Convict 'gods' get sweet deal
Pataki has chance to put Attica to rest
MAN ASKED SON OF SAM TO BUMP OFF CON: COPS
Attica compensation task force stalled, say members
(New York) Cop Killer Uncaged
(New York) State to replace security at Capitol
State opens inquiry into prison services company
Prison officers have a beef with special inmate food
Fistfight leads to attempt at union recall vote
Unrest in prison guards' union includes fist fight, possible recall vote
Ultimatum issued to state employees
Arthur Kill Correction officer placed on administrative leave
One In Five State Workers To Retire By 2007; Study Finds Workforce Planning Efforts Inadequate
State projects $14B budget gap over next 2 years
Elmira prison escapee gets 15 more years
Ex-state corrections officer gets prison term for sodomizing boy

Back to the Titles

By MICHELE McPHEE
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF

One prisoner at Elmira Correctional Facility was stabbed in the neck when he quit the Five Percenters, a radical breakaway from the Nation of Islam that espouses black supremacy and believes its members are "gods." Another inmate at the state prison in Auburn was beaten when he refused to join a strike organized by the Five Percenters.

At Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, an inmate was slashed in what was described as a "power struggle" between mainstream Muslims and Five Percenters.

These and a dozen other entries accusing Five Percenters of threats, assaults and drug dealing are detailed in state prison files, a Daily News review shows.

"The Five Percenters are a gang, a gang responsible for violence at every prison in New York," said Richard Harcrow, president of the state correction officers union.

Yet in just a matter of days the Five Percenters will be granted extraordinary privileges denied every other prison gang.

Manhattan Federal Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled last month that the Five Percenters are part of a "way of life" or a religion, an arm of Islam called the Nation of Gods and Earths.

And by the end of this month, prison officials will be required to allow the group to have monthly "parliament" meetings, demand special meals and cafeteria times, observe their own holy days, and wear the group's symbol, a star known as the "universal flag of Islam."

The ruling was spawned by a lawsuit filed by a convicted killer and Five Percenter who legally changed his name to Intelligent Tarref Allah when he entered the prison system in 1995 - a year after he confessed to murdering a Brooklyn teen.

In February 1994, 18-year-old Paris Little was gunned down on an East New York street corner to prevent him from giving cops information about the murder of a 15-year-old boy. Intelligent Allah, who was then 19 and using his birth name Rashaad Marria, was arrested for the murder of Little after a high-speed chase and shootout with NYPD transit cops. He was convicted and sentenced to life.

Marria joined the Five Percenters - which draws its name from the belief that members are God's chosen 5% - but when he was denied the group's literature he enlisted the help of Manhattan white-shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell and sued.

"I see the black man as the God of the universe, it's empowered me to know the sky's the limit," Allah, 27, wrote in papers filed to the judge. "I don't have to be bothered no more because people respect intelligence, and once they see you living what you say, they respect that."

Buchwald, in her ruling, said not "all Five Percenters are gang members."

Last week, prison officials lambasted the judge, saying her decision will create a security threat in state prisons.

"This provides a rallying point for a resurgence of the Five Percenters. What this decision does is empower them. The judge is saying give this gang an official standing in prison," said Department of Correctional Services spokesman Jim Flateau. "The Bloods don't have it. The Aryan Brotherhood members don't have it. The Crips don't have it. The Latin Kings don't have it."

'Special treatment'

In fact, Luis Felipe, the founder of the Latin Kings, has said he organized the gang in 1986 because Hispanic prisoners were frequently assaulted by Five Percenters while he was imprisoned at Collins Correctional Facility in New York.

"The judge is saying give it to this gang - give them special treatment, give them rights not available to any other gang in the system," Flateau said.

Buchwald refused to comment on her decision, but in the ruling she cites a lack of evidence from the state correctional agency that the Five Percenters were engaged in threatening behavior or even that its numbers had swelled.

Flateau said the agency's attorneys were not allowed to present cases of violence.

G. Kalim, the editor of the Harlem-based Five Percenter newspaper, said the group promotes self-respect, not violence.

"I can understand them locking my brothers down when they find drugs or weapons in their cells, but they were locking my brothers down for having our universal flag emblem, lessons and the Five Percenter newspaper," Kalim said.

Of the contention by prison officials - and NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly - that Five Percenters are an organized gang, Kalim said: "It's a propaganda tactic."

Originally published on September 14, 2003

Back to the Titles

By MALCOLM BELL
First published: Saturday, September 13, 2003

Before the 9/11 attacks dwarfed other tragedies, the Attica prison riot of September 1971 was probably the most dismal event in the recent history of New York state. Inmates killed a prison guard and three inmates. State Police, along with some guards, shot and killed 10 hostages (guards and civilian employees) and 29 inmates, and wounded 89 others. Terrible as this event was, it should long since have been laid to rest. Back in 1976, Gov. Hugh Carey tried to close the book on Attica, but there was too much suppressed information and unfinished business. The book remains open even today. Gov. George Pataki must decide whether and how to close it.

In 2000, a lawsuit by inmates who claimed to have been wrongfully injured was finally settled for $12 million. This settlement galvanized the surviving hostages and their widows and families into organizing themselves as the Forgotten Victims of Attica and petitioning Governor Pataki for redress for the shameful way the state has treated them. State officials essentially abandoned them after the riot, refusing to tell them how the hostages came to be shot and maneuvering them out of any reasonable compensation for the losses they had suffered in state service.

New York owes them a large debt. This is true if one takes the view, consistent with the findings of two state commissions and several special prosecutors (of whom I was one), that the law officers were wanton, reckless and in some cases murderous with their gunfire. It is equally true if one agrees with Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who refused to go to the prison himself but sent in the troopers to retake it, that they did "a superb job." Either way, the state sacrificed the hostages as the price of getting its prison back.

But the state has not paid that price. The Forgotten Victims paid it. They have kept on paying for 32 years. So what should Governor Pataki do now? The Forgotten Victims have submitted a "five-point plan for justice" that seems reasonable and, under the circumstances, modest:

The right to conduct a memorial service at the prison each September. This is humane. It costs nothing. It admits nothing. The governor should let it happen.

Counseling for those who need it. The very fact that some Forgotten Victims and their children still need counseling speaks volumes about their sacrifice for the state and their betrayal by the state. The state should finally repair, so far as possible, the deep psychic wounds it has inflicted.

An apology. The state treated the Forgotten Victims miserably in 1971 and ever since -- until Governor Pataki appointed a task force in 2001 to consider their claims. One hopes that he is statesman enough to give them the apology they deserve.

Opening the records. Governor Carey sealed many records arising out of the riot. What one governor can seal, another can unseal. The public is entitled to official transparency at last about Attica. (If it is necessary to redact the names of suspects, so be it.) The Forgotten Victims are entitled to see autopsy reports and other records that show how their loved ones were shot -- even if no one can ever tell them why.

Restitution. Inmates who were serving time at Attica have been paid $8 million plus $4 million for their lawyers. The Forgotten Victims, who were serving the people and state of New York, have been paid next to nothing. As a result, they have suffered great material hardship, and actual poverty in some cases. New York may be strapped for money, but that does not relieve it of its obligation to repay the debt it owes to its own.

The Attica riot calls to mind two governors, Rockefeller and Carey. History judges both men harshly for what they did and failed to do. It is Pataki's fate to be the third Attica governor whom history will judge. He may be the exception. He did right to appoint the task force. As far as I know -- I testified before the task force and have otherwise kept abreast -- it has performed long and conscientiously. I don't know what it is recommending, but everyone knows that what Gov. Pataki does is up to him. He has the opportunity to close the book honorably, grant justice at last to these long-abused citizens and become the only fair and compassionate governor in the sorry history of the Attica riot -- if he chooses to.

Malcolm Bell is a former special assistant state attorney general and chief assistant in the New York State Attica Investigation. He is the author of "The Turkey Shoot: Tracking the Attica Cover-Up" (Grove Press, 1985).

Back to the Titles

September 11, 2003 -- A Queens man who scoured the prison system looking for an inmate to bump off the "rat" who told cops of a sexual-mutilation plan against his girlfriend's ex-husband even turned to the Son of Sam for help, authorities said yesterday.

David Berkowitz never returned a correspondence from David Quinn, 37, to help kill the inmate who got him arrested.

But Quinn did get a reply from an undercover state trooper, and was arrested after a sting operation in which he sent snacks and cigarettes in exchange for the hit.

Quinn was trying to avoid conviction for hatching a plot to cut off the penis of a man accused of molesting his own teen daughter over the course of several years, authorities said.

Quinn was arrested yesterday in Queens Supreme Court, where he had a scheduled appearance on the original conspiracy. He is now charged with conspiracy to commit first- and second-degree murder and faces up to 25 years in prison.

Quinn alleegdly reached out to more than 100 inmates with a newspaper article detailing the sexual-abuse charge against the father, whose name is being withheld by The Post to protect his daughter's identity.

Back to the Titles

Albany-- Panel has not met since last year

By ANDREW TILGHMAN, Staff writer
First published: Thursday, September 11, 2003

EVE Efforts to compensate family members of the 11 state workers killed in the 1971 Attica prison riots have stalled, according to some members of the 2-year-old group appointed to study the issue. "I am very disappointed that nothing is going on," said Arthur Eve, a former Democratic Assemblyman from Buffalo who is on the three-member task force appointed by Gov. George Pataki in 2001.

Pataki appointed the task force shortly after the state agreed to a $12 million settlement with the families of the 32 inmates killed on Sept. 13, 1971.

State Police stormed the prison yard and, on orders from then Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, fired into a crowd of about 1,300 inmates and about 39 prison workers they had taken captive.

In June last year, the task force held a series of public hearings, when witnesses detailed the state's effort to prevent future lawsuits by getting family members to unknowingly sign workers' compensation documents with liability waivers.

Since then, however, the task force led by Department of Correctional Services Commissioner Glenn Goord, has not met, said Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubrey, who was appointed to participate in the task force's study.

"The task for is sitting around waiting for the commissioner and governor to decide what the response is going to be," said Aubrey, a Democrat from Queens.

A Pataki spokeswoman said the governor was looking forward to receiving a final report from the task force.

The task force is still examining a range of legal issues raised by the testimony, DOCS spokesman Jim Flateau, said.

Acknowledging any wrongdoing on the part of the state or providing any money is a complex legal matter that could have repercussions for other state functions, Flateau said.

The group has no target date to release a report, Flateau said.

Sen. Dale Volker, a Republican from Wyoming County, did not return calls for comment. He represents the village of Attica, which is home to many of the 50 families that make up a group called the Forgotten Victims of Attica.

The family members are calling for a formal apology and reparations from the state, as well as access to all state records related to the uprising and the police response.

Back to the Titles

September 18, 2003 -- Infamous '60s radical Kathy Boudin, convicted in the 1981 Brinks heist that left two cops and a security guard dead in Rockland County, walked out of a Westchester prison a free woman yesterday - infuriating the victims' family, friends and colleagues. Boudin - who served 22 years for her role in the murders of Nyack Sgt. Edward O'Grady and Officer Waverly Brown, along with Brinks guard Peter Paige - was released from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility at 8:45 a.m.

Wearing a white shirt and black pants, and clutching dried roses given to her by fellow inmates after the death of her mom in 1993, Boudin, 60, turned around and waved goodbye to prison pals gathered at a window before hopping into an SUV and being driven away.

In a shocking decision, the former Weather Underground radical and fugitive - who was sentenced to 20 years to life after pleading guilty to felony murder and robbery - won parole last month, just three months after a different parole panel denied her bid.

O'Grady's widow, Diane, said that she's "devastated" by Boudin's release - and that she was furious when she heard about Boudin's long goodbye to fellow inmates.

"I'm upset and I'm angry. There's definitely been an injustice here," she told The Post yesterday in a telephone interview from her Florida home.

"I can't believe she got out, turned to the camera and waved to her friends in jail. The woman has no class."

She added that her "nightmares" have returned since Boudin was granted parole.

"I wake up sometimes at 2:30 a.m. thinking I'm talking to Ed and then I have to say, 'No you're not, Diane,' " she said.

"In the dreams, I'm seeing him gunned down. I'm thinking about his last words. This has really brought all the emotions back that I thought I had [already] dealt with."

A few cops, members of the Rockland County Police Benevolent Association, gathered outside the prison to voice their outrage over Boudin's release.

"There's no way she should have been paroled," fumed Rockland PBA President Brent Newbury. "It's outrageous that she's been freed. It makes me sick."

Boudin has taken a job working on programs for women with AIDS at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan.

Back to the Titles

Albany-- 61 unarmed screeners will take over from correction officers; move expected to save $4.6 million

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau
First published: Friday, September 19, 2003

Acheaper team of unarmed state security guards will take the jobs of gun-carrying correction officers who have been policing the Capitol since 9/11. The State Police is interviewing and doing background checks on people interested in filling 61 jobs as security screeners, officials confirmed.

The 61 screeners, who will be paid initial salaries of $23,000, rising to about $29,000 after seven years, will be hired by November, trained and placed at posts in January. They will work at the checkpoints at the Empire Plaza Concourse, in the Capitol and at the plaza parking garage, said Lt. Glenn Miner, a spokesman.

Although the screeners won't carry weapons, State Police will be nearby, he said.

Carl Canterbury, executive vice president of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, said he couldn't say whether people should be concerned about safety.

"You're looking at 24 armed officers being taken out of the Capitol," he said.

The move will save an estimated $4.6 million, said Ken Brown, a spokesman for the state Division of Budget. He said the state now spends $6.4 million a year to have correction department personnel work at the Capitol.

The new unit will replace correction officers who earn about $47,000 annually with 15 years of experience, said Canterbury, whose union represents 19,000 correctional officers statewide.

The correction staff also get hotel expenses and about $40 daily for every day they are pulled off of prison duty, he said.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, prison officers have worked 12-hour shifts about two days each week at the Capitol, checking IDs.

The prison officers will return to full-time prison work reluctantly.

"They've loved this detail," Canterbury said. Correctional work, he said, can be tedious, and the public never gets to see the security the officers provide.

He said State Police Col. Deborah Campbell informed the union of the change recently, explaining that "it comes down to cost savings."

Miner said the corrections officers have been doing an excellent job.

The new screeners, he said, will either already have state security guard training upon employment or will be trained by State Police.

The State Police received a waiver from Gov. George Pataki's 2-year-old hiring freeze to put the new positions on the payroll, Brown said.

Pataki has been trying to find ways to battle budget deficits, including a gap estimated at $6 billion next year.

Back to the Titles

Elections Board examines whether Correctional Services provided illegal in-kind help to lawmakers

ALBANY -- The state Board of Elections formally opened an investigation Wednesday into whether a Florida-based private prison company broke state law by providing unreported help to New York lawmakers. The company, Correctional Services Corporation, has already been fined $300,000 by the state Lobbying Commission and its activities are being reviewed by prosecutors in Albany and New York City.

Election board spokesman Lee Daghlian said the new investigation will focus on whether the company and lawmakers failed to report, as required, so-called in-kind contributions. At issue is whether the company, among other things, may have provided campaign "volunteers" to various lawmakers and transportation services to their campaigns without it being reported.

Daghlian said that if violations of state election law are found, the matter would be turned over to local district attorneys for possible criminal prosecution.

There was no immediate comment Wednesday from CSC.

CSC's activities came under scrutiny after veteran state Assemblywoman Gloria Davis, a Bronx Democrat, resigned her seat in January and pleaded guilty to bribery charges in connection with helping another company win a lucrative contract in her district. As part of a plea bargain, Davis admitted accepting free rides to and from Albany from CSC in return for helping the company with state contracts. She was sentenced to 90 days in jail as part of a plea deal.

From 1992-2000, CSC received $25.4 million from the state to provide halfway house services to the New York prison system. The state contracts were scrapped in 2001 after the Pataki administration said the services were no longer needed.

In February, the company was fined a record $300,000 by the state Lobbying Commission for, among other things, handing out expensive gifts to lawmakers.

In March, the state Board of Elections ordered CSC to obtain refunds from some New York lawmakers for over-contributions to campaigns. Under state law, corporations can give only $5,000 annually. Board records show the Sarasota, Fla.-based CSC gave at least $7,650 to New York campaigns in 2002.

Back to the Titles

Arthur Kill officers complain that prison life is long on perks and short on punishment
September 28, 2003
By AARON SMITH

Cool Hand Luke ate 50 hard-boiled eggs on a Hollywood prison dare. But it was a menu of burgers and fries that angered correction officers at the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility.

Officers at the state medium-security prison in Charleston were far from pleased when inmates were rewarded with two special meals on Sept. 5, and given extra time to eat the higher-quality grub, out of recognition for their work in preparing the prison for its accreditation inspection.

"This is the only prison in the state of New York to give special rewards because they washed and waxed the floor during the accreditation process," said John Schiavone, the Staten Island delegate for the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association.

"It's ridiculous. Instead of having a bologna sandwich, they cooked up special burgers and fries. Instead of giving them 10 minutes to eat the meal, they gave them 20 minutes."

The flap is a new twist on a persistent theme raised by some prison observers who complain New York penitentiaries are long on perks and short on punishment.

Michael Houston, spokesman for the state Department of Correctional Services, said the meals carried no extra cost to the state and were not that big a deal.

"This was a show of recognition for the workers at the Arthur Kill institution for work done in preparing the facility for accreditation," said Houston. "There were no extra privileges given out to the inmates. There were no extra state funds spent. They were given a little extra time for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and they were given a Sunday menu, which is a little more elaborate, but which is all state food, anyway. In the past, we would have given them pizza."

Schiavone, a correction officer at the Arthur Kill Road lock-up for more than 20 years, said all 900 inmates at the facility were rewarded, not just the ones who did the work. Besides, it was work they were paid to do, he said, at the typical prison wage of 65 cents an hour or less.

SAYS MEALS APPROPRIATE

Robert Gangi, executive officer for the Correctional Association of New York, a prison watchdog group, described the reward meals as modest and appropriate. "If the inmates make genuine contributions to helping with the accreditation process and contributing to the success, it seems appropriate to give them this kind of modest reward," said Gangi.

"I hope the administration also credited the work force, including the correction officers, who helped get the prison approved for accreditation."

But some union workers felt burned that the prisoners got benefits while they went unpraised. A union memo representing the 302 officers said, "While inmates were dining on special meals, officers weren't being recognized for the dangerous jobs they do on a daily basis."

Schiavone said officers had to make do with a slimmer-than-normal work force, because one officer had to leave his prison post and run around the city to other prisons, gathering the food necessary for the special meal.

"They didn't have enough food in the facility," said Schiavone. "They used a correction officer to go to other jails in the city to borrow food."

Schiavone said the doling of privileges could be manipulated by the inmates, who would expect to be rewarded again for the tasks that would typically be expected of them.

"Management did this because they want to keep the peace in the jail," said Schiavone. "It's the union's position that you don't keep the peace in the jail by bribing the inmates. Because when you start rewarding a whole group of inmates for something they should be doing anyway, you're losing control of the inmates."

Gangi said every prison has its own way in which inmates relate with the staff, with correction officers and inmates often harboring a "we against them mentality."

"Is it a culture of intimidation?" asked Gangi. "Is it a culture of communication? It works both ways."

CHANGING PRISON LIFE

As long-term inmates can probably attest, life at Arthur Kill, and prisons statewide, just isn't what it used to be. While they do receive free medical care, they no longer get free cable television or free college classes. And the swimming pool at Arthur Kill -- yes, the drug-treatment facility-turned-prison has a swimming pool -- hasn't been open in decades.

Gov. George Pataki put an end to college education within the prison system in 1995, according to Gangi (who had never heard of a New York prison with a swimming pool.) "The governor appealed to the lunch box vote -- the guy who complained that inmates had college education while he was working two jobs to put his children through school," Gangi said.

Schiavone agrees with Pataki. He said free higher education for inmates was "stopped, rightfully so. Like correction officers and civilians throughout the country, they have to pay for education."

The pool was shut down due to an increase in communicable diseases, said Schiavone, while cable TV was ended because of changes in the way it was broadcast and paid for. Now, prisoners pay out of their own pockets to rent movies from Blockbuster Video (which does not offer pornography) for the group viewing of such films as "Cool Hand Luke."

"It's kind of hysterical for a bunch of prisoners doing jail time to watch a movie like 'Cool Hand Luke,'" said Schiavone. He added, "For an inmate to watch a video at night is good. When an inmate is occupied, there is less chance of any violence taking place."

This is why Schiavone is distressed at the gradual, statewide slide in various inmate programs, though the state still maintains a strong GED program.

More than half of all incoming inmates lack a high school diploma, but GEDs earned by inmates increased 14 percent between 1995 and 1999, according to the Correctional Association. However, fewer job-training programs are available. According to the Correctional Association, the state cut more than 1,200 program service positions between 1991 and 1998, as the state prison population grew from 56,000 to more than 70,000.

"If you want to keep the inmates quiet, you need to have more programs," said Schiavone, noting that Arthur Kill has a successful program where inmates refurbish school chairs. "The more programs, the safer the place is, because the inmates are less idle."

Schiavone said vocational training programs had another valuable advantage: They keep prisoners from coming back.

"When an inmate goes to jail, there should be some kind of program that allows the inmate to come out of the jail and make themselves useful to society," Schiavone said.

"Without the programs, the inmates are going to go through there like a revolving door. The rate of inmates coming back into the system is ridiculous."

Back to the Titles

President, vice president of prison guard group face challenge
By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press
First published: Wednesday, October 1, 2003

ALBANY -- A fistfight that broke out between high-ranking officials of the union representing state prison guards is leading to an attempted recall vote of the union's top two elected officers, according to union stewards.

The battle of factions within the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association erupted two weeks ago at a union meeting in Albany. Stewards said Executive Vice President Carl Canterbury and regional Vice President Paul Mikolajczyk fought across the meeting table. Soon, union President Richard Harcrow was involved. Factions supporting Harcrow said he was trying to break up the fight among vice presidents, while supporters of Mikolajczyk claimed Harcrow joined the fight against Mikolajczyk.

"When the fight first started, he came in. ... He helped break it up," said steward Robert Centori.

No serious injuries were reported by stewards, some of whom said they helped break up the brief fistfight. An Oct. 22 union meeting in Albany is scheduled to include a recall vote that could determine the future of Harcrow and Canterbury, the stewards said. Some question whether the bylaws allow a recall election.

If the vote comes off, it will be the latest and loudest conflict among several factions within a union marked by turbulence. Some members support Harcrow, others favor Mikolajczyk, and a third group remains loyal to the previous union, Council 82, which lost the bargaining unit in a bitter 1999 battle, said steward Ed Lattin, the union's former chief executive steward.

"There's just different faction groups with their own agendas, and it's really hurting the entire membership," Lattin said Tuesday. "I felt Rick (Harcrow) was doing what his job was supposed to do, to bring us into the 21st century."

Mikolajczyk, citing union bylaws, refused to comment on the fight or the upcoming meeting. Harcrow and Canterbury did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Back to the Titles

By MICHAEL GORMLEY
Associated Press Writer

September 30, 2003, 5:53 PM EDT

ALBANY, N.Y. -- A fist fight that broke out between high-ranking officials of the union representing state prison guards is leading to an attempted recall vote of the union's top two elected officers, according to union stewards.

The battle of factions within the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association erupted two weeks ago at a union meeting in Albany. Stewards said Executive Vice President Carl Canterbury and regional Vice President Paul Mikolajczyk fought across the meeting table. Soon, union President Richard Harcrow was involved. Factions supporting Harcrow said he was trying to break up the fight among vice presidents, while supporters of Mikolajczyk claimed Harcrow joined the fight against Mikolajczyk.

"When the fight first started, he came in ... he helped break it up," said steward Robert Centori.

No serious injuries were reported by stewards, some of whom said they helped break up the brief fist fight.

The Oct. 22 union meeting in Albany is scheduled to include a recall vote that could determine the future of Harcrow and Canterbury, the stewards said. Some in the union question whether the bylaws allow a recall election.

If the vote comes off, it will be the latest and loudest conflict among several factions within a union marked by turbulence. Some members support Harcrow, others favor Mikolajczyk, and a third group remains loyal to the previous union, Council 82, that lost the bargaining unit in a bitter 1999 battle, said steward Ed Lattin, the union's former chief executive steward.

"There's just different faction groups with their own agendas and it's really hurting the entire membership," Lattin said Tuesday. "I felt Rick (Harcrow) was doing what his job was supposed to do, to bring us into the 21st century."

Mikolajczyk, citing union bylaws, refused to comment on the fight or the upcoming meeting. Asked if he was denying the fight happened, he said: "Absolutely not." He said the conflict was "a difference of opinions ... union leaders were doing what they felt is best for the members."

Harcrow and Canterbury did not respond to repeated requests for comment placed last week and this week.

"The internal affairs of the union remain internal," said Tom Butler of Butler Associates of New York City, the union's public relations firm. "Suffice to say, there are differences of opinion amongst union leaders who promised more accountability, fiscal responsibility and promotion of correction officer issues and the problems and hazards they face. President Harcrow is confident that any issues will be favorably worked out."

"They're trying to recall Rick (Harcrow) and Carl (Canterbury)," said Steward Jose Rivera, a Harcrow supporter who attended last week's closed-door meeting in which the recall was scheduled. "The executive board is pretty much overstepping its bounds."

He and other stewards said the leaders are battling over what some consider the exorbitant costs to hire its politically powerful law firm and an insurance carrier and over the expense accounts of Mikolajczyk and Harcrow.

"There's always an opposition group and right now they are trying a backdoor way of getting them out and getting their old regime in," said Clarence Chatman, a chief steward and Harcrow supporter.

In July 2002, Harcrow was elected president of NYSCOPBA pledging to end what he called a "civil war" at the 23,000-member union. That vote resulted in the replacement of seven of NYSCOPBA's 10 board members.

Since the union was created, it has withstood two efforts by insurgents to decertify the independent union amid claims that NYSCOPBA ignored grievances and lacked clout with Albany.

NYSCOPBA won the right to bargain with the state after usurping the 30-year-old Council 82 local of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Back to the Titles

Albany – The Pataki Administration told state workers they can forget about raises unless they start paying more toward health benefits, according to a union memo sent to workers this week.

The alleged ultimatum came during negotiations Wednesday between the state and the Public Employees Federation.

"The state's chief negotiator drew a line in the sandØ…Øand told PEF that there would be no negotiations on any issues (theirs or ours) until such time as PEF agreed to the state's health insurance concessions," the memo stated.

A plan to make state workers pay more for their health insurance was in Pataki's budget proposal early this year. It called for employees to increase their share of insurance premiums from 10 percent to 15 percent for individual plans, and from 25 percent to 30 percent for family plans.

State Division of the Budget spokesman Andrew Rush said the proposal would have saved the state $100 million a year.

Many governments and corporations, citing rising healthcare costs, have been asking employees to contribute more toward insurance premiums recently.

Pataki's proposal was rejected in the final budget passed by the Legislature, but health insurance premium costs are subject to contract negotiations between the state and unions.

"They [state negotiators] certainly did talk about health insurance, and the state has given us to understand they expect to see concessions in this area," said Steve Madarasz, spokesman for the Civil Service Employees' Association, which represents about 77,000 of the 185,000 state workers.

But, he said, it hadn't been portrayed as all or nothing to them.

"If there's no carrot, they are only hitting you with a stick. Ultimately, you have to have a two-way street," he said.

Representatives from all the state's major unions said they expect members to receive pay raises for this year. Contracts between the state and its unions expired March 31.

The PEF memo went on to accuse the state of refusing to negotiate.

Michelle McDonald, spokeswoman for the Governor's Office of Employee Relations, citing the confidentiality of the negotiation process, said, "We don't comment on what is clearly an opinion in PEF's attempt to negotiate in the press. We are proceeding to negotiate in good faith as we are obligated to do under the law."

PEF represents about 52,000 state employees, including engineers and health professionals

Back to the Titles

Officer brought psychotropic drugs outside the Charleston prison to show them to a state legislator

November 01, 2003
By CHAN-JOO MOON
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER

A correction officer from the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility was placed on administrative leave yesterday for bringing psychotropic drugs outside the Charleston prison to show them to a state legislator for a press conference.

Officer John Schiavone, union president for Arthur Kill, has been locked out of the prison effective yesterday and must stay at home during his work hours in case the state Correction Department calls him, said spokesman James Flateau.

Schiavone went to Albany yesterday to answer questions regarding the incident. He will be on paid leave until the end of the investigation, according to Flateau.

Schiavone was among union officials who displayed the pills to Assemblyman Michael Cusick (D-Mid-Island), to show how medication that was costing about $1,840 a day in taxpayer money was being wasted because prisoners were discarding it.

Cusick said he was upset because of what happened.

"It's unfortunate they would look to punish someone who brought to light a problem of wasted taxpayer money," he said. "Rather than look to fix the problem they would rather punish somebody."

Cusick said he would work to keep Schiavone from losing his job.

It was illegal to bring the pills outside the building, even if the participants did not leave the grounds of the prison, Flateau said.

Schiavone is not protected under the whistleblower law, Flateau said, because the law protects speech, not the action of bringing out a bag of pills.

"Let's say, for example, he went out and told the assemblyman," he said. "That's not a problem. We cannot allow prison employees to decide on their own the reason why they are going to smuggle things in or out of prison."

The pills remain state property even if they had been discarded by inmates, Flateau said. Union officials had said they found them on the prison campus.

Union officials first brought up the issue of wasted medication to prison officials, but were told to "look the other way," according to Richard Harcrow, president of the New York State Correction Officer and Police Benevolent Association.

The situation of discarded pills is well-known but cannot be helped, Flateau said. The state cannot force inmates to ingest the pills, but is required to provide them when a physician prescribes medication, Flateau said.

Cusick said he is in the process of researching legislation to require inmates to take medication under supervision in a specific area and dispensing medication in a liquid form to make it more difficult for inmates to fake an ingestion.

Another option could be support for an existing Senate bill that would require inmates to make a co-payment for any medication.

"They key is to remedy this problem of wasting taxpayer money," Cusick said.

Back to the Titles

October 29, 2003

Forty-five thousand state workers – about one-fifth of all state workers -- are likely to retire during the next four years and the state has not adequately planned for the loss of these employees, according to a study released today by State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi.

“Tens of thousands of state workers will be retiring in a relatively short period. This could leave some agencies struggling to provide vital services, and some units and programs within those agencies decimated by the loss of experienced employees. ” Hevesi said. “I am deeply concerned that the state does not appear to be preparing effectively for this dramatic change in the workforce, and I am disappointed that state officials strongly resisted our attempts to look at the issue.”

Based on an analysis of the state Employees Retirement System, which is administered by the Office of the State Comptroller, auditors determined that 12 agencies are expected to have 20 percent or more of their employees retire by 2007. The agencies include the Department of Labor, expected to lose 38 percent of its workforce; State Education Department (SED), 35 percent; Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, 35 percent; Office of Mental Health, 32 percent; and Department of Health, 30 percent.

Auditors found that New York has followed a decentralized approach to workforce planning, with agencies managing their own efforts with some support from the Department of Civil Service and the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations (GOER). Auditors noted that Civil Service and GOER do not set performance goals or monitor agency progress on workforce issues.

Auditors attempted to discuss workforce planning issues with appropriate officials at 14 agencies. However, despite the state’s decentralized approach, auditors reported that GOER kept them from meeting with officials at all but two agencies by instructing the agencies to direct all inquiries regarding workforce planning to GOER.

Auditors did meet with officials from SED and the Department of Correctional Services (DOCS). SED has taken steps to address key issues relating to workforce planning, auditors found. The agency has identified mission-critical positions and is developing a range of programs to maintain staff levels for those positions.

Auditors reported that DOCS has identified key workforce planning issues and strategies to address them. However, most of these strategies require legislative changes, budget increases, changes in collective bargaining agreements or reclassification of civil service titles, and, as a result, have not been implemented.

The study looked at workforce planning efforts in other states and at the federal level, noting that the federal approach is more centralized and includes standards and performance measurements. Auditors concluded that New York’s efforts are comparable with other states, but that the state should consider incorporating aspects of the Federal approach into its workforce planning efforts.

Officials from the Department of Civil Service said they would further analyze the issues contained in the report.

“The baby boomer generation is starting to reach retirement age, and we have to plan for these changes in our workforce,” Hevesi said. “The loss of thousands of retiring employees has potentially huge implications for the delivery of many important state services, and this issue is simply too important for the state to leave to individual agencies.”

Back to the Titles

Albany-- Pataki official warns aggressive belt-tightening needed

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau
First published: Wednesday, October 29, 2003

State budget experts expect a $14 billion budget gap during the next two years and warn of a fierce and protracted war on spending.

"While the current fiscal year is balanced, the magnitude of future budget gaps requires timely and aggressive measures to restore structural balance," said Budget Director Carole Stone in the Division of the Budget's midyear report.

Released Tuesday, the report is a key barometer of how close the state is operating according to its financial plan. It shows the state's spending and revenues are about $30 million above that plan, or essentially on target.

Stone warns that Gov. George Pataki will continue a cost-cutting program that includes a hiring freeze and ban on discretionary travel. Spending this year, which Stone pegs at just under $98 billion (about $5 billion above the Legislature's figure), is in balance because of $645 million in increased, one-time, federal aid.

But next year may see a budget gap of $5 billion to $6 billion, the report said, growing to $8 billion the following year.

The Budget division warned some of the initiatives adopted by the Legislature to raise cash will be short. A temporary personal income tax increase lawmakers expected would bring in $1.68 billion this year will likely net $1.4 billion, while video lottery terminals at horse tracks and tax collections at Indian retail stores is "speculative revenue," the report said.

It also noted contracts with labor unions have expired and that each 1 percentage point of raises would cost the state $80 million. It did not calculate the cost of a court decision that could force the state to increase aid to public schools.

Diana Fortuna, executive director of the Citizens Budget Commission, said the state has run out of easy ways to close the budget gaps, and more complex issues -- reining in soaring Medicaid costs, cutting spending and labor negotiations -- lie ahead.

"This is going to be a tough year," she said. "The remaining choices are more difficult politically."

Back to the Titles

G. JEFFREY AARON
Star-Gazette

Timothy G. Morgan, who escaped from the Elmira Correctional Facility in July with his cellmate, received an additional 15 years behind bars Friday for his brief brush with freedom.

Morgan, 26, is already serving 25 years to life for the 1998 murder and robbery of a cab driver in Gloversville, N.Y. He would have been eligible for parole in 2023, but now won't be eligible until 2038.

Morgan stood silently Friday morning in Chemung County Court as Judge James Hayden read the escape-related charges Morgan admitted to in September -- first-degree escape, second-degree burglary, third-degree trespassing and fourth-degree grand larceny.

Morgan received 15 years for the burglary charge, 3½ to seven years for the escape, two to four years for the grand larceny charge and 90 days for the trespass charge. The new sentences will all run at the same time, but won't start until Morgan finishes the sentence he is already serving.

The escape prompted a tense two-day search that involved about 150 law enforcement personnel. Morgan's burglary charge stems from entering a private home to get food and supplies while he was on the run. Morgan did not address the court Friday, and that did not surprise his attorney, Chemung County Public Defender Paul Corradini.

"(Making any pre-sentence statements) wouldn't have hurt him or helped him," said Corradini. "The deal was pre-arranged and he wanted to start his time. He was being very realistic about it."

Early July 7, Morgan and Timothy Vail escaped from the maximum-security prison by climbing through a hole in the ceiling of their cell, gaining access to the roof and reaching the ground on a rope made of bedsheets. Both men were captured the evening of July 8 on Gardner Road in Horseheads after they stole a van from the P&C Foods parking lot on Lake Road.

Vail, of Broome County, was serving a 49-years-to-life sentence for the rape and murder of a pregnant law office secretary in 1988 in Binghamton.

He now faces charges of criminal trespass, fourth-degree grand larceny and first-degree escape. His case is still in the discovery stage, said his attorney, David Rynders said.

Vail hasn't entered a plea and doesn't have a scheduled date for his next court appearance, Assistant District Attorney John Thweatt said.

Back to the Titles

Warsaw ­ A former state corrections officer was sentenced go state prison Thursday for sodomizing a boy in 1997.

Brian L. Robb, 42 was sentenced in Wyoming County Court to two consecutive terms totaling 4 2/3 to 14 years in prison. He was additionally sentenced to a third concurrent term of 2 ½ to seven years.

Robb was convicted of three counts of sodomy Aug. 21 for sodomizing a 12-year-old boy.

He was formerly employed at Groveland Correctional Facility.

Robb’s victim wrote a letter which an aunt read before sentencing. The victime said Robb’s actions had “a far-reaching” impact on his life. He said Robb had worked hard to gain his trust before abusing him, including supplying alcohol, cigarettes, pornography, driving recklessly, and “acting like a kid.”

“He did everything he did to make me think he was cool,” the victim wrote.

The victim wrote he has since experienced severe problems, including impaired grades, assaulting schoolmates who taunted him, anger, guilt, and a time when he had “a daily contemplation of suicide” where he would spend hours planning the act.

“Emotional intimacy became impossible for me,” the victim wrote.

After years of therapy, the victim said he can now talk about the experience without losing control, but still deals with nightmares and other effects. He said he will be in trauma therapy indefinitely.

“I don’t know if I will be able to truly trust another person again,” he wrote, asking for the maximum sentence.

The victim’s aunt gave a statement of her own after a brief recess. She said she hopes Robb will take steps to address his sickness. She said he has a choice, and can put his energy into hate, revenge and destruction, or to try to make amends.

The victim’s aunt said she will never understand how Robb could look into his victim’s eyes and steal his innocence over and over.

First Assistant District Attorney Donald O’Geen asked for the maximum sentence, citing Robb’s “constant denial” of the abuse. He said Robb must come to terms with the fact he’s a pedophile, and his sentence should be handled more harshly because he was a law enforcement officer.

He said Robb has breached both the public trust and the victim’s family’s trust. He said the conviction is the result of years of abuse of the victim, who had the courage to testify despite experience that’s been brutal on him.

Robb’s attorney Anthony Lana of Buffalo noted several points before sentencing. He said the last allegation against Robb occurred in 1997, and he’s had no inappropriate contact with the victim or family, or other run-ins since that time.

Lana said there is no sentence the court could give Robb that would erase or take back his actions. He said the reality is Robb’s wife and children are victims, to, and will suffer as a result. He asked they be considered in the sentencing.

He asked Robb’s sentence be issued in accordance of his history which lacked prior convictions, and the lack of wrongdoing allegations since 1997. He said length of incarceration becomes secondary to the fact Robb will be incarcerated.

Lana said after the sentencing he will file for a stay of sentencing pending the outcome of the appeal. He said there was a pre-trial issue where the victim was allowed to testify about uncharged crimes which occurred, and which he argued had a prejudicial effect on the jury.

The victim and family members spoke briefly outside the courtroom once the sentencing was finished. He aunt said Robb doesn’t admit he’s a pedophile and alleged there are other unreported victims that couldn’t be charged due to a statute of limitations.

“Pain and suffering doesn’t run out after a certain number of years,” she said.

The victim said he feels safer now but wished all three sentences were consecutive.

“I do feel better that he’s sentenced, but nothing could ever fix this,” the victim said. “I’m going to have to deal with this forever.”

ACOAP * All States DOCS * Facility Addresses * Forgotten Cop
* Gang Pages * History Pages * Index * In Memory
* My Links * NY Online Newspapers * News Articles * Site Map
* Spanish in the Correctional Settings Want a Web Page?