The Appeal highlights neglect by BlueMountain Capital’s prison healthcare company Corizon
February 11, 2019
Late last week criminal justice-focused publication The Appeal ran a long story on neglect by Corizon, the prison healthcare giant owned by private equity and hedge fund firm BlueMountain Capital.
The Appeal, Feb 8, 2019: “Corizon, the prison healthcare giant, stumbles again”
The article highlighted Corizon’s recent loss of a contract to provide healthcare services at Arizona Department of Corrections facilities and allegations of patient neglect:
“By the time Walter Jordan began radiation therapy on July 21, 2017, his skin cancer had already eaten through his skull and spread to his brain, according to a doctor who later reviewed the medical files. Jordan, who was incarcerated in a state prison in Florence, Arizona, had squamous cell cancer, a type of skin cancer that has a more than 90 percent cure rate, wrote the doctor, Todd Wilcox.
About a week before his death, Jordan wrote to the U.S. District Court. ‘ADOC [Arizona Department of Corrections] and Corizon delayed treating my cancer. Now because of there delay, I may be luckey to be alive for 30 days.’”
In 2017 BlueMountain Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund, became the majority shareholder in Corizon, replacing the Chicago-based private equity firm Beecken Petty O’Keefe & Company, which retains a small stake in Corizon.
“If you hear the stories of these families and the pain that they have suffered, [BlueMountain] should be ashamed they’re investing,” said Tiera Rainey, a program coordinator with the American Friends Service Committee-Arizona, a prisoner advocacy organization. “Every dollar you’re making off of that investment is coming from human suffering.”
