Update: Wyatt board could fire prison manager Monday
4:00 PM Fri, Apr 17, 2009 | Permalink
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CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. -- The board that oversees the troubled Wyatt Detention Facility has set a Monday evening meeting to see if it will dismiss Avcorr Management LLC, the company that has been managing the for-profit prison. Central Falls Detention Facility board had voted April 8 to give Avcorr 10 days to persuade the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to resume sending illegal immigrant detainees to the 642-bed facility or be fired. The loss of the ICE business -- the agency paid Wyatt about $100 a day per prisoner -- is costing the prison approximately $100,000 a week. Board Chairman Daniel F. Cooney said the panel wants to hear from Avcorr and its executive director Anthony Ventetuolo about how they plan to staunch the financial bleeding at the facility. He declined to predict what the board would do at the meeting, but said that if there is no adequate plan, Avcorr and Ventetuolo may have to go. "Everything's on the table at this point," he said. Ventetuolo's lawyer, Joseph McGair, said it was the board that was causing the problems. He said Ventetuolo has been willing to work with board members, but they have ignored his advice and bypassed him, working directly with prison staff. "One time he said he wanted to talk to them, and they told him to sit down," McGair said. McGair said the board's dismissal plan is an attempt to stymie a breach-of-contract suit Ventetuolo has warned the board he may file. "They have refused, absolutely refused, to use the services of Avcorr at all," McGair said. Besides "matters concerning the notice of default to Avcorr Management LLC," the board's agenda includes items to authorize prison warden Wayne Salisbury and Chief Financial Officer Tammy Novo to take over aspects of Avcorr's duties should the firm be dismissed. Prison management has been reeling since last summer, when a Chinese national in custody at the prison died of liver cancer and a fractured spine that went undiagnosed until days before his death. The family of the man, Hiu Lui "Jason" Ng, has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court, and the U. S. Justice Department has begun a criminal investigation into how Wyatt corrections officers and nursing staff handled Ng's case. It was Ng's death that led the ICE to remove federal immigration prisoners from the jail. 
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