In our story this week about how two Texas lawmakers have financial ties to the GEO Group, we tried to call the private prison company's spokesperson Pablo Paez, particularly because we detailed the firm's many troubles, including inmates' deaths, riots and dangerous, filthy conditions. We never heard from him.
We don't take it personally, though. Paez is apparently a man of few words.
In 2007, the Associated Press reported about the suicide of an Idaho man who was doing a stint in a GEO Group prison in Dickens County, Texas. Idaho had been sending its prisoners here to ease overcrowding in their own facilities. An Idaho corrections official referred to the particular GEO Group prison as "the worst facility he had ever seen," and that it was beyond repair.
Paez declined to defend his company.
Within days, Idaho moved its prisoners out of Dickens County.
GEO Group silent for Texas Watchdog report on lawmakers' ties
Wed Apr 29 14:47:14 2009 CST |
By Matt Pulle
Comments
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Whistleblower
Thursday, 04/30/2009 - 11:17
GEO Group has long been associated with corruption. Whether it's buying off executive branch officials (Google "Nolin Renfrow" and prisons) or, with CCA overcharging the state of Florida for millions, they're down there at the bottom.
Idaho bailed out of Dickens County but then went to the GEO pen in Littlefield, which was equally as bad. They yanked their prisoners from there, and put them in a CCA prison in Oklahoma, which had its own vast problems.
It's failure to pay legal compensation to employees wound up with a $10 million wages and hours judgment in California. Its neglect of prisoners caused them a $42 million dollar adverse judgment in Laredo, sustained by the court of appeals recently.
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