> Published Saturday, September 4, 1999, in the Miami Herald
>
> UF prof makes deal in ethics case
>
> By STEVE BOUSQUET
> Capital Bureau Chief
>
> TALLAHASSEE -- A professor at the University of Florida has
> agreed to pay $20,000 to end an investigation that has brought
> embarrassment to him and his school, after the initially proposed fine
> of $2,000 was rejected as ``pitifully low'' by the state ethics commission.
>
> Charles Thomas, a nationally recognized authority on
> privatizing prisons, has admitted being on the
> payroll of a private prison company while he worked
> as a paid advisor to the state on prison policy.
>
> The proposed agreement, signed by an assistant attorney
> general who prosecutes ethics cases, was made public by
> Ken Kopczynski, a representative of the Florida Police
> Benevolent Association, who filed the original complaint against
> Thomas. The proposal still must be approved by Florida's
> Commission on Ethics, which can impose a maximum fine
> of $30,000 -- $10,000 for each of the three counts against Thomas.
>
> Kopczynski said he was satisfied with the deal.
>
> ``Hopefully this will end the saga of Dr. Thomas,'' said Kopczynski,
> who has pursued his complaint against Thomas for two years.
> Thomas could not be reached for comment.
>
> In June, when the ethics commission was asked to approve
> the $2,000 fine, commission members balked, with Scott Clemons,
> a former lawmaker from Panama City who pushed for rejection, calling
> it ``pitifully low.'' That decision triggered a new round of negotiations
> between the state and the professor.
>
> Thomas, an $84,000-a-year professor of criminology, served as a
> paid advisor to a state board, the Correctional Privatization Commission,
> a position that made him essentially a state employee and
> subject to the same ethics laws that apply to elected officials.
>
> At the time, he was a major stockholder in Wackenhut Corp.
> and other firms in the growing prison privatization field.
>
> e-mail: sbousquet at herald.com