A Catered Affair Turns Too Greasy to Digest

At the end of "The Cotton Club," Francis Coppola's 1984 homage to the old Harlem nightclub, its proprietor, Owney Madden (played by Bob Hoskins) asks partner Big Frenchy DeMange (Fred Gwynne) whether he has made the necessary arrangements with the Warden at Sing Sing so that Owney's upcoming jail sentence will be a comfortable one.

Big Frenchy replies that life upstate will be so sweet, "Freedom's gonna be a letdown."

Rabbi Leib Glanz might seem to be an unlikely spiritual descendant of Big Frenchy, but he lost his job as a Correction Department Chaplain last week for his own efforts to ensure that a particular inmate's time behind bars was not too tough to take.

Holy Security Breach!

Tuvia Stern, described by Deputy Wardens union President Sidney Schwartzbaum as "a goniff and a 20-year fugitive," wanted to have a bar-mitzvah for his son while he himself had the misfortune to be confined to the Manhattan Detention Complex last December. Rabbi Glanz made all the necessary arrangements for a catered affair for a party of 60, and a swell time was apparently had by all.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow THE BARS WERE OPEN: While others described recently resigned Correction Department Chaplain Leib Glanz (left) as someone who made the most of his political connections to wield power in the jail system, Correction Captains Association President Patrick Ferraiuolo said a greater share of the blame rested with uniformed commanders who never stopped to say, 'What are you nuts, throwing a bar-mitzvah in a prison?'

This ran afoul of a few Correction Department regulations, however, starting with the restrictions on inmate parties. If a prisoner wants to get married while a guest of the city system, he is limited to having a best man and a witness present for the occasion. The mere fact that Mr. Stern had jumped bail and gone on the lam two decades ago made his presence in the lower Manhattan jail slightly irregular; people with that kind of history are usually locked up on Rikers Island, where escapes are rare and any escapee without the skills of an Olympic swimmer is unlikely to survive the treacherous currents of the East River.

But for nearly six months, the transformation of the jail facility commonly known as The Tombs into the felon's answer to the Hotel Pierre remained a well-kept secret. Although Commissioner Marty Horn's claim that he was unaware of what took place until the New York Post began asking questions was met with skepticism by one longtime observer of the jail system who called it "the biggest yenta agency in the city," Mr. Schwartzbaum said it was possible the Commissioner hadn't known.

On the other hand, he added, "They knew that Glanz used to make parties and do barbecues and bring stuffed animals to the officers at Christmas time."

Correction Officers Benevolent Association President Norman Seabrook said June 17 that none of his members had told him about it, either.

"They're instructed to follow orders," he said of the COs who staffed the banquet. "I'm glad they got paid overtime."

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office is investigating whether any officials got paid off the books and well above their hourly rate for permitting the bar-mitzvah—as well as a subsequent engagement party for Mr. Stern's daughter—to proceed.

Mayor Bloomberg's initial reaction was to evoke Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" while stating, "Clearly, this is not something that should have taken place."

A 'Shocking' Political Confluence

But the revelation by the New York Times last week that Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey met with Rabbi Glanz three times late last year brought to mind Claude Rains's declaration in "Casablanca" that he was "shocked, shocked," to discover that gambling was going on in Rick's Café.

Mr. Sheekey was described not long ago by Shelly Silver as the "Deputy Mayor for Political Aspirations." Mr. Glanz is a power within the Satmar sect of Brooklyn's Hasidic community, and he deals in influence and the perception of it.

As FDNY Chaplain Rabbi Joseph Potasnik told the Post last week, Rabbi Glanz didn't get his Correction Department job through the usual channel, the New York Board of Rabbis. He didn't obtain it by answering a New York Times ad, either. He was appointed by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the urging of his Chief of Staff, Bruce Teitelbaum, whose duties included a heavy dose of keeping the Orthodox Jewish community happy, even in cases where doing so clashed with good government policy.

Having gotten the job based on a hook, Rabbi Glanz apparently figured he could continue throwing his weight around with the current administration. "He certainly acted like he had a lot of juice," one official said, and the meetings with Mr. Sheekey suggest he had reason to believe he did as well.

Correction Captains Association President Patrick Ferraiuolo said his members who knew of the bar-mitzvah would have been unlikely to protest the clear policy violations because "they were so used to seeing this guy get preferential treatment."

Referring to those higher up in the uniformed ranks, he added, "These people were under the impression that [Rabbi Glanz] had such high ties to the Mayor's Office that they could get promotions" if they indulged him. Conversely, he said, there may have been fear that refusing his requests could hurt their careers.

Mr. Schwartzbaum put it more bluntly, saying of Rabbi Glanz, "He was a pushy guy who was conditioned to doing things."

Calls to Rabbi Glanz's home were not answered.

George Arzt, who has dealt with the Ortho- dox Jewish community both as former Mayor Ed Koch's Press Secretary and in his current capacity as a political consultant, said when asked what led Rabbi Glanz to push the envelope this heavily, "I think that he thought he could get away with it—that the superiors [in the jail system] knew what he was doing and he had everything arranged."

'Uniforms' Surrender Authority

But that's precisely the problem, said Captain Ferraiuolo, who believed that Rabbi Glanz and his superior, Chief Correction Chaplain Umar Abdul Jalil, were the least-culpable of the individuals who allowed the fancy bar-mitzvah to proceed on their watch.

"At the end of the day, they're not uniformed," he said. "They're not the ones who should be saying, 'What are you, nuts, throwing a bar-mitzvah in a prison?' I blame the Chiefs, I blame the Assistant Chiefs, down to the Wardens and the Deputy Wardens."

He said Peter Curcio, who just resigned as Chief of Facility Operations after receiving a two-week suspension for permitting the event, "signed off on it; he's gotta eat it."

Other veteran jail system officials, including Mr. Schwartzbaum and Mr. Seabrook, defended Mr. Curcio, who had been in that post less than a month at the time of the bar-mitzvah. He had been given the job in the wake of the beating death of an inmate last October, an incident that resulted in the indictment earlier this year of three Correction Officers accused of permitting gangs inside a Rikers Island jail to serve as the enforcers of facility rules. One official expressed amazement that the bar-mitzvah has generated media coverage at least equal to that of the murder and its aftermath, and said that Mr. Curcio's focus at the time would have been to get the murder site straightened away, with the bar-mitzvah a minor issue by comparison.

'Walsh Leaked on Curcio'

Mr. Schwartzbaum asserted that the bar-mitzvah only came to light because of jockeying for position after Commissioner Horn announced his resignation, effective Aug. 1, three weeks ago between Mr. Curcio and the man whom he replaced as the system's secondranking uniformed official—current Chief of Environmental Health and Safety Patrick Walsh. There are rumors that Chief of Department Carolyn Thomas may retire once a new Commissioner is chosen, and Mr. Schwartzbaum said he believed "Walsh leaked that whole story to the New York Post just to knock Curcio out."

Correction Department spokesman Steve Morello declined comment on that claim and other criticisms of the department hierarchy by union officials, citing the ongoing probes by the Manhattan DA and the Department of Investigation.

But he noted, "Commissioner Horn met individually this week with every warden to restate his message that it is of utmost importance that they maintain their staff's focus on running the jails properly. . . The jails are operating smoothly and with the continued commitment of our dedicated staff at all levels, they will continue to."

Mr. Walsh and Ms. Thomas were criticized by Mr. Seabrook in a bulletin to members three weeks ago as the department's "worst managers," and Mr. Ferraiuolo also spoke harshly of the Chief of Environmental Health and Safety.

He criticized him for ordering a two-day lockdown of the jails last year following an inmate slashing at the George Vierno Center, calling it an individual flare-up that was not a sign of organized gang activity. Suspending all inmate programs and privileges during that time, Captain Ferraiuolo said, increased tensions among inmates and "really put staff in jeopardy. It was an isolated slashing; it wasn't like we had a riot situation on our hands."

Nickel-and-Diming Captains?

He also said Chief Walsh had a penchant for bringing disciplinary charges against Captains for the most-trivial of infractions, such as not wearing a helmet during a use-offorce incident, but had escaped serious punishment for his own violations of a 2002 court settlement banning strip-searches of non-violent inmates brought to Rikers Island on misdemeanor charges, prompting the city to reach another costly settlement in October 2007. The first settlement, involving a case brought when Mr. Giuliani was still Mayor, cost the city $50 million; the more-recent one was believed to involve a similar sum.

Mr. Seabrook said the problem went further up the chain of command, specifically citing Chief of Department Thomas. "If your army is discombobulated, the first thing you have to do is get a new general," he said. He and Captain Ferraiuolo both said there was a glaring disparity in the penalties sought against their members and those imposed on superior officers for what they said were more-serious charges.

Their complaints made it seem like a system spiraling downward into chaos. But until the department's blundering in failing to respond to intelligence reports of suspicious gang activity in the months prior to last October's inmate murder, the jails actually seemed to be operating smoothly during Mr. Horn's tenure. As awful as the stench is regarding that death because of the alleged role of Correction Officers in empowering and encouraging gang members to mete out violence at their own discretion, that killing was the first one in the jail system in four years.

Some of the recent events have suggested, however, that Commissioner Horn deferred too much to his uniformed staff in running the jails. The favor-trading and the in-fighting among ranking officials are reminiscent of the jail system on Mr. Giuliani's watch—when inmate violence was also sharply reduced. Back then, however, most of it was orchestrated from the top, first under Bernie Kerik and later under Bill Fraser, whom Mr. Bloomberg retained as Commissioner until a scandal involving improper campaign activities on behalf of then- Gov. George Pataki came to light late in his first year in office.

The one marked difference back then was that neither Mr. Seabrook nor the then-head of the Captains union, Pete Meringolo, were protesting vociferously about top management (Mr. Schwartzbaum was, largely because the favoritism that was rampant during that period often came at the expense of the mid-level supervisors he represents).

Agency Not on Public's Radar

Because the jail system only enters the public consciousness when there is a riot or charges of impropriety involving inmates brought against officers, it is easy for politics to seep into agency operations without fear of it coming to public light. Even when abuses do surface, the outcry tends to be minimal—neither the media nor the public wasted much energy over the rights of low-level prisoners being repeatedly violated by strip-searches, even though the cost in taxpayer dollars reached 10 figures.

Which means that a jail system that is run fairly as well as efficiently ultimately depends upon a Mayor who cares about both aspects. He must choose a Commissioner who knows when to delegate authority and when to assert it personally, and also can convince subordinates that he or she is more concerned with doing the right thing than what seems the politically smart one.

When someone conveys the wrong message, it does more than embarrass a government agency and a mayoral administration. Whether it's promoting those who are part of what used to be called "The Team" in the city jail system or doing outrageous favors for inmates that convince them the system is ripe to be manipulated, it corrodes the self-respect and belief in the agency's mission of everyone who is working for it.