A lawsuit filed in a California federal court on September 15, 2021, accuses private prison financier JPay, Inc. of violating both U.S. law and the constitutional rights of prisoners by returning money owed at their release in debit cards that eat up much of the balance in fees.

The lead plaintiff in the case, Adam Cain, is represented by the Seattle law firm of Sirianni Youtz, California civil rights attorney John Burton and the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), which has published Prison Legal News since 1990 and Criminal Legal News since 2017. The suit seeks national class action status to represent any and all prisoners harmed by receiving funds due at release paid with a JPay release debit card.

Release debit cards are used by jails and prisons in many states to return prisoners funds they are owed at release. Instead of cash or a check, these prisoners received a debit card pre-loaded with the amount they are due.

Cain received his JPay release debit card when he left Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Riverside County, California. It was loaded with $213.50, which included all the cash he had left in his prisoner account plus $200 in “gate money” ...

by Matt Clarke

On May 10, 2021, the Tennessee Department of Corrections (DOC) announced that it would rebid the $123 million contract it had awarded to Centurion to provide behavioral health services—including psychiatric and addiction services—to prisoners in DOC prisons. The move came after Corizon accused the DOC and Missouri-based Centurion of bid rigging in a federal court filing.

In April 2021, Corizon filed an amended complaint in federal court alleging former DOC chief financial officer Wesley Landers sent internal DOC emails related to the contract to a home Gmail account, then forwarded them to Centurion Vice President Jeffery Wells. Landers used a program that automatically scrubbed the emails from his computer. Wells and Landers also allegedly communicated using the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp.

Some of the emails were recovered from Centurion. One was a draft of the request for proposals sent to Wells nearly two months before it was made public. The suit alleges Landers received a “cushy” job with a Centurion affiliate in Georgia in exchange for the information. The suit also alleges that the performance bond for the contract was changed from $1 million to $118 million, putting the contract out of reach for Corizon, which is ...

Prison Legal News (PLN) is encouraging our readers to file complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) if you feel you are being made to pay expensive rates to transfer money to your loved one in jail or prison or, if you are a prisoner, to receive money transfers from people outside of prison or jail. 

The CFPB is a U.S. government agency that makes sure banks, lenders, and other financial companies treat consumers fairly. They are concerned with the issues facing imprisoned consumers and their families.

As PLN has reported, private companies like Jpay, GTL and others charge exorbitant fees for transferring money to prisoners. Services that used to be free when performed by the government are now available through monopoly contracts where private hedge fund owned companies charge obscene fees to do the same thing the government used to do at no cost.

In order to send $50 to a prisoner, a person may be charged an additional $6.95. Fees can be as high as 35 to 45 percent of the amount sent. In the aggregate, the amount of money sent to prisoners nationally each year is in the billions of dollars with these companies ...

On July 6, 2021, Veronica Ortega, 45, a former medical assistant at the GEO-owned and -operated East Hidalgo Detention Center pleaded guilty to bribery after admitting she received cash to smuggle marijuana into the jail. She was the seventh GEO employee to plead guilty to the charges presented in federal indictments following a joint U.S. Marshals Service, FBI, and U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General investigation into bribery and drug smuggling at the jail.

The 1,300-bed jail is used to hold people in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Marshals, and other federal agencies. Notably, it held Erick Alan “Cachorro” Torres Davila, who was arrested along with his stepfather, Guillermo “Don Gio” Morales, as part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force investigation targeting the Gulf Cartel. Although they pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges in 2018, they were held in the jail awaiting sentencing for three years.

Former GEO guard Erasmo Loya confessed to providing Torres Davila cocaine between November 2016 and June 2019, before pleading guilty. Former GEO guard Jhaziel Loredo and former GEO commissary officer Jayson Catlan also pleaded guilty to the federal charges.

Former GEO guard Domingo Gonzalez Hernandez admitted ...

by David M. Reutter

Private prison operator CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), paid $56 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it violated securities laws that resulted in a loss to stock holders.

The lawsuit was filed August 23, 2016, on behalf of the class of stock holders of CoreCivic, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CXW.” The class consisted of persons who held CCA stock between February 27, 2012 and August 17, 2016. The class specifically excluded CCA and CoreCivic officers named as defendants.

At issue were allegedly materially false and misleading statements issued during the class period. The civil complaint cited statements made in Annual Reports CCA filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A 2012 report noted that 40-43% of CCA’s revenue was derived from contracts with the federal government through operation of prisons and detention centers.

CCA also boasted that, as of December 10, 2010, the American Correctional Association (ACA), “an independent organization of corrections industry professionals that establishes standards by which a correctional facility may gain accreditation,” had accredited 85% of its facilities. “We believe that this percentage compares favorably to the percentage of ...

by Dan Christensen, Florida Bulldog, September 20, 2021

In a ruling that undermines an 81-year-old anti-corruption law prohibiting pay-to-play political contributions by federal contractors, an impotent Federal Election Commission in September 2021, disclosed that it allowed Boca Raton private prison contractor The GEO Group to get away with making hundreds of thousands of dollars of otherwise illegal contributions to Super PACs.

The Federal Election Campaign Act, passed in 1940, bars any person or firm negotiating or performing a federal contract from contributing “directly or indirectly” to any political party, committee, federal candidate or any person for any political purpose or use. The idea: to prevent undue influence in the awarding of taxpayer-funded contracts.

Super PACs, technically known as independent expenditure-only committees, are allowed to raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals. They can spend that money to overtly advocate for or against political candidates. They are not allowed to donate money directly to political candidates, and their spending cannot be coordinated with the candidates they benefit.

In 2016, Washington, D.C.’s Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC against Rebuilding America Now, the primary pro-Trump Super PAC founded that year by then-Trump campaign manager Paul ...

by Daniel A. Rosen

An Alabama judge recently ruled on a legal challenge seeking to block Governor Kay Ivey’s plan to lease three new privately-built mega-prisons in the state, siding with the Governor. Republican State Auditor Jim Ziegler and others had sued to block the leases, claiming they were an unconstitutional debt to the State that could only be approved by the Legislature.

The Governor’s plan calls for two 3,000-bed prisons built by and leased from CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) in Elmore and Escambia counties, which the state would then operate for 30 years. A third prison in Bibb County is still under negotiation. All three prisons would be owned by private companies but managed and staffed by Alabama’s state Department of Corrections (ADOC).

Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Greg Griffin dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims that the $3 billion debt violated state law. “Specifically, this Court finds that the Leases do not constitute a debt to the state, and therefore are not unconstitutional,” Judge Griffin ruled.

Ziegler sued first in his capacity as the State’s Auditor, but the Court dismissed that claim, ruling that his standing was superseded by the Attorney General, who filed a petition to dismiss. ...

by Dale Chappell

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a report and warning in March 2021 to GEO Group for misuse and abuse of a disinfectant at its ICE Processing Center in Adelanto, California. The report says that GEO was applying HQD Neutral in a manner that was in violation of federal law and cited numerous problems with the way GEO was using the toxic chemical to disinfect housing areas in the 2,000-bed facility to fight the spread of COVID-19.

More significantly, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the use of the disinfectant and also found the government and GEO’s response to COVID to be inadequate and unreasonable. In doing so, it reaffirmed its preliminary injunction ruling.

The announced inspection happened on July 29, 2020, at the Adelanto facility after more than 250,000 people signed a petition to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from misusing the chemical there. A congressman also pushed for a hearing on the matter, according to the EPA’s report. Inspectors held a “virtual inspection” which lasted 90 minutes.” When inspectors requested a full tour of the facility, GEO refused and said it was up to ICE officials. GEO managers at the facility also refused ...

by Douglas Ankney

On March 16, 2021, the Queens Daily Eagle reported that the federal government had declined to renew a contract with for-profit prison contractor GEO Group to operate the Queens Detention Facility (QDF). QDF was New York City’s last privately-operated jail.

GEO contracted with the U.S. Marshalls Service to detain cooperating witnesses, aka snitches, while awaiting trial or sentencing in the federal courts. QDF was one facility used by GEO to detain those persons.

But beginning in spring of 2020, reports of inadequate protocols to detect, treat, and prevent the spread of COVID-19 at QDF began circulating in the media, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), headed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, launched an investigation into conditions at QDF after learning of complaints that GEO failed to separate symptomatic detainees from the general population; failed to provide sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff and detainees; and failed to provide adequate medical care. At QDF the detainees sleep in bunk beds crowded into seven open dormitories - a condition highly conducive to the transmission of the coronavirus, “Everyone’s coughing [and] sneezing on top of each other,” a detainee reported on April 3, 2020. At that ...

by Matt Clarke

On May 28, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Corrections Corporation of America (now known as CoreCivic) was not entitled to summary judgment in a lawsuit over a pretrial detainee held for 355 days in solitary confinement without a court appearance or attorney. The court held that a reasonable jury could find that CoreCivic caused the prolonged detention by failing to notify the US Marshals of his circumstances and actively discouraging him from pursuing the matter. It also held that he had established triable issues for all of his claims.

The US Marshals Service (Marshals) arrested Rudy Rivera in Los Angeles, California on a federal warrant issued in Nevada for marijuana-related charges. They took him to the Nevada Southern Detention Center, a private prison operated by CoreCivic, which primarily holds detainees for the Marshals. Because he was a former gang member, Rivera was held in protective administrative segregation, virtually isolated from other prisoners and having direct contact only with CoreCivic staff.

According to court documents, during his detention, Rivera repeatedly told prison staff he had not been to court and did not have an attorney. They told him to “[j]ust ...