Why My Jailed Pharmacist Probably Regrets Not Living In Cal.

[Donald Isler]

The New York Times
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: April 29, 2007
SANTA ANA, Calif., April 25 — Anyone convicted of a crime knows a debt to society often must be paid in jail. But a slice of Californians willing to supplement that debt with cash (no personal checks, please) are finding that the time can be almost bearable.

For offenders whose crimes are usually relatively minor (carjackers should not bother) and whose bank accounts remain lofty, a dozen or so city jails across the state offer pay-to-stay upgrades. Theirs are a clean, quiet, if not exactly recherché alternative to the standard county jails, where the walls are bars, the fellow inmates are hardened and privileges are few.

Many of the self-pay jails operate like secret velvet-roped nightclubs of the corrections world. You have to be in the know to even apply for entry, and even if the court approves your sentence there, jail administrators can operate like bouncers, rejecting anyone they wish.

“I am aware that this is considered to be a five-star Hilton,” said Nicole Brockett, 22, who was recently booked into one of the jails, here in Orange County about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles, and paid $82 a day to complete a 21-day sentence for a drunken driving conviction.

Ms. Brockett, who in her oversize orange T-shirt and flip-flops looked more like a contestant on “The Real World” than an inmate, shopped around for the best accommodations, travelocity.com-style.

“It’s clean here,” she said, perched in a jail day room on the sort of couch found in a hospital emergency room. “It’s safe and everyone here is really nice. I haven’t had a problem with any of the other girls. They give me shampoo.”

For roughly $75 to $127 a day, these convicts — who are known in the self-pay parlance as “clients” — get a small cell behind a regular door, distance of some amplitude from violent offenders and, in some cases, the right to bring an iPod or computer on which to compose a novel, or perhaps a song.

Many of the overnighters are granted work furlough, enabling them to do most of their time on the job, returning to the jail simply to go to bed (often following a strip search, which granted is not so five-star).

The clients usually share a cell, but otherwise mix little with the ordinary nonpaying inmates, who tend to be people arrested and awaiting arraignment, or federal prisoners on trial or awaiting deportation and simply passing through.

The pay-to-stay programs have existed for years, but recently attracted some attention when prosecutors balked at a jail in Fullerton that they said would offer computer and cellphone use to George Jaramillo, a former Orange County assistant sheriff who pleaded no contest to perjury and misuse of public funds, including the unauthorized use of a county helicopter. Mr. Jaramillo was booked into the self-pay program in Montebello, near Los Angeles, instead.

“We certainly didn’t envision a jail with cellphone and laptop capabilities where his family could bring him three hot meals,” said Susan Kang Schroeder, the public affairs counsel for the Orange County district attorney. “We felt that the use of the computer was part of the instrumentality of his crime, and that is another reason we objected to that.”

A spokesman for the Fullerton jail said cellphones but not laptops were allowed.

While jails in other states may offer pay-to-stay programs, numerous jail experts said they did not know of any.

“I have never run into this,” said Ken Kerle, managing editor of the publication American Jail Association and author of two books on jails. “But the rest of the country doesn’t have Hollywood either. Most of the people who go to jail are economically disadvantaged, often mentally ill, with alcohol and drug problems and are functionally illiterate. They don’t have $80 a day for jail.”

The California prison system, severely overcrowded, teeming with violence and infectious diseases and so dysfunctional that much of it is under court supervision, is one that anyone with the slightest means would most likely pay to avoid.

“The benefits are that you are isolated and you don’t have to expose yourself to the traditional county system,” said Christine Parker, a spokeswoman for CSI, a national provider of jails that runs three in Orange County with pay-to-stay programs. “You can avoid gang issues. You are restricted in terms of the number of people you are encountering and they are a similar persuasion such as you.”

Most of the programs — which offer 10 to 30 beds — stay full enough that marketing is not necessary, though that was not always the case. The Pasadena jail, for instance, tried to create a little buzz for its program when it was started in the early 1990s.

“Our sales pitch at the time was, ‘Bad things happen to good people,’ ” said Janet Givens, a spokeswoman for the Pasadena Police Department. Jail representatives used Rotary Clubs and other such venues as their potential marketplace for “fee-paying inmate workers” who are charged $127 a day (payment upfront required).

“People might have brothers, sisters, cousins, etc., who might have had a lapse in judgment and do not want to go to county jail,” Ms. Givens said.

The typical pay-to-stay client, jail representatives agreed, is a man in his late 30s who has been convicted of driving while intoxicated and sentenced to a month or two in jail.

But there are single-night guests, and those who linger well over a year.

“One individual wanted to do four years here,” said Christina Holland, a correctional manager of the Santa Ana jail.

Inmates in Santa Ana who have been approved for pay to stay by the courts and have coughed up a hefty deposit for their stay, enter the jail through a lobby and not the driveway reserved for the arrival of other prisoners. They are strip searched when they return from work each day because the biggest problem they pose is the smuggling of contraband, generally cigarettes, for nonpaying inmates.

Most of the jailers require the inmates to do chores around the jails, even if they work elsewhere during the day.

“I try real hard to keep them in custody for 12 hours,” Ms. Holland said. “Because I think that’s fair.”

Critics argue that the systems create inherent injustices, offering cleaner, safer alternatives to those who can pay.

“It seems to be to be a little unfair,” said Mike Jackson, the training manager of the National Sheriff’s Association. “Two people come in, have the same offense, and the guy who has money gets to pay to stay and the other doesn’t. The system is supposed to be equitable.”

But cities argue that the paying inmates generate cash, often hundreds of thousands of dollars a year — enabling them to better afford their other taxpayer-financed operations — and are generally easy to deal with.

“We never had a problem with self pay,” said Steve Lechuga, the operations manager for CSI. “I haven’t seen any fights in years. We had a really good success rate with them.”

Stanley Goldman, a professor of criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, has recommended the program to former clients.

“The prisoners who are charged with nonviolent crimes and typically have no record are not in the best position to handle themselves in the general county facility,” Professor Goldman said.

Still, no doubt about it, the self-pay jails are not to be confused with Canyon Ranch.

The cells at Santa Ana are roughly the size of a custodial closet, and share its smell and ambience. Most have little more than a pink bottle of jail-issue moisturizer and a book borrowed from the day room. Lockdown can occur for hours at a time, and just feet away other prisoners sit with their faces pressed against cell windows, looking menacing.

Ms. Brockett, who normally works as a bartender in Los Angeles, said the experience was one she never cared to repeat.

“It does look decent,” she said, “but you still feel exactly where you are.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times

[RebLem]

Ya didna say nuttin about your jailed pharmacist. Ain't fair.

[Corlyss_D]

Ya didna say nuttin about your jailed pharmacist. Ain't fair.

Yeah. I was wondering too. So what was the lad's offense?

[Donald Isler]

Tarrytown pharmacist gets 2 to 6 years for fraud

By BILL HUGHES
THE JOURNAL NEWS


(Original publication: April 25, 2007)
The Tarrytown pharmacist who insisted he was innocent after his August 2005 arrest on charges of bilking customers and insurance companies out of millions of dollars apologized in court yesterday before he was sentenced to two to six years in state prison.

Neil Norwood, 52, the owner of Russell & Lawrie Pharmacy, spoke quietly during a brief sentencing hearing yesterday morning in state Supreme Court in White Plains.

"I am deeply sorry for the crimes I have committed," Norwood said to acting state Supreme Court Justice Richard Molea. "I have brought shame on my family, my colleagues and my friends."

Norwood pleaded guilty to filing fraudulent claims and ripping off customers by switching generic drugs for name brand prescriptions and short-filling orders to clients, many of whom wrote to the judge to say how angry they were after having trusted Norwood's family-run business for years.

"You were in a position of trust, you literally had people's lives in your hands and you violated that trust," Molea said before pronouncing sentence. Assistant District Attorney Christopher Shaw said Norwood had repaid nearly all of the $3 million in restitution he agreed to surrender as part of his plea agreement, as well as $1,915 to Tarrytown for the cost of its investigation.

After his original arraignment, Norwood had claimed, "I am absolutely not guilty," as he was led out of Tarrytown Village Court in handcuffs.

"During the course of our investigation, what particularly struck us was his brazen conduct, his almost cavalier manner in which he conducted himself," Shaw said, noting that Norwood was named the best pharmacist in the county by Westchester Magazine in 2005. "It's sad, it's pathetic, it's even tragic that it's come to all this."

Investigators were tipped off after a complaint and began an investigation into Norwood's two stores at 59 N. Broadway in Tarrytown and at 777 N. Broadway in Sleepy Hollow. In addition to directly robbing customers, Norwood was found submitting fraudulent bills to several insurance companies for drugs he never dispensed.

In August 2005 police raided his businesses and home, carting away truckloads of files and seizing more than $680,000 from boxes and a safe at Norwood's home in Mount Pleasant.

Norwood pleaded guilty in December to two counts of first-degree grand larceny in exchange for his sentence, which could have been as much as 25 years in prison.

"I'm just so sorry that this occurred," Norwood said before he was led away in handcuffs. "I did have a fabulous reputation that I built up throughout my life and I threw it all away."

Copyright © 2006 The Journal News

[Ralph]

Well, we don't have that kind of jail in New York, that's for sure.

[Evelyn Laden]

This pharmacist who was recently convicted to two to six years in jail was our pharmacist for years. You couldn't find a more pleasant, helpful, obliging and goodlooking person than him. I could not believe he was capable of shortchanging people on pills, overcharging for others, and billing for services he didn't provide. It seemed absolutely impossible, until he admitted it or he would be "eligible" to serve up to 30 years.
He has lost all credibility, his pharmacy, and I suppose, his license. How he can face his family (he has one) and former clients I can't imagine. When I saw him recently at his other business, a surgical supply store, he acted as if nothing had happened, and so did I. But something did, and it must have been pure greed. He had a thriving business, career, and standing in the community. By now he has lost far more than he ever gained. I still can't believe it.

[Corlyss_D]

He has lost all credibility, his pharmacy, and I suppose, his license. How he can face his family (he has one) and former clients I can't imagine. When I saw him recently at his other business, a surgical supply store, he acted as if nothing had happened, and so did I. But something did, and it must have been pure greed. He had a thriving business, career, and standing in the community. By now he has lost far more than he ever gained. I still can't believe it.

Crimes against friends and neighbors are particularly hard to understand.

[Madame]

He has lost all credibility, his pharmacy, and I suppose, his license. How he can face his family (he has one) and former clients I can't imagine. When I saw him recently at his other business, a surgical supply store, he acted as if nothing had happened, and so did I. But something did, and it must have been pure greed. He had a thriving business, career, and standing in the community. By now he has lost far more than he ever gained. I still can't believe it.

Crimes against friends and neighbors are particularly hard to understand.

You always hurt the one you love, the one you shouldn't hurt at all ...