INDReporter

3rd Circuit backs defunct work-release facility

by Walter Pierce

A state appeals court has denied the state Department of Corrections' bid to recoup nearly $250,000 from a Lafayette non-profit work-release program the state shuttered in 2008.

A state appeals court has denied the state Department of Corrections' bid to recoup nearly $250,000 from a Lafayette non-profit work-release program the state shuttered in 2008.

The DOC ordered the closure of the Lafayette Community Correctional Center, which operated out of a house on 6th street and served about 50 inmates through a contract with the DOC to oversee the work-release inmates. But a February 2008 audit uncovered financial irregularities including a quarter-million dollar deficit, mainly of wages earned by the inmates that were supposed to have been deposited into a bank account by LCCC. DOC closed the facility the next day, replenished the missing inmate wages and soon after filed suit against LCCC's former executive director and board of directors, seeking the $233,184 it had deposited on behalf of the inmates.

District Judge Ed Rubin, however, dismissed DOC's claims against all the defendants, ruling they were not liable for the missing funds. The Third Circuit released an opinion today affirming Rubin's ruling.

Read the appeals court ruling here.