A TELLING STATEMENT

"I have learned a lot and contribute much of my career to your guidance."
 ~Allen Clark to James Crosby

Gainesville.com
www.gainesville.com

Article published Oct 9, 2005
Checkered past of DOC's Clark under microscope
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051009/LOCAL/210090346&SearchID=73222886190183

TALLAHASSEE - The last item in the Department of Corrections personnel file
for Allen Clark is a short and enigmatic letter.

"It is with great regret that I hereby resign my position," Clark wrote in
the Aug. 30 letter to his friend and mentor, DOC Secretary James Crosby. "I
have learned a lot and contribute much of my career to your guidance."

The hundreds of other pages in the file, however, portray a conflicted story
of a high school dropout who began his career in 1988 making $14,243 and
rose to Region I director, making more than $94,000 to oversee one-third of
the state's prisoners.

Amid an investigation that has reached the highest levels of the DOC, Clark
stands out for his meteoric rise through the ranks despite a record of
disciplinary problems.

Numerous Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigations concluded
Clark misused funds, lied to investigators, improperly used inmates for work
in his quarters, beat inmates and intimidated fellow workers who questioned
him.

With Clark's resignation, his personnel file may be closed. But the final
chapter in Clark's DOC career may be written in a courtroom as FDLE and
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents continue a sprawling investigation
under the watch of a statewide prosecutor.

"Right now," said one state investigator, "there is no part of Allen Clark's
life that we are not interested in."

Investigators are looking into Clark's association with former correctional
officers who have been charged in a steroids ring. At least two have plea
deals requiring them to testify truthfully in federal court proceedings that
could incriminate others.

Another area under scrutiny is Clark's handling of money flowing through an
employees' club and a recycling program in the prison system. This echoes a
1999 FDLE investigation that accused Clark of improperly using money to
defray costs of softball and flag football teams that played in tournaments
against teams from other prisons. That investigation led to no discipline,
despite the testimony of other employees that Clark and his friends
threatened retaliation against anyone protesting his use of the funds.

Asked how Clark ascended through the ranks despite his checkered history,
Department of Corrections officials declined to comment, and specific
requests for Crosby's comments were also declined. A request for comments
from Clark was declined by his Tallahassee attorney, Stephen Dobson.

But interviews and a review of Clark's file show two threads: A close
relationship with Crosby and a penchant for fostering fear among those who
protested Clark's actions.

Clark's connections to Crosby date to at least 1990, when Crosby signed a
Gilchrist County certificate attesting that he witnessed Clark's marriage.

Promotions, investigations
After he was hired in 1988, Clark was promoted rapidly, his only setback
coming in 1994, when an FDLE investigation portrayed Clark as a vindictive
man who kicked inmates in the head and beat them with handcuffs.

Clark was suspended for 60 days. But his following performance reviews were
glowing. "Keep up the good work!" said one evaluation in 1998.

The following year brought three more FDLE investigations that concluded
Clark lied to investigators responding to anonymous complaints that Clark
had improperly used inmates to complete unapproved renovations to
state-provided living quarters.

The investigations also contained testimony that Clark threatened other
employees if they protested a fiefdom of employee-funded softball teams.

DOC officials did not debate the findings, but also declined to punish Clark
 who would move on to become warden of Florida State Prison before being
named the Region I director by Crosby in 2004.

That Clark could overcome accusations of violence and intimidation under
Crosby comes as no surprise to Ron McAndrew. The former warden of Florida
State Prison left in the late 1990s, saying Crosby pushed him out.

McAndrew said Clark's abuse of prisoners in 1994 should have resulted in his
firing, but added that Crosby has condoned such actions.

"There's only one way that anything like that could happen and that's to put
somebody like James V. Crosby in a position of power," McAndrew said.

McAndrew has been a vocal critic of Crosby's, adding that most correctional
officers fear for their jobs and won't criticize either Crosby or Clark.
People all over the state are afraid, seriously afraid for their careers,"
he said. "They don't dare breathe a word."

That was evidenced in yet another FDLE investigation centering on Clark in
April that found Clark beat a man during a softball banquet in Tallahassee.
The man had accidentally slipped and knocked down a female acquaintance of
Clark's. FDLE investigators urged the man to file charges, saying Clark
needed to be brought down.

"We know he beats people," the investigator said. "We've got to get him out
of the system."

But the beating victim declined, saying he feared that Clark would transfer
his wife from her DOC job in the Panhandle.

Employees who worked with Clark say those who stood up to him or crossed him
found themselves transferred to other prisons and working the least
desirable shifts. Among the many current and former state correctional
officers who have provided details about their dealings with Clark, few were
willing to allow their names to be used publicly.

"I'm not working there anymore but most of my family still gets their
paychecks from the prisons and I don't want them hurt," explained one woman
who said she left DOC after eight years and three shift changes she claimed
were retaliatory for twice talking to investigators about Clark.

"Something you have got to understand is that even with A.C. (Clark) out of
the system, there are others that were falling in with him and they still
work here," said another officer. "Who is going to be the next enforcer for
the secretary? I'm relieved Clark is gone, but I don't know who may be
coming up next."

A brush with Clark
A former correctional officer willing to speak out said he retired with 20
years in the system instead of completing his goal of 30 years after his
encounter with Clark.

Kevin Dean was the lieutenant responsible for the narcotics canine program run under the prison's Inspector General's Office between the spring of 2000 and June 2003. The statewide unit included 12 officers and their drug-sniffing dogs.

The units would check for drugs at prisons around the state, and would also
work if requested with other agencies. During the spring of 2003, Dean said
his canine unit was working at a nearby prison when Union County sheriff's
officials asked that the dogs make a sweep through the high school parking
lots. A dog alerted on three cars in the student parking lot, including one
belonging to Lance Clark, Allen Clark's son, indicating the presence of
drugs.

"We didn't have any arrest powers so when a dog alerted, we would notify a
deputy and then send a report to Tallahassee on the alert whether there was
an arrest or not," Dean said.

"There were traces of marijuana in that car, but a deputy who was working
with us said there was not enough for an arrest," Dean said. "That happened
on a Thursday or a Friday. On Monday I got a call from Allen Clark who was
working at Florida State Prison then and the first thing he said to me was,
Hey man, I thought we were tight.' "

Dean said the conversation got heated when Clark threatened to shut down the
canine program and claimed that dogs were worthless because there was no
marijuana found in Lance Clark's car.

"He also said he had his son (Lance) drug tested and that the boy had passed
" Dean said. "I told him (Allen Clark) to go through my supervisor and I hung up."

Within two days, Deputy Inspector General Walt Murphree declared there would
be no more outside work done by the canine unit - the dogs would only work
on prison property. Dean said his then regional director Brad Carter
informed him that the canine unit was being shut down at the end of June
2003.

While the other officers involved in the unit were sent back to the prisons
where they had previously been working, Dean, who had been at Lancaster
Correctional Institution, wound up at Cross City Correctional Institution
working the midnight to 8 a.m. shift. Dean said he was convinced he was
being punished for the dogs alerting on the Clark car at the high school.

The only negative mark in Dean's folder was a three-day suspension for a
paperwork error committed while signing inmate disciplinary referral forms.

"Allen Clark has ruined a lot of careers through his tactics and I could see
what was going on in my case so I retired at the end of December 2003," Dean
said. "Once he gained power and notoriety, it went on from there and not
many people out here were sorry to see him resign."

Joe Follick is a reporter in The Sun Tallahassee Bureau and can be contacted at jfollick@earthlink.net. Sun staff writer Karen Voyles can be reached at 486-5058 or voylesk@gvillesun.com.

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