George Latimer Awarded County Jail Contracts to Private Firms That Donated to His Campaign

After Rashod McNulty died in January 2013, in the Westchester County, New York, jail, a report by the state found that the quality of his medical care — provided by the private firm Correct Care Solutions — had played a major role. 

McNulty had visited the infirmary earlier that night, complaining of excruciating chest pains, and been given indigestion medicine. He later collapsed on the floor outside his housing unit, flushed and dazed as beads of sweat dripped down his forehead. When nurses revived him, they suggested he was lying. “Get up and walk,” one nurse said to an unresponsive McNulty, pulling on his arm several times. She put smelling salts under his nose and told him she was going to take him to the clinic. McNulty mustered the strength to get into a wheelchair. 

“That’s the oldest trick in the book,” another nurse told him. “I’ve been doing this too long to be fooled” — and ushered him back to his cell. He was dead less than an hour later. 

Five years after McNulty died, George Latimer would take over as Westchester County executive. Early in his tenure, in August 2018, surveillance video of McNulty’s death was publicly released, sparking calls for Latimer to find a new medical provider for the jail that houses roughly 2,300 people. “Correct Care Solutions was the health provider at the Westchester County Jail when Rashod McNulty died,” Latimer said in a statement at the time. “The county takes the care of inmates at the county jail very seriously.” The next month Latimer received a $2,500 campaign donation from Correct Care. Within a year, the company had another contract with the county jail worth $41 million. 

Latimer is now running for Congress in the Democratic primary against Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., after being recruited by the American Israel Public Affair Committee, which is his largest donor. In this race, Latimer has billed himself as a progressive, and throughout his tenure as county executive — including just last month — he has cited the quality of the county jail as proof of his administration’s humanity. But after taking office in 2018, Latimer repeatedly ignored complaints from guards and detainees about the quality of the food and medical services in the county jail, while receiving thousands of dollars in donations from the companies that provide those services, according to The Intercept’s review of state campaign finance records.

Correct Care would become an issue for Latimer amid local outrage over McNulty’s death. McNulty died of a heart attack, according to the New York State Commission of Correction, which found that if nursing staff had transported McNulty to a hospital or given him “percutaneous cardiac intervention, his death may have been prevented.” Instead, the report found, his symptoms were “dismissed by nursing staff.” 

The medical care provided by Correct Care, the report said, “was grossly uncoordinated and mismanaged.” (A lawsuit by McNulty’s family against the private jail health care provider was settled with undisclosed terms in 2019.)

The medical provider’s contract to run medical services at the jail had been up earlier in 2018, but Latimer negotiated a one-year extension, saying there was no time for a bidding process. A day after the video came out, the county agreed to an open bidding process for 2019 instead of a one-year renewal. Weeks later, on September 12, 2018, Latimer received a $2,500 campaign contribution from Correct Care. 

Only two companies made bids, and one of them was Wellpath — Correct Care’s new name after a merger with a California-based jail health care firm. With only two firms to choose from, county lawmakers tried to slow down the contracting process, and Latimer, according to news reports, said, “We got the bids we got and that’s what we have to select from because we have to provide care.”

(A spokesperson for Latimer’s County Executive office said that “multiple vendors were invited to participate. However, only two companies submitted bids, one of which had no prior business in New York.”) 

Wellpath won, and Latimer renewed its contract to the tune of $41 million over three years. (Wellpath did not respond to a request for comment.)

In 2021, Latimer received another donation from Wellpath, for $2,500. The following year, he again renewed the firm’s contract. (A spokesperson for Latimer’s congressional campaign said his Wellpath donations “were not related to or coordinated with the operations of the county Executive’s office.”)

In addition to the $5,000 Latimer’s county executive campaign has received from Wellpath over the last six years, he has received over $10,000 in donations from Aramark, the correction department’s food vendor. He has awarded both companies multimillion-dollar contracts.

Jail Food From Aramark

Since winning office as county executive in November 2017, Latimer has awarded $11 million in government contracts to Aramark, one of the largest carceral food vendors in the country, even as there have been complaints about the services it provides. 

In November, 2018, employees at the county jail banded together to boycott the Aramark food, and once the prisoners found out, they joined in the protest. One person described the food at the time as looking like “a glow-in–the-dark child’s play toy that’s splat.” In 2019, Latimer’s administration reupped the contract with Aramark for a sum of $4.5 million.

“The County is unaware of any issues regarding the food at the Westchester County Jail, aside from issues that were resolved in 2018 when County Executive Latimer took office,” a spokesperson for the county told The Intercept. The spokesperson declined to specify which issues Latimer resolved or whether Latimer had personally tasted the company’s food, but added, “Aramark meets or exceeds both the State Commission of Correction and American Correctional Association food and nutritional standards.”

Aramark’s most recent contract, which was renewed in 2023 for a year at $2.3 million, included “modifications that Aramark provide an enhanced menu and healthier options for the WDOC” — Westchester Department of Corrections — “workforce and facilitate upgrades to the Penitentiary staff dining hall.”

Multiple incarcerated people at Westchester County Jail have sued the food provider, accusing Aramark of price-gouging on commissary items and charging a handling fee for people to send care packages that are assembled on the premises to those in jail. Courts have consistently dismissed the suits, ruling that the incarcerated don’t have a constitutional protection from price-gouging. 

The company has faced issues around the country. Michigan abandoned its relationship with the firm in 2015, signing with a new food supplier after people incarcerated at Aramark-fed facilities found maggots and rocks in their food, and Aramark employees were caught sexually harassing detainees and smuggling in drugs. 

Aramark has provided food for Westchester County jail since at least 2009. The Philadelphia-based company donated $3,500 to Latimer’s reelection campaign in 2021, then again in 2022 and 2023. (Aramark did not respond to requests for comment.)

While Latimer has continuously renewed contracts for the private firms, guards working at the jail have had no such luck for four years. With contract negotiations stuck in limbo, health care costs are rising for union members, who staged a protest outside Latimer’s office in November. In response to the protest, Latimer said, “there’s a certain amount of theatrics” to the negotiation process.

A spokesperson for Westchester County said the union rejected a contract in 2023. “The County is proceeding on a standard timeline for these negotiations, however seeing as they are ongoing we will not provide a commentary on the current status,” the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for the union, Westchester COBA, did not respond to requests for comment. 

In October 2021, Latimer spoke at the Westchester County Department of Correction’s Workforce Recognition Ceremony, touting the importance of the work done by county corrections officers. Aramark was among those whose work was recognized.

“The staff of the department of food services and commissary provider, Aramark, are hereby commended for their tireless dedication, distinguished services, and commitment to providing critical functions and services to our residents and to staff during the coronavirus,” said the presenter. 

Latimer sat beside the podium throughout the ceremony, his head bobbing slightly and his eyes dimming as if he had nodded off to sleep.