Tennessee Inmate Reports Food-Service Billing Fraud

“SOMEBODY MUST BE GETTING A HUGE KICKBACK”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Oct. 13, 2018) — A letter received on Friday from a Tennessee inmate reports that the food-service company which provides meals to his facility “charges for alot more food then they serve.” [sic]

As the person who “makes the trays” for his unit, the inmate wrote, he has observed that the company overstates the number of servings it is providing for each meal. “When they send me the pans of food to make the trays with I make about 21 to 25 tray’s and there is no more food to give out, but they send a paper saying 45 serveings of say, pancakes, 45 serveings of sausage, 45 serveings of eggs, ect. when they really only send about half of this,” he wrote. “So in one meal they are allowed to over charge for about 60 serveings 3X aday for about 180 serveings per day 7 days a week.” [sic]

Further, the inmate wrote that “This is happening in every prison in Tn. about 18 prisons I think. The officers I work with know this and say somebody must be getting a huge kick back. I’m talking about millions of dollars…” [sic]

As referenced, the inmate included a document titled “Meal Chain of Custody Form” from which we removed personal identifiers.

The inmate’s letter reads, minus personally-identifying information:

On another subject, the inmate claimed that the prison doctor or doctors “write prescriptions for the officers” while “making it look like it’s for an inmate.” “The warden sent out an Email telling them to stop but thier still doing it,” he further alleged. [sic]

On multiple occasions over the last several months, Morgan County Correctional Complex (MCCX) inmate Grenda Ray Harmer, #88710, has reported to this publication that the meals he has been served often consists of smaller portions than standard and that recently on weekends, inmates in the protective custody (PC) section of the prison are fed two meals each day instead of three.