ICE officials last week said they were terminating their contract with Wyatt — a move that costs the jail $100,000 a week and will soon result in the city getting substantially less money.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

CENTRAL FALLS — Mayor Charles D. Moreau, upset with the operations at the Donald W. Wyatt Federal Detention Center, has replaced three members of the jail’s five-member corporation board.

The moves are the first in a series of changes designed to appease federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to get immigrant detainees returned to the jail, which is publicly owned, as quickly as possible. The federal agency abruptly removed 153 detainees from the prison last month pending completion of an investigation into the death of a Chinese national who spent about a month at Wyatt last summer awaiting deportation.

“I do feel that there is a need for a changing of the guard, no pun intended,” Moreau said. “We can present a different case to ICE officials.”

Last week, ICE released a scathing report that was highly critical of several corrections officers and nurses who dealt with Hiu Lui Ng in the final days of his life. ICE officials also announced that they were terminating their contract with Wyatt — a move that is costing the jail $100,000 a week and that will soon result in the city getting substantially less money. The detention center and the city share the federal payments for detainee housing.

Wyatt, which has about 200 employees, also has a contingency plan in place that could soon lead to layoffs as a result of the detainee reduction. Detainees now at Wyatt are being held for the U.S. Marshals Service, which, since 1997, has supplied the bulk of the jail’s population.

Last year, the jail, which usually housed 650 to 700 prisoners, generated $504,000 for the city. Since ICE removed the detainees, the jail has had a daily average of about 500 prisoners. The federal government reimburses Wyatt about $100 a day for each prisoner.

After ICE announced it was terminating its contract, U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, who has been working closely with Moreau, called for the board “to immediately replace the company overseeing prison management.”

Repeated attempts to reach Moreau yesterday were unsuccessful.

It could not be determined whether the mayor plans on following Kennedy’s advice to replace Anthony Ventetuolo Jr., Wyatt’s executive director. Ventetuolo is president of Avcorr Management of Warwick, which has a contract with the detention facility corporation to provide services. Dante Bellini, Wyatt’s spokesman, said that Ventetuolo has spoken to the newly appointed board members, but he has not had recent conversations with the Moreau.

“Tony has not spoken to the mayor, nor has the mayor spoken to Tony about any of this,” he said. “I want to be absolutely clear on this … Tony has been involved with this facility for 16 years and there has never been a problem. The facility will not be defined by [the detainee’s death] isolated incident.”

In response to Kennedy’s call to replace the prison management team, which would include Ventetuolo, Bellini said, “We are disappointed in the congressman’s statement. We have not had the opportunity to speak to the congressman about this issue. We look forward to speaking to him.”

In advance of the ICE announcement, Wyatt announced Jan. 7 that, as a result of its own investigation, it was firing three employees and sending letters of reprimand to four others for failing “to comply with Wyatt policies and procedures.”

In recent days, Moreau has appointed three Democratic allies to the five-member board: Michael Golenia, Daniel Cooney and Kevin England. They replace Maurice Brousseau, Jeremiah “Augie” O’Conner and Casey Andrade, who recently died.

Brousseau, who served as the board’s vice chairman, said its members unanimously agreed last May to give Ventetuolo a three-year contract that pays him $230,000 annually, with pay incentives for keeping the inmate population at an average of 680 prisoners. He said that the jail was doing well — until ICE removed the detainees — and that Ventetuolo was in line for a substantial bonus.

Brousseau said that Ventetuolo’s contract also calls for 3 percent annual raises and the board has the option to retain him for an additional two years.

In comparison, A.T. Wall, who runs the Adult Correctional Institutions complex for the state, is paid $142,610 a year. He is responsible for about 3,700 male and female inmates, more than seven times the current inmate population of Wyatt.

As of yesterday, the remaining board members are chairman Al Romanowicz and Eugene Racquier. They could not be reached for comment.

In August 2007, the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation put Avcorr in charge of running the the jail after Cornell Management Co., a subsidiary of a Texas-based prison management company, left after 13 years as the manager. The takeover was the result of a dispute over money. At the time, Ventetuolo said that both sides could not agree on how much the detention board would pay Cornell to run the prison. He said he felt that Cornell was charging too much.

Brousseau said that Cornell paid Ventetuolo about $160,000 a year as a consultant/contract monitor.

The recent problems at Wyatt began in August after Ng died at Rhode Island Hospital while in the jail’s custody. Lawyers for Ng, a computer engineer from New York who was married and had two young children, say that he was denied medical care both at Wyatt and a Vermont jail where ICE had contracted bed space. Ng had a fractured spine and died from complications from cancer. The lawyers allege Wyatt guards accused Ng of faking his medical condition.

On Dec. 8, ICE abruptly removed its 153 detainees from Wyatt more than a month before it completed its investigation into Ng’s death. A copy of ICE’s investigative report has been forwarded to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maine to determine whether any criminal charges are warranted. The U.S. Attorney’s office for Rhode Island is not dealing with the review to avoid any conflicts of interest, according to a spokesman.

bmalinow@projo.com