Alabama
Cost of building a super-size prison rises to more than $1 billion
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The cost of a new Alabama super-size prison now under construction rose to more than $1 billion, complicating the state’s plans to build two of the behemoth facilities.
The Alabama Corrections Institution Finance Authority approved a final price Tuesday of $1.08 billion for the prison now under construction in Elmore County. The cost will devour most of the $1.25 billion that lawmakers in 2021 initially agreed to spend to build two prisons each housing 4,000 inmates.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a statement blaming inflation for the price escalation but said the facility is needed.
“The new prison facilities being built in Alabama are critically important to public safety, to our criminal justice system and to Alabama as a whole,” Ivey said. “We have not built new prisons in more than 30 years, and if it was easy, it would have been attempted by a governor before me.”
The planned 4,000-bed prison in Elmore County, including facilities for medical care and vocational training, is expected to be completed in May of 2026, according to the contract terms.
The Alabama Legislature in 2021 approved a $1.3 billion prison construction plan — that tapped $400 million from pandemic relief funds — to build two prisons and renovate the others. However, inflation and design changes caused cost estimates to rise, state officials said.
The Finance Authority in March increased the authorized spending on the first prison from about $623 million to $975 million. The latest action approved spending of a little more than $1 billion, which state officials said is the final price for the project.
Rep. Rex Reynolds, chairman of the House General Fund budget committee, said the price of labor, concrete and other materials have risen since lawmakers approved the project.
“That’s just something we can’t control ... But we’ve got to move forward with doing this job,” Reynolds said.
“This is about not just creating a safer environment for the inmates, this is about a safer environment for our corrections officers to work in. The design of these prisons will better manage the prison population. It’s more conducive for the vocational teaching of our inmates,” Reynolds said.
Asked if the lawmakers would pursue borrowing additional money for the construction of the second prison, Reynolds said it is too early to know. He said the state does have “cash in hand” that could be used to pay for design costs and delay the need to borrow money.
Florida
Auto shop owner and angry customer shot each other to death, police say
LARGO, Fla. (AP) — A shooting at a Florida auto shop that killed two men was triggered by a former customer’s dissatisfaction with work done on his car two years ago, police said Thursday.
The Largo Police Department said Eugene Frank Becker, 78, arrived at Stout’s Automotive in a rental car Wednesday and sought out business owner Jodie Stout, 52. Investigators say Becker pulled out a handgun and shot Stout, who returned fire with his own gun, striking Becker multiple times.
Both men later died at a hospital. The shooting brought dozens of police officers to the scene.
Police said in an email that evidence and witnesses indicate Becker felt he was overcharged when he brought a vehicle to Stout’s for service in 2021. He went to the shop Wednesday “with the intent to shoot the victim in retaliation for the perceived wrong.”
Authorities said Becker had recently been in a car crash that left him depressed, according to family members.
Largo is located just west of Tampa.
Ohio
2 accused of false Alzheimer’s diagnoses get prison terms for fraud convictions
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A former director of an Ohio memory-loss clinic accused by dozens of patients of falsely diagnosing them with Alzheimer’s disease has been sentenced on federal fraud charges, along with her physician husband.
Sherry-Ann Jenkins received nearly six years in prison on Tuesday, while Oliver Jenkins got a 41-month sentence. The couple was convicted in March on conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and health-care fraud charges after being indicted in May 2020.
The U.S. Justice Department has said Sherry-Ann Jenkins was not trained or licensed to provide any medical care but presented herself as a doctor and billed patients for unneeded treatments.
The indictment did not directly accuse the couple of falsely diagnosing her patients, but more than 60 people filed lawsuits beginning in 2017 that said Sherry-Ann Jenkins lied and told them they had Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.
The patients said they spent months undergoing treatment while planning out their final years, thinking they would die soon. Some quit their jobs or took one last special trip. One killed himself; others said they considered suicide.
The patients who sued the couple and the clinic resolved the cases out of court. Nearly all of those diagnosed by Sherry-Ann Jenkins began seeing her after suffering traumatic brain injuries or worsening cognitive issues.
Sherry-Ann Jenkins operated the Toledo Clinic Cognitive Center through the Toledo Clinic, a multi-specialty medical center, for slightly more than two years, according to court records.
She would diagnose and treat patients and order tests despite having no training or qualifications, prosecutors said. She also billed patients for treatments that weren’t medically necessary, including memory exercises and using coconut oil to treat cognitive disorders, they said.
Her husband, an ear, nose, and throat doctor and a former partner in the Toledo Clinic, signed off on the tests and was listed as the referring physician on billing even though he was rarely at the clinic and never saw the patients, prosecutors have said.
