A private prison company must pay Mississippi $7.4 million for failing to staff enough to ensure the safety of inmates and prison staff, state Auditor Shad White said Monday.
White said the demand was among the largest civil demands in the history of his office, Management and Training Corp., a Utah-based private prison operator that manages two prisons in Mississippi — East Mississippi Correctional Facility in Meridian and Wilkinson County Correctional Facility in Woodville — and several other prisons in the United States.
About an hour after White’s announcement, MTC said in a press release that on Friday, it offered to pay White’s office $4.5 million, which represents “allegedly paid and reasonable interest and costs.” Instead of taking the money, White’s office “decided to issue a press release,” MTC’s own press release said.
In a statement, White’s spokesman Jacob Walters told Mississippi Today that the auditor’s office never received the proposal, which came after the company missed its initial deadline. He also said that this proposal would not stop the case.
“To be clear, their proposal was never sent to us, but if they wanted to cut a check today, we would immediately deposit it into the taxpayers’ bank account. Then we would ask the AG to sue them for the rest,” Walters said.
White began investigating the company five years ago after he raised allegations that it did not provide prison staff as required by its contract with the State Department’s Department of Corrections. In 2021, the company paid more than $5 million in restitution to Mississippi after White launched an investigation into staff shortages at Mississippi private prisons managed by the company. The auditor said that he is now demanding more money from the company and that he has requested the Attorney General’s office to take action in court.
“I don’t care how big a state-owned company you are or how many campaign donations you give to other politicians, if you pay taxpayers money because you failed to honor your contract with the government, we will demand that you pay it back,” White said in a news release. “There is no free ride behind the taxpayers.”
MTC spokeswoman Emily Lawhead directed the company to Mississippi Today in a press release issued in response to White’s announcement Monday, saying the company has offered to resolve its “dispute” with White, but her office has instead issued “unreasonable civil demands.”
“When questions were raised about staff reductions and vacancy reductions, MTC acted in good faith,” said MTC Vice President Michael Bell. “We conducted our own review and voluntarily paid over $5.9 million. That’s what an honest partner would do. It is deeply disappointing and fundamentally unfair to ignore our efforts to work with the Mississippi Department of Corrections to address the staffing challenges we both face in operating correctional facilities.
White, a Republican, did not single out any specific politicians in its news release, but the company has donated to Republican and Democratic elected officials in Mississippi.
A 2020 investigation published in partnership with The Clarion-Ledger, Mississippi Today and The Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting also found that MTC collected millions of dollars by routinely charging the Department of Corrections for vacant security positions the company was supposed to fill in Mississippi.
The lion’s share of the funds requested in White’s latest demand stem from fines White has levied against the company, according to a letter sent to the company and obtained by Mississippi Today. The invoices cited by White were submitted to the state Department of Corrections for the period from January 2017 to May 2020. The demand letter regarding the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility includes $3.1 million from the original fine, plus approximately $2.8 million in interest.
Other fines include running MTC or the Marshall County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, which was taken over by the state in 2021 due to staffing problems.
In its Monday press release, the MTC said the interest charges were mainly the result of “delays and recalculations” by the auditor’s office. It also attributed its staffing and recruitment problems to the challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
White said Mississippi law requires him to refer the enforcement demand to the AG because MTC failed to pay within 30 days.
“We are now referring this case to the AG’s office for enforcement to ensure accountability for the taxpayers, and I hope they will prosecute quickly,” White said.
After White rejected MTC’s $4.5 million offer on Friday, MTC “has no choice but to let this case proceed to trial,” it said Monday.
Mariasa Lee, a spokeswoman for Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, said the AG’s office first received the March demand letters Monday and is in the process of reviewing them.
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This story was originally published by Mississippi Today and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
