On March 14, 2008, a front-page headline in The Tennessean stated, "Ex-CCA official: Puryear misled clients." The story, written by Gethan Ward, contained allegations by a former, disgruntled CCA employee. This former employee, who did not even directly report to CCA's General Counsel, alleged that CCA's General Counsel was somehow "re-labeling" incidents in an effort to prevent government customers from learning of murders, suicides, riots, escsapes and other major incidents at CCA facilities.

Setting aside the absurdity of the assertion that CCA – or any other prison system -- could somehow "hide" such events, CCA also flatly denied the allegation immediately. See Gethan Ward, "Ex-CCA official: Puryear misled clients," The Tennessean, March 14, 2008 at A1. In addition to CCA's own denial, an official from the Tennessee Department of Corrections was quoted as saying, "We feel pretty sure that we're finding out about incidents as they happen."

These allegations were made public by former inmate and violent felon Alex Friedmann (for more about Friedmann, click here), whom The Tennessean quoted in the article.

CCA immediately sent a letter denying the allegations in the story to its customers. The text of this letter was also furnished to the Securities & Exchange Commission by CCA. J. Michael Quinlan, CCA's Senior Vice President who ran the Quality Assurance Department, also promptly sent a letter to the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee denying the report. Mr. Quinlan, the former Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and a nationally-recognized leader in corrections, noted:

The charges made by Mr. Friedmann and Mr. Jones are false, vindictive and politically motivated, and, by relying almost exclusively on their accounts, the Time.com and Tennessean articles are profoundly misleading.

[T]he Time.com article and the Jones letter indicate that "zero tolerance" events, such as major disturbances or escapes, were re-labeled and "misrepresented" in reports to "CCA's government clients" and "Wall Street analysts.'" This is false. CCA defined "zero tolerance" events as part of its internal reporting function to emphasize management's desire to eliminate all such events. CCA does not report to its customers or to Wall Street analysts using these definitions. Instead, most of CCA's customers employ on-site monitors whose offices within the confines of CCA's facilities. These monitors learn about incidents first hand, or are informed of them by facility staff, in real time and report them up through their organizational command as they occur.

Letter to Leahy & Specter - Quinlan Response to QA Allegations

Despite these repeated, public denials by the CCA official managing Quality Assurance, The Tennessean never corrected its coverage nor reported on these repeated, public, and detailed denials. It assailed CCA's reputation (and that of its General Counsel) with its front-page headline, and then walked away.

The Tennessean's coverage did help prompt a state representative in Tennessee to raise questions about the validity of those allegations and whether the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) was learning of all such incidents. Mr. Quinlan again responded with a detailed refutation of the allegations. Among other things, he noted:

The allegations that CCA mischaracterizes or fails to report incidents to its customers are in fact completely false, and I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight. CCA provides TDOC – and all of its customers – with reports of all incidents. That information is transmitted directly by CCA's facility operations personnel to TDOC and complements TDOC's own reports from its own on-site monitoring personnel who work in CCA's facilities every day.

That information does not flow from CCA's Quality Assurance Department to TDOC. Instead, it is transmitted directly by facility personnel to TDOC. It is likely for this reason that neither the TIME.com nor the Tennessean article identifies a single incident occurring at a CCA facility that was collected by the Quality Assurance Department but that was not disclosed to the relevant customer agency. Moreover, I am sure that you agree with me that the very idea that CCA could hide murders, suicides, escapes and riots from our customers is absurd.

Let me conclude by reiterating to you that the allegation that CCA is using my Quality Assurance Department to hide facility events from TDOC or any other customer is flatly false. I am willing to stake by 37 years as a recognized leader in the corrections community on this assertion.

The letter is rich in additional detail and provides further background about the purported "whistleblower" who supplied the false information that was contained in those articles, the terms of his departure from CCA, and the highly limilted role he held within CCA's Quality Assurance Department (with three intermediate managers between CCA's General Counsel and him). The letter also attaches Mr. Quinlan's original denial of the story in a letter to customers, and notes that the actions of CCA's General Counsel actually led to increased internal reporting of significant events.

Response From Quinlan to Turner

Furthermore, Sheriff Daron Hall, to whom CCA reports in the management of the CCA-Metro Davidson Detention Center, also wrote the state representative and noted: "I can assure you that per the contract, we are monitoring the daily operations and contractual obligations at the CCA facility. We are privy to all information (other than salaries) at the facility and feel it is being managed effectively."

Response Letter From Hall to Turner

In summary, CCA has denied the allegation made by the former employee directly to The Tennessean; CCA has denied it to its customers; and CCA has denied it in official communications to government officials (including in a letter furnished to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission). Officials with the State of Tennessee and Metro government have also denied the charge based on their daily knowledge of CCA's operations. Last, CCA's CEO, John Ferguson, discussed the charge and explained the outrageous nature of it to Mark Silverman, editor of The Tennessean, as well as other editors.

An Ethical Newsroom?

Nevertheless, in at least two articles (one on the front page) since Mr. Ferguson's meeting with Mr. Silverman and other editors, The Tennessean continues to repeat the accusations – without even qualifying the repetition of the charges with the notation that CCA and its customers deny the charges. E.g., Kate Howard, "Prison operator CCA must open records, judge rules," The Tennessean, July 30, 2008 at A1 ("CCA has been hammered in recent months by allegations of underplaying serious incidents ….") (emphasis added); Claudia Pinto, "Watchdog says clinic tossed records in trash," The Tennesseean, July 9, 2008 at B1 ("Puryear has been accused by a former CCA employee of overseeing a practice that produced misleading reports about safety incidents at the company's prisons.") (emphasis added).

Mere "allegations" or "accusations" of a former employee are either true or they are not. By now, even the editors of The Tennessean must recognize the charges were false. With no substantiation or corroboration to support the allegations, and in the face of overwhelming denials from CCA with support from CCA's government customers, the continued repetition of these allegations serves no purpose but to defame CCA and its General Counsel. The "Principles of Ethical Conduct for Newsrooms," developed by the owner of The Tennessean, notes that its papers should: "be honest in the way we … report … news"; "include all sides relevant to a story"; "observe common standards of decency"; and "always try to do the right thing."

Is the repetition of uncorroborated and untrue "allegations" of a disgruntled former employee promoted by a convicted violent felon with an admitted political agenda consistent with these standards?

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