Cooney

CENTRAL FALLS — The chairman of the Wyatt Detention Facility’s governing board was fired Monday for comments that compared the for-profit jail to the federal government’s prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Central Falls Mayor Charles D. Moreau said Tuesday.

Moreau, who has the authority under state law to appoint members of the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility’s governing board, said in a prepared statement that he dismissed Daniel F. Cooney for “outrageous and insensitive” statements Cooney made in an April 21 interview with The Providence Journal.

Cooney was talking about the need to convince the federal government to resume sending Wyatt its immigration detainees, and the nearly $100 per prisoner per day it pays to house them, when he said, “Frankly, I’m looking at it like I’m running a Motel 6. I don’t care if it’s Guantanamo Bay. We want to fill the beds.”

Moreau said that was intolerable.

“Comparing the facility to one of our nation’s most controversial detention centers clearly demonstrates he does not share my goal to restore public confidence in the operations of the Wyatt Detention Facility,” Moreau said in the statement.

“It is my highest priority to ensure that, going forward, all detainees are treated with the utmost respect and dignity,” said Moreau.

Wyatt spokesman Bill Fischer said Moreau asked for Cooney’s resignation and when Cooney didn’t offer it, he fired him.

Cooney, who on April 20 presided over the firing of the prison’s chief executive officer, Anthony Ventetuolo, by the five-member Wyatt Detention Facility Corporation board, could not be reached for comment.

Moreau appointed Cooney and two other new members to the board in January, several weeks after Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed more than 150 immigration detainees from the facility, denying the jail about $100,000 a week in revenue. ICE acted after the death of Lui Hiu “Jason” Ng, a 33-year-old Chinese national who died in August in Wyatt custody. He was awaiting deportation after overstaying his visa.

An ICE investigation, made public in December, found fault with the manner in which Ng was treated at Wyatt, and several jail staff members were disciplined as a result. There is currently a federal investigation into whether criminal charges should be brought.

In a wrongful death suit filed on behalf of Ng’s family by the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, the family claims Ng was denied medical care at Wyatt. It wasn’t until days before his death that it was found Ng had a fractured spine and cancer.

The loss of the ICE detainees has reduced the jail population, now exclusively people under the control of the U.S. Marshals Service, to a level below what Wyatt requires to meet its budget requirements and the corporation board is seeking more inmates and the income they provide.

The mayor’s damage control effort Tuesday extended beyond the boardroom. He said he also wanted to meet with community leaders.

“I share the concerns of the community,” he said. “The facility has been heading in the wrong direction and systemic reform will take time, but it is an achievable goal and we will restore confidence in this institution.”

Moreau’s announcement came shortly after about 50 people had gathered outside the High Street jail to protest Cooney’s remarks and, more generally, a prison-for-profit mentality that they said sacrifices civil rights for corporate income.

Mimi Budnick, an organizer with Direct Action for Rights and Equality, said after the demonstration she remarked to a friend, “I can’t believe they haven’t fired him already.”

Budnick said DARE “applauded” Moreau’s action, but said a new chairman wouldn’t fix DARE’s philosophical concern that the prison uses locking people up as a way to close a budget gap.

Steven Brown, the Rhode Island ACLU executive director, said firing Cooney “addresses a symptom rather than a cause.”

“The major problem — from our perspective — is that the city and Wyatt administrators are eager to find warm bodies to help fill up the prison,” Brown said. “And that’s where the real problem lies. Mr. Ng is dead, not because of comments by any particular person, but because of an insatiable need by for-profit corporations to fill up prisons however they can.”

Immigration lawyer Roberto Gonzalez, also at the rally, said he’d like to meet with Moreau, saying a new attitude at the top might help.

“Hopefully they can find someone who will respect the detainees’ needs,” Gonzalez said. “Whether they can get their medical needs met, the right to see their attorney and get proper food. That will go a long way.”

Staff Writer Karen Lee Ziner contributed to this report

jhill@projo.com