Prison union alleges inmate price gouging.
Rarely does a prison movie go by without the requisite scenes of gargantuan inmates, swollen from untold bench press reps, stomping around the jail yard shirtless and scowling.
***image1***The reality, at least at the Penitentiary of New Mexico in Santa Fe, is a bit more complicated.
SFR has learned that Sub-local 3422, the local chapter of the state prison guard union, has filed a complaint with Attorney General Patricia Madrid's office alleging that the New Mexico Corrections Department is overcharging inmates for vitamin supplements used by inmate weight lifters.
Further, the union says Corrections Secretary Joe Williams inappropriately hired a personal friend, local weight trainer Perry Barnes, to administer the vitamin program, allowing Barnes to make a profit off the inmates in the process.
"Not only are the inmates getting gouged in terms of the prices," Joe Kellenyi, Sub-local 3422 recording secretary, says, "the secretary also gave his friend what is essentially a no-bid contract."
According to Kellenyi, the union originally contacted Madrid's office this past summer after an inmate weight lifting club complained to guards that Barnes was charging them too much money for vitamin supplements. The inmate group, Power Demons Self Help Club, sells the vitamins at the Penitentiary commissary, and uses the profits to pay for funeral furloughs when an inmate's family member dies, bedside visits to sick relatives and local charities.
Before Barnes started working with Williams late last year, Power Demons told Kellenyi that they alone negotiated with the supplier, Universal Nutrition, and were able to garner a better deal. An Aug. 8 letter, obtained by SFR, and written to Williams from Power Demons, calls Barnes unprofessional, his prices extreme and says the vitamin purchasing worked better when the club was in charge.
The letter also says Power Demons has thus far paid Barnes nearly $4,500 for the vitamins, far in excess of what it paid Universal directly for the same products.
Subsequent documents drafted by Power Demons and given to SFR by Kellenyi, show the club is now paying Barnes an average of about $5.75 more per package of vitamins for the four different products it purchases.
Since filing the initial complaint, Kellenyi says he's been in contact with staff from Madrid's office but has received no definitive word of whether an actual investigation will take place.
AG spokesman Paul Nixon confirmed receipt of the complaint from the union but would neither confirm nor deny an investigation.
Williams, himself a former body builder, acknowledges being in contact with the Attorney General's Office but says there's no impropriety and that standardization of vitamin purchasing was a security concern because the piecemeal fashion by which inmates were previously buying vitamins was difficult to oversee.
"We had inmates at some facilities buying bags of one protein and inmates at another buying a different sort of supplement," Williams says. "Some of these vitamins the Federal Drug Administration were still looking at, and I didn't feel comfortable with that."
The New Mexico Corrections Department has a six-tier classification system based on the severity of crime committed. Only inmates classified as less dangerous-levels one though three-can lift weights. The more serious body builders within that lower risk population will buy multi-vitamins or protein supplements like creatine, William says.
According to Williams, since Barnes took over, the vitamin prices have largely gone down throughout the state prison system with the exception of the Penitentiary in Santa Fe.
Corrections spokeswoman Tia Bland says inmates at the Lea County Correctional Facility, for example, used to shell out $40 for a five-pound bag of "Ultra Whey" vitamins but now only pay $24. (Santa Fe inmates paid $19.45 before Barnes took over, she says.)
"We can understand why the inmates at Santa Fe might not want to pay more, but we had to look at the bigger picture," Bland says.
Williams says the arrangement with Barnes-whom he met at a mall kiosk where Barnes was selling his vitamin wares-is not illegal because "there's no taxpayer money involved."
State agencies must allow open bidding for contracts of less than $20,000 and a "Request For Proposal" process for contracts of more than $20,000, according to Alex Cuellar, public information officer for the New Mexico General Services Department, which oversees purchasing for the state. But because Barnes sells his goods directly to the inmates, the Corrections Department does not have to do either, Cuellar confirms.
Barnes also defends his involvement and says the vitamin purchasing standardization prevents contraband from entering the prisons because it's easier for the New Mexico Corrections Department to oversee a single system. He also says before he came on board, inmates were purchasing vitamins containing aspartame, a controversial artificial sweetener.
Though Barnes would not divulge how much money he's earned, he did tell SFR he typically sells protein vitamins for about half of the going market price-$46-and barely breaks even as a result.
"The allegations are false," he says. "The Power Demons are just mad because they were making money when they were the distributor. They're the price gougers."
Not so, according to Kellenyi, who's pressing the Attorney General's Office to conduct an audit of the Santa Fe Penitentiary commissary.
"To us, this has every appearance of a kickback," Kellenyi says. "We're hopeful the attorney general will look at this seriously."
