwete, 28, Dex
Hamoni, 24, Mosses Wyson, 27, Lawrence Ludechi, 19, Henry Nkamero, 26,
and Mphatso Sigamba, 26. “The seven were arrested on August 25 after
some members of the public tipped the police of the suspects’
whereabouts. “Our officers in Ndirande, acting on the tip raided the
suspects’ hideout. The seven appeared before Blantyre Magistrate last
Thursday and were remanded at Chichiri Maximum Prison waiting for
trial”. Divala explained that after stealing the goods the seven kept
the entire loot consisting of mattresses, Screens, blankets and
telephone receivers at a safe house in Ndirande. Divala said police
recovered the stolen materials.
Mangaung Maximum Security Prison, Bloemfontein, South Africa
January 20, 2010 Sowetan
AUTHORITIES at the Mangaung Private Prison outside Bloemfontein have
sent samples of food for forensic testing after five prisoners landed in
hospital with food poisoning. The prisoners who were admitted to the
local hospital have since being discharged. The incident happened last
week when four prisoners reported ill after lunch, according to Mangaung
Correctional Centre deputy controller MC Motsapi. Motsapi said 281
inmates were treated for runny stomachs. “Five out of 281 prisoners were
admitted to hospital but their condition was stable. No new cases have
so far been reported,” Motsapi said. The prison is one of three private
prisons in the country. The contract to run Mangaung Private Prison was
granted to GS4 Care and Justice Service. GS4 spokesperson Leana Goosen
confirmed the incident but said things had returned to normal. She said
the food consignment of the day was being tested.
September 25, 2009 IOL
Nine prisoners at the Mangaung maximum security prison in Bloemfontein
damaged furniture and a building on Friday for unknown reasons, police
said. Inspector Harry Nagel said the group of men locked themselves in a
"school building" on the grounds and started to break and damage chairs,
tables, computers and the building's bulletproof windows. "The building
also sustained water and smoke damage." Nagel said the prisoners were
armed with picks, spades, garden forks and screwdrivers. Police were
called in and they negotiated with the men to come out. "As the men
started to surrender they were handed to the private prison
authorities," said Nagel. Police said one of the prisoners was
apparently slightly injured. Nagel said the reason for the incident was
not immediately known. It started around 1pm and lasted for three hours.
August 18, 2003
South Africa's private prisons and maximum security prisons have turned out to
be an enormous waste of money, energy and time. These are some of the
findings made by University of the Western Cape Professor Julia Sloth-Nielsen,
whose overview of policy developments in the Department of Correctional Services
was published recently as part of the Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative's
series of research papers. Sloth-Nielsen has called for an investigation
similar to that into the arms deal regarding the tender process for existing
private prisons. "The reason for prison privatisation was mainly cost
based," she said. Privatisation, however, was costing the Department
of Correctional Services much more than it had bargained for. In 2001/2002
it was projected that by 2004/2005 the existing projects (those deemed viable by
a prisons task team) would cost the department R538-million - up from
projections of R143-million in 2001/2002. "The department agreed that
the decision had been unwise, and that Treasury had at the time advised against
the transaction. "The decision to undertake the private prisons
projects was, however, a political one, according to the departmental
spokesperson." The official position currently appeared to be that no
more private prisons would be contemplated because of the inordinate and
unforeseen expense. Sloth-Nielsen said the concept of C-Max prisons was
introduced at a time when the Department of Correctional Services was
characterised by the influence of American ideas in the penal sphere. The
intention was originally to create more of these facilities, she said, but this
was put on the backburner during 2001 because it had turned out to be "a
cost-intensive exercise". According to Sloth-Nielsen, the new prison
for "bad eggs", Supermax near Kokstad, was an even more lasting
testimony to the influence of American penal philosophy and practice.
"No impact analysis or land survey was done, which explains why the
facility has been built without a kitchen - the site is too steep to transport
food in the normal manner. "It cost R360-million to build - 155% more
than budgeted for." Supermax - reserved for high-risk prisoners - was
a "veritable Robben Island on land" in terms of its inaccessibility
for family visits. In addition, the department had not been able to find
enough "bad eggs" to fill the prison. Now the department
envisaged a series of "new generation prisons" for medium and low-risk
prisoners. Four would be built within the next two years. Construction
would rely on local resources; empowerment and security would be people centred
and not technology based, Sloth-Nielsen added. They would be strategically
placed in areas most affected by overcrowding. The focus would be on
rehabilitation. (The Star)
August 4, 2003
A PROFESSOR of law has called for an arms deal-like investigation into the
awarding of contracts for private prisons. Professor Julia Sloth-Nielsen
of the University of the Western Cape said that the Department of Correctional
Services had admitted "impropriety" in the privatisation process yet
nothing had been done about it. She made these claims in a research
document presented at a seminar in Cape Town on Thursday. "If this
matter is not being taken up by any other investigative authority . . . this
should be a priority of the [Parliamentary Portfolio] Committee in the same way
as the arms investigation has been dealt with," she said. In the
document Sloth-Nielsen says: Initially seven contracts for private prisons
were announced, but only two have been constructed, Mangaung Maximum Security
Prison in Bloemfontein, contracted to a UK-based consortium, and the maximum
security prison in Louis Trichardt in Limpopo; The process of awarding these
contracts was hasty, with the first five tenders awarded months before the
legislation was tabled in Parliament; and The Department of Correctional
Services itself had noted, "with some acrimony", that the people
involved in the project design, contract-drafting and negotiations, had upped
and left soon afterwards - to take up senior positions in the companies that had
won the tenders. "Again, this gave rise to considerable suspicion about the
integrity of the process itself," said Sloth-Nielsen. A task team,
consisting of representatives of Correctional Services and the Treasury,
presented a report to Parliament in November last year about the financial
arrangements of private prisons. "For a start, the official view
appears to be that the contracts were awarded without proper homework having
been done," she said. The actual cost per prisoner a day at the
Bloemfontein private prison is R132.20, compared with R93.67 a day for prisoners
in state prisons. "A debate about the morality of housing 6 000
prisoners in the undeniable [comparative] luxury of uncrowded new facilities,
while 182 000 remaining prisoners are left to languish in cells where sleeping
by rote is the order of the day, is also required," said
Sloth-Nielsen. "If indeed state officials (or former state officials)
benefited materially from the privatisation processes, this must be
exposed." Department of Correctional Services spokesman Russel
Mamabolo said on Friday they needed more time to study the 58-page document
before they would comment. (Johannesburg)
March 4, 2003
The chairman of the South African Human Rights Commission visited the
privately-run Mangaung Maximum Security Prison outside Bloemfontein on Tuesday
to investigate alleged violations of prisoners' rights. SAHRC spokeswoman Phumla
Mthala said Jody Kollapen would interview individual prisoners and meet with
prison authorities on Tuesday morning. Mthala said the investigation followed
several complaints by prisoners to the SAHRC's Free State office about, among
other things, detention conditions at the prison. The first complaints were
received last year. The aim of the investigation was to look at detention
conditions and verify the authenticity of the alleged human rights violations,
Mthala said. Earlier on Tuesday Dr Motsoko Pheko, deputy president of the Pan
Africanist Congress (PAC) and Member of Parliament, told Sapa that he planned to
ask Correctional Services Minister Ben Skosana in Parliament about alleged gang
violence in Mangaung Prison. Pheko said he had received complaints from inmates
who feared for their lives due to gang violence in the prison. "When people
are punished and sent to prison by court, they should be allowed to serve their
sentences without putting their lives at risk," Pheko said. According to
Pheko, the murder of a Mangaung Prison inmate last week by a fellow inmate was
gang-related. Mangaung Prison is one of two private prisons in South Africa run
by the British based company Group 4. It has approximately 2928 inmates.
(South African Press Association)
February 27, 2003
An inmate of the privately-run Mangaung Maximum Security Prison outside
Bloemfontein died after an alleged assault by a fellow prisoner, the prison
confirmed on Thursday. The prison's managing director, Frikkie Venter, said the
deceased was allegedly assaulted in the prison late on Wednesday afternoon.
No
weapon was used in the attack. The injured prisoner was taken to the prison
hospital where he died while in a doctor's care. Venter said a team was already
investigating the incident. He was waiting for a report with full details.
Captain Ernest Mayiki spokesman for the Free State police confirmed that police
were investigating a case of murder. Venter expressed his condolences to the
family of the deceased. Mangaung Maximum Security, belonging to the company
Group Four, is one of two privately-managed correctional institutions in South
Africa. It is situated adjacent to the Department of Correctional Services'
Grootvlei Prison near Bloemfontein. Two convicts escaped from the prison on New
Year's Day. (South African Press Association)
January 1, 2003
Two reportedly dangerous convicts are at large after the first escape from a
privately-managed prison in South Africa on Wednesday. The prisoners made
their daring escape around 1 pm while working out in the gym of the Maung
Maximum Correctional Facility near Bloemfontein, Department of Correctional
Services spokesman Russel Mamabolo told Sapa. Both men were regarded as
dangerous. Mamabolo said his department would conduct a thorough
investigation into the escape and expected a full report from the management
company that runs Maung Maximum, Group 4. Maung Maximum is one of only two
privately-managed correctional institutions in South Africa. The other is
near Louis Trichardt in limpopo. (South African Press Association)
May 2001
A youngster caught stealing three mangoes out of hunger, recently spent four
months awaiting trial in a Johannesburg prison due to bungling by justice
officials, the country's top independent prisons' inspector revealed on Friday.
"This boy was prepared to plead guilty. It is obvious the magistrate
and prosecutor were not doing their job properly," Judge Johannes Fagan
told guests visiting the new Mangaung Maximum Security Prison outside
Bloemfontein. He blamed prison overcrowding on inept justice officials who
fail to process cases speedily. According to statistics from the
Department of Correctional Services, the country's 236 prisons, with an
accommodation capacity of 102, 048 was housing about 170,168 inmates by the end
of February. Nearly a third of these, or about 64,000 individuals, were
awaiting trial, Fagan said. (News 24, South Africa)
Manhattan
FBI Headquarters, Manhattan, New York
January 21, 2010 New York Daily News
A Muslim security guard at the Manhattan FBI headquarters claims
he's being forced to carry around proof of his religion because he has a
beard. Daoud Ibraheem, 72, was granted a religious exception for facial
hair when he was hired in 2007 by Wackenhut Services, but says the
special treatment has triggered harassment by supervisors. In a $3
million discrimination suit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, Ibraheem
says he is subjected to daily spot-checks by officers from the Federal
Protective Service. They repeatedly insist he must produce a letter
written by the imam of his Brooklyn mosque vouching for his faith, the
suit says. They also falsely accused Ibraheem of sleeping on the job and
ordered him to stay outside a heated guard booth while non-Muslim guards
have unlimited access to the shelter in freezing weather, said his
lawyer, Tamara Harris. She said Ibraheem fears upcoming terror trials of
9/11 plotters could ramp up the hostility even further. "The anger
people harbor against Muslims might be heightened by the proximity of
his workplace to Ground Zero, where 9/11 happened," Harris said. The
Federal Protective Service, a government agency, and private contractor
Wackenhut are jointly responsible for security at 26 Federal Plaza. A
lawyer representing both Wackenhut and the Federal Protective Service
did not return calls for comment.
Medway Secure Training Centre, Rochester, UK
January 5, 2009 Kent News
Inmates at the Medway Secure Training Centre – which houses some of
Britain’s most hardened criminals – enjoyed a weekend of tropical fun,
playing bongo drums and limbo dancing, and even being given access to an
alcohol-free beach bar. During the two-day knees-up, the convicted
criminals were also allowed to play games including Scalectrix in a
specially-themed youth club and each wing of the jail took part in a
competition to come up with the best Hawaiian decorations. Group Four
Securicor, which runs the centre, has not revealed the full cost of the
party. Taxpayers’ Alliance spokesman Susie Squire branded the weekend
event “a waste of money” given the current economic crisis. She said:
“Every penny of public money is now incredibly precious. “We’re all
tightening our belts in the recession – the public sector should be
doing the same. “While we must encourage young offenders to improve
themselves and keep busy and active, there’s no need for this sort of
frivolity. “I would view this very much as a luxury."
Melbourne
Custody Centre,
Melbourne, Australia
February 7, 2010 The Sunday Age
THE state government is poised to award a multimillion-dollar prison contract to
a private company whose human rights record has been called into question. The
Sunday Age can reveal that private prison contractor G4S Australia & New Zealand
is the preferred tenderer to take over the Melbourne Custody Centre, a
city-based facility that each year processes 11,000 people through cells under
the Magistrates Court. The private security firm was last year named in a
damning West Australian Coroner's report, which found it had contributed to the
''wholly unnecessary and avoidable death'' of a 46-year-old Aboriginal man in
its custody in January 2008. The company's record in Victoria is also marked by
a coroner's finding last year that it contributed to the 2005 death of Ian
Westcott, who died of an asthma attack in the G4S-run Port Phillip prison. A
note found near his body read: ''Asthma attack. buzzed for help. no response.''
In 2000, a coroner found the company had failed to provide a safe environment at
Port Phillip when four men hanged themselves in 1997. A 2006 report by the
Victorian Ombudsman and the Office of Police Integrity found inadequacies in the
way prisoners were transported, with insufficient attention paid to their
conditions, including ''basic amenities for long trips''. Charandev Singh, a
spokesman for the Centre for the Human Rights of Imprisoned People, said the
decision to give G4S preferred tenderer status was shocking. ''The company's
lethal record, combined with the circumstances of the horrific death of [the
Aboriginal elder], appears to have been totally negated by the Brumby government
and Victoria Police in their intention to award a further lucrative contract to
this company.'' The Melbourne Custody Centre tender is a sensitive issue for the
state government, which was last year criticised by prisoner advocates for
renewing G4S's prisoner transport contract despite the WA Coroner's finding. The
two companies shortlisted for the Melbourne Custody Centre - G4S and GEO Group
Australia - both have blemished records in the eyes of human rights advocates.
GEO Group Australia is the existing contractor and has been criticised by the
Ombudsman several times for using excessive force on prisoners - most recently
in August 2008. GEO, which has run the 30-cell facility for almost 11 years, was
recently dropped from the shortlist when the government named G4S as preferred
tenderer. Both firms are subsidiaries of multinational outfits specialising in
security systems and correctional and detention facilities. The contract for
management of the custody centre - which serves the court system but also
operates as a holding facility for drug and alcohol-affected people - is yet to
be signed with G4S, but is believed to be with Corrections Minister Bob Cameron.
A G4s spokesman said he could not comment while the tender was still going. A
spokesman for Mr Cameron said he was also unable to comment.
Metro
Office Buildings,
Nashville, Tennessee
July 17, 2009 Tennessean
Almost 19 months after thieves broke into the Davidson County
Election Commission and made off with computers containing 337,000
voters’ Social Security numbers, Metro is on the verge of getting back
$400,000 from its security contractor. The agenda for Tuesday’s Metro
Council meeting includes a resolution approving a $400,000 settlement
with Wackenhut Corp. Metro asked the company for more than $840,000 in
May 2008 to reimburse the government for its expenses. Those included
$48,387 for an audit by Kraft CPAs; $21,575 for security services that
weren’t provided; $235,757.35 for two mailings to voters, and
$534,391.75 for identity-theft protection for more than 56,000 voters
who responded to the city’s offer to pay for a year of protection.
Wackenhut already paid the city back for the $21,575 in services that
weren’t provided by its subcontractor, Specialized Security Consultants.
The $400,000 would be in addition to that amount, meaning Metro would
get back just over 50 percent of its expenses. In essence, Metro is now
on track to get reimbursed for the cost of the mailings, which it had to
send to let voters know about the December 2007 break-in, and for the
audit it ordered to review the subcontractor’s billings. But it would
only get back a small part of the cost for the identity-theft
protection, which was considered a more discretionary expense.
December 10, 2008 Nashville City Paper
Almost a year after the Christmas Eve break-in at the Davidson
County Election Commission office, the company contracted by Metro to
provide security services was in town explaining its side of the story.
The question now is what does the future hold between Metro and
Wackenhut, the international security company that has handled the
government’s security guard contract for the last 17 years. The two
parties are locked in litigation with Metro seeking about $800,000 from
Wackenhut Services, Inc., as a result of the election commission
break-in, when two laptop computers containing social security numbers
and private information of Davidson County voters were stolen. Wackenhut
responded by filing suit against Mt. Juliet-based subcontractor
Specialized Security Company (SSC). It was SSC, which had the security
guard on duty the night the break-in allegedly took place and that’s a
fact Wackenhut feels has not been made clear enough. In town this week
on damage control was Wackenhut Vice President and Assistant General
Counsel Michael Hogsten, who along with Waller, Lansden, Dortch and
Davis attorney Tom Lee, met with Metro Council members and members of
Mayor Karl Dean’s administration. “From our perspective I think everyone
understands that the subcontractor was the entity at the building
providing the services on the date of the incident,” Hogsten said. “The
facts regarding the incident I don’t think have been portrayed in a very
clear way.” From Metro’s perspective, Wackenhut is to blame and
therefore owes the $773,00 the government spent to provide identity
theft insurance to the voters whose information was stolen on the
laptops. It was discovered later the information was apparently not
accessed. “They understand our position that the Metropolitan Government
feels they breached their contract and that they should reimburse us,”
Metro Director of Law Sue Cain said. Councilman unconvinced -- District
4 Councilman Michael Craddock was among the members who met with
Wackenhut this week. Craddock said he listened to what Wackenhut had to
say and appreciated their perspective, but added his stance on the issue
remains unchanged. “I told them at the end of it, ‘If it were my
decision I’d fire you,’” Craddock said. “They need to be fired and they
need to pay up. They goofed up. There has been a long pattern here.
“You’re talking about one of the most serious incidents in the history
of Metro government.” Hogsten contends Wackenhut actually has a positive
working history with Metro dating back to 1991. The $4.5 million annual
security contract was extended in 2007 under Mayor Bill Purcell’s
administration and lasts until 2011. Hogsten pointed out the issue
became bigger because of the voter information on the laptops. “From our
perspective the only reason this became such a big issue is how the
laptops were handled and how the confidential information, that was
within the city’s responsibility to protect, was dealt with,” Hogsten
said. He described the break-in as an incident that would have been
difficult for any security guard to prevent. “That guard doing
everything right had very little opportunity from preventing that crime
from happening at the building,” he said. In its amended complaint
against Wackenhut, which was filed Nov. 18, Metro seeks not only to be
compensated but also to have its contract found in breach. Metro
currently has the right to void the contract, provided it gives a 30-day
notice to Wackenhut. Craddock said it was his understanding the contract
had not been voided yet because of the pending litigation. Subcontractor
at center of issue -- In its suit against SSC, Wackenhut essentially
shifted the blame onto the subcontractor, which handled 20 percent of
the security services in the contract. Wackenhut has paid $22,000 to
Metro so far since the incident occurred. That payment came after an
independent audit showed Wackenhut was billing Metro for hours its
guards weren’t working. Hogsten said it was Wackenhut’s intention to
bring all the involved parties together to talk about an agreement in
the near future. A hearing will be held on Dec. 19 to combine the two
lawsuits into one case. “There are other aspects of the claims raised by
the city that we need to deal with our subcontractor,” Hogsten said.
SSC’s attorney John Thomas Freeney said his clients rejected the claims
made by Wackenhut in their suit and planned to contest them in court.
Metro’s perspective on who to blame can be found in its amended
complaint. Even if Metro concedes that SSC, and not Wackenhut, is to
blame for the fallout from the election commission break-in, the
complaint points out that Wackenhut was responsible for bringing its
subcontractor to the table. In its Request For Proposal for Metro’s
security services, Wackenhut stated: “We have always enjoyed an
excellent relationship with our sub-contractors. This is because we
exercise due diligence in qualifying them and ensuring that they have
the capability to provide the quality service required to meet our
standards as well as those of our clients.” Metro’s complaint states
that Wackenhut did not have the low bid in the RFP process, but landed
the contract because of its commitment to subcontract 20 percent of the
work to small or minority owned business. Wackenhut said it chose SSC
from a list of about 20 small businesses that Metro provided. In its
complaint, Metro points out that many of the security guards working for
SSC were previously employed or even provided by Wackenhut. Hogsten said
it was common for security companies to use the same guards from
contract to contract. Craddock proposes keeping security services
in-house -- Hogsten said Wackenhut did not want its long-standing
relationship with Metro to be undone because of one incident, but
between the latest complaint and the feeling among Council members, it
is likely the contract will ultimately be terminated. If that happens,
Craddock said he thought Metro should change the way it provides
security at its facilities and start doing so in-house. “I would like to
see the administration explore our own security force,” Craddock said.
“I would like to see us explore retired firefighters, police officers,
something along those lines, but they are Metro employees. I believe we
can provide our own security service.”
November 21, 2008 WSMV
A private security company that is trusted to help keep Nashville safe
is accused of twisting the facts in order to get the job. Wackenhut
wasn't the lowest bidder when Metro was looking for a security company.
But Wackenhut got extra points by saying it would subcontract 20 percent
of its contract to a local small business, Specialized Security
Consultants (SSC), run out of a house in Mount Juliet. Wackenhut was
quick to lay the blame on SSC after the Davidson County Election
Commission break-in last December and blamed SSC when Metro discovered
it was overbilled. But now Metro lawyers have said the two companies
really aren't very separate. Metro alleges that Wackenhut moved some its
own guards to the SSC roster, Wackenhut did their payroll, ordered their
uniforms, performed their background checks and that SSC used
Wackenhut's office space. A contract document signed by Wackenhut's
general manager promises Wackenhut is not involved in the operation or
management of its subcontractor. "If, in fact, that's what has
happened," said Councilman Jim Gotto, "then it was just a subsidiary of
Wackenhut." Gotto said if Metro lawyers prove the allegations, it's a
case of deception. "To the extent that somebody goes in and cheats, if
you will, to try to gain an advantage, I think they're doing the whole
community a disservice," Gotto said. Metro Finance Director Rich
Riebling said they're looking at all of their options, one of which is
rebidding the contract. Because of what it calls "negligent
misrepresentation," Metro wants out of its five-year contact. Both
Wackenhut and SSC's owner were unavailable for a comment.
October 6, 2008 Nashville City Paper
She asked nicely first. Metro Legal director Sue Cain wrote to
security contractor Wackenhut Corp. in May to seek reimbursement for
costs associated with the Christmas Eve break-in at a Metro office
building that exposed the personal data of 337,000 voters to potential
compromise. Now the city has filed suit. A thief took a pair of laptops
containing the data, though they were later recovered. Subsequent
investigation showed that the subcontracted guard on duty had failed to
do his job as specified — and that Wackenhut had been billing Metro for
work it never did. The company has paid back some $22,000 in
overbillings, but the city still wants to be made whole for the $773,000
cost of buying identity protection for every registered voter and
sending out letters to advise voters about the protection program, along
with the $50,000 cost of auditing Wackenhut after the incident. The
lawsuit also seeks a declaratory judgment terminating Wackenhut's
contract to provide security services for Metro agencies. The contract
still has more than three years to run. James L. Charles, J. Brooks Fox
and Elizabeth A. Sanders of Metro Legal brought the action. Other cases
of note filed Sept. 26 to Oct. 2 -- Davidson County Chancery Court --
Wackenhut Corp. v. Specialized Security Consultants Inc. and First
Mercury Insurance Co. Filed 25 minutes after Metro's complaint on Sept.
26. Wackenhut goes after its subcontractor, Specialized Security of Mt.
Juliet, for damages arising from the break-in and the discovery of
"allegedly fraudulent" billing practices by Specialized Security.
Insurer First Mercury, which had a $2 million errors-and-omissions
policy in force on Specialized Security, has refused so far to cover the
costs, according to the lawsuit. In addition to damages from Specialized
Security, Wackenhut seeks a series of declaratory judgments that would
provide it with coverage from the First Mercury policy. Plaintiff's
attorneys: Robert E. Boston and Mary Beth Thomas of Waller Lansden
Dortch & Davis.
June 5, 2008 Tennessean
A Metro Nashville security contractor has agreed to repay the city for
services a subcontractor failed to provide but says it's still "working
diligently" on a much larger reimbursement request tied to a December
break-in. Metro asked Wackenhut Corp. last month for more than $840,000
for expenses related to the theft of two computers from the Davidson
County Election Commission. The computers contained Social Security
numbers for more than 337,000 Metro voters. In a letter to Metro Law
Director Sue Cain this week, Wackenhut executive Drew Levine said the
company would reimburse the city for billings for services that Metro
says a subcontractor, Specialized Security Consultants, didn't provide.
Cain wrote last month that those billings totaled $48,387. More than
$770,000 the city spent on mailings and identity-theft protection after
the break-in won't be coming as quickly. Wackenhut's Drew Levine wrote
that the company was "vigilantly pursuing recovery of these claims" from
the subcontractor. Cain said Wednesday that Wackenhut "has been dealing
with us in good faith" and that it was reasonable for the company to
seek payment from its subcontractor before paying Metro. "It's normal
business practice," she said.
May 20, 2008 WZTV
Concerns continue to mount with metro's security provider. The legal
department has sent a second letter requesting reimbursement from
Wackenhut after the December break-in at the election commission. The
social security numbers of more than 300 thousand Davidson county voters
were stolen. Since then, the city has paid about 800 thousand dollars
for mailings and alerts, as well as for an identity theft protection
program. In a recent audit, metro has also learned more than 21 thousand
dollars was paid to Wackenhut for security services the company never
provided. Now, taxpayers are feeling ripped off and want answers.
May 17, 2008 Tennessean
If city employees routinely lied on their timesheets and got paid for
days they didn't work, chances are excellent they'd get fired without a
second chance. That's pretty much what the Wackenhut Corp., through a
subcontractor, got caught doing. City attorneys are giving the company
one chance to clean up its act, or forfeit its multimillion-dollar
five-year contract. As it should. "They've got to get this right," said
Sue Cain, Metro law director. Cain sent the security company a letter
this week asking Wackenhut to pay taxpayers back the $840,000 it cost to
clean up a mess it helped make, and explain just how company officials
intend for it not to happen again. It was a polite, legal way of saying
pay up and clean up, or kiss your sweet government contract goodbye.
Remember laptop caper? This is the city contractor involved in the big
brouhaha just before Christmas when laptops containing the Social
Security numbers of 337,000 registered voters in Nashville were stolen
from the election commission. The guard in charge, who worked for a
Wackenhut subcontractor, admitted he was listening to festive holiday
tunes and eating Italian take-out rather than making his hourly rounds.
Granted, an election commission employee left one laptop sitting in open
sight of a window. She might as well have had it gift-wrapped. But it
was an "all's well that ends well" thing, since some dandy police work
led straight to the laptops, which had not been compromised. Mayor Karl
Dean acted quickly to authorize the city to pay for identity theft
protection on any voter's credit history, if he or she chooses. And Dean
ordered an audit of the city's dealings with Wackenhut. It showed that a
subcontractor billed Metro for months of Saturdays, when no security
guard worked. This week, Cain asked Wackenhut to pay the city back for
all those costs, including the numerous unfilled 12-hour shifts billed
at $149.76 each. Why not just fire them outright? "We could," Cain said,
"but it's expensive to do procurement." First, city officials want to
get repaid for what it cost to ensure that folks' identities were safe.
Makes sense. Second, they want to make sure government buildings are
safe, without having to spend even more money to start over with a new
bid process. This is a major contract. Wackenhut held it for years,
making $14 million from 2002 until 2007. Wackenhut won the bid again
last year, and has been paid $3.96 million since May 2007. "They really
have done, except for this, a good job," Cain said. "We wouldn't
continue unless the problems have been solved. It is their problem. It
was their subcontractor. They have to assure the Metropolitan government
that if they are using a subcontractor, their billings are correct." If
not, some of the 200 city employees about to be laid off would probably
be delighted to work for $12.48 an hour guarding buildings.
May 16, 2008 Tennessean
Metro Nashville is asking a security contractor to reimburse the
city more than $840,000 for expenses related to a break-in last year at
the Davidson County Election Commission offices. Metro Law Director Sue
Cain wrote a letter Wednesday to Wackenhut Corp. lawyer Jim Vines, a
former U.S. attorney for Middle Tennessee. Wackenhut was responsible for
security at the Metro Office Building in December, when thieves stole
two laptop computers containing the Social Security numbers of 337,000
voters. Wackenhut subcontracted with a Mt. Juliet firm, Specialized
Security Consultants Inc., to secure the building on Second Avenue
South. An audit found Wackenhut had billed Metro for some days when
security guards actually didn't work at the facility. Cain asked
Wackenhut to pay the city $48,387 for the audit by Kraft CPAs; $21,575
for security services that were not provided; $235,757.35 for two
mailings to voters, and $534,391.75 for the cost of identity-theft
protection for more than 56,000 voters who responded to the city's offer
to pay for a year of protection. "The expenditure of these funds was
unexpected and has worked a hardship on the government," Cain wrote to
Vines. Vines, now based in Washington, D.C., said Thursday afternoon
that he had not seen the letter yet. The Christmastime laptop theft
outraged many voters and Metro officials. One of the computers sat out
in the open on a table about 6 feet from the window the thieves broke
through. The other machine was under an employee's desk, waiting to be
repaired. City officials said Jan. 3 that the security guard on duty
during the incident listened to Christmas music, ordered Italian food
and visited the break room, failing to make his hourly rounds of the
building. Another guard discovered the break-in through the smashed
window after noticing a drop in the building's temperature two days
later. The guard who was blamed and fired said neither he nor anyone
else was on duty at the time of the break-in, however. Metro asked
Wackenhut for more than $100,000 in damages on Jan. 4, and Mayor Karl
Dean offered the free identity-theft protection the next week. The
laptops were discovered Jan. 17, with tests indicating voters'
information had not been viewed or copied. Wackenhut continues to work
for Metro, but Cain asked the company to explain in writing why the city
shouldn't put the security contract out for new bids. "As we have
discussed, the Metropolitan Government is very concerned that it has
contracted with Wackenhut over many years and at considerable expense
for security services only to learn through this break-in that Wackenhut
was not providing the services that were expected and, even more
disturbing, had been billing for services that were not provided," she
wrote. Wackenhut has a five-year contract to provide security at many
Metro buildings. The agreement took effect on May 1, 2007.
January 25, 2008 WSMV
The I-Team has uncovered a cozy relationship between a Metro
employee and the security contractor he oversees. Bill Kostrub
said he doesn't want to talk about it, but part of his job with Metro
government is approving payments to Wackenhut Security, a company for
which he used to work. Wackenhut is now under investigation for billing
irregularities at the election commission. “I appreciate your coming
out, but all the questions go through Velvet,” he said. He referred
reporter Nancy Amons to Velvet Hunter, who is second in command at Metro
General Services, where he works. Kostrub's job at General Services
includes reviewing the bills for security guards submitted by Wackenhut.
Kostrub was a salesman at Wackenhut until October 2006. During the time,
Wackenhut was negotiating the contract with Metro to provide security
for all of its buildings. In December 2006, while contract negotiations
were still going on, Kostrub went to work for Metro. Now he has the
power to OK Wackenhut's invoices. Amons shared the findings with
Councilman Jim Gotto. "It doesn't sound good. It doesn't look good,” he
said. Channel 4 obtained a stack of invoices under the Open Records Act
that shows 67 times in the last three months, Kostrub signed off on
security guard bills submitted by Wackenhut. The bills cover the months
when Metro auditors said Wackenhut appeared to be billing Metro for
ghost employees. Metro said guards were supposed to be patrolling the
Howard Office Building every Saturday. Tax dollars paid for it, but
Metro said there's no evidence the guards were there. At least five of
the Saturday bills were approved by Kostrub. “I'm really interested that
you used to work for Wackenhut and now you approve their invoices,” said
Amons. “And I can appreciate that. Talk to Velvet about it. You guys
have a good day,” Kostrub said. "There's nothing wrong with this
gentleman working for Metro, but he certainly doesn't need to be working
for Metro on this particular contract,” Gotto said. Hunter said late
Friday that Kostrup was hired through an open and competitive process
and that Metro did not have a problem with his former employment.
Channel 4 and the I-Team are not implying that Kostrup did anything
wrong; they are just asking if it creates an ethics issue.
January 9, 2008 News Channel 5
Could Metro's drinking water supply be at risk? It's a concern after
a shocking lapse in security. First, thieves hit the Davidson County
Election Commission office. Now, there's concern other Metro services
are at risk due to another security breach. It involves security firm
Metro hired Wackenhut. The company employs hundreds of security guards.
There is frequent turnover. But what happens when the security guards
leave the company? One former employee John Kennedy said when people
leave the company, they take their IDs. In his living room closet, he
has five Wackenhut shirts and a jacket. He quit in July after working
for the security firm for almost a year. He also has official patches, a
brass badge and a Metro Water Services security identification badge
that expires in 2012. His duties included protecting the city's drinking
water supply. He said he still has the key that lets him "walk through
gate that has a padlock on it." "I walk in uniform and more than likely
I can get into any Metro water facility in town," he said. Kennedy said
neither Metro nor Wackenhut ever contacted him about the items. "It's
extremely dangerous," Metro Councilman Michael Craddock. "Where does
this end?" Craddock is critical of the security company because of this
as well as the recent theft of computers from the election commission
office. "Not only half a million people had their social security
numbers stolen, now our most precious commodity, water, we don't know if
it is safe today," he said. Craddock said there's no excuse for
Wackenhut not to take back uniforms and badges before employees leave
the company. In the wrong hands, he said, someone could do horrible
damage because of lax security. Craddock is speaking generally. Kennedy
is not a threat. He simply forgot he had the uniforms and
identification. He plans to return them. Metro Water Services officials
said Wackenhut is responsible. After this practice was brought to their
attention, the department contacted the security company looking for an
explanation. Wackenhut officials declined comment Wednesday. Metro Water
Services officials said the water supply is safe. They admit that the
badges and keys not being returned are certainly a problem. But they
emphasized that there are layers of security designed to keep the water
system secure.
January 9, 2008 WKRN
The city may have been paying for security guards at the Davidson
County Election Commission who were not on the clock, Nashville Mayor
Karl Dean said Tuesday. The Department of General Services is
investigating security at the election commission after a theft there
last month. Two laptops containing the social security numbers of all
registered voters in Davidson County were stolen from the building on
December 24. General Services said there is no actual proof security
guards used their access cards to get into the building on Saturdays,
between October and December. Despite that, Metro was billed for 12
hours shifts on those days. Tuesday, the CEO of the security firm
responsible for security at the election commission office, the
Wackenhut Corporation, stepped down. The firm did not give specific
reason for CEO Gary Sanders’ resignation. Authorities believe the
thieves used a rock to break a window to gain access into the election
commission. Weeks later, the window has yet to be repaired and plywood
remains over the window.
January 7, 2008 Tennessean
The security guard who was fired after computers with voters’ Social
Security numbers were stolen from the Davidson County Election
Commission says he wasn’t on duty at the time. In fact, Brendan Murphy
said in a telephone interview, no one was on duty at the time. Murphy
called The Tennessean after reading a story in Friday’s paper about an
unnamed guard who was blamed by Metro officials for listening to
Christmas music, ordering takeout food |