Accuser: Crist shielded lax personnel contractor
The former Convergys worker says the attorney general refused to investigate security breaches of employee data due to political ties.
By STEVE BOUSQUET, Times Staff Writer
Published March 25, 2006
TALLAHASSEE - A former Convergys Corp. employee who complained about the company's mishandling of state workers' personnel information lodged an ethics charge Friday against Attorney General Charlie Crist.
Sam McDowell told the Commission on Ethics that Crist refused to check out his complaints about lax security because of the attorney general's ties to Brian Ballard, a Convergys lobbyist and adviser to Crist's gubernatorial campaign.
"The Attorney General's Office is shielding Convergys. They're protecting them, and I feel that there is an ethical problem there," McDowell said in an interview. "A government office should not be used to protect private industry."
A spokeswoman for Crist called the accusation without merit and said that for more than a year, Crist's office has been monitoring a "contract dispute." Convergys declined to comment, saying it hadn't seen the complaint.
McDowell slapped a similar complaint Friday against George LeMieux, Crist's former chief of staff who manages Crist's campaign for governor. Neither ethics complaint cited a specific provision in state ethics laws.
The state is seeking to fine Convergys $5-million after one of its former subcontractors, GDXdata of Denver, shipped personnel information on as many as 110,000 state workers to India, Barbados and possibly China for processing. McDowell's accusations are another sign that the $350-million Convergys contract is a potential headache for Crist, whose bid for governor is based partly on a claim that he is a champion of consumers. Last year, Crist's office declined to join in a lawsuit filed by two former GDXdata employees who said the mishandling of workers' information might have resulted in widespread identity theft.
McDowell, 32, a Tallahassee native and former Air Force sergeant, said he was forced to resign his job on Convergys' People First contract last year. He said in an affidavit that he watched Convergys employees access confidential information on high-level state employees, including Gov. Jeb Bush, Crist, and Crist's Republican primary opponent, Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher.
McDowell's attorney, Steve Andrews, supports Gallagher and donated $500 to Gallagher's campaign for governor in June 2005, campaign records show. But the lawyer said McDowell's complaint is about lax security and identity theft - not politics.
"It is not a political thing," Andrews said.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents rank-and-file state employees, issued a statement Friday saying it was satisfied with Crist's actions in the Convergys case.
MORE NEWS ON CRIST'S ETHICS PROBLEM:
GOVERNOR'S RACE Ethics complaint filed against Crist, top aide
A complaint alleges that Attorney General Charlie Crist should have investigated a corporation with links to his campaign for governor.
BY MARC CAPUTO
A whistle-blower accused Attorney General Charlie Crist and a top aide of ''misconduct'' for failing to investigate a troubled -- but deep-pocketed -- personnel company tied to Crist's campaign for governor.
Crist's office and aide George LeMieux said the ethics complaint filed Friday by Sam McDowell, former employee of the company Convergys, were ``without merit.''
Convergys, which won a $350 million contract to centralize and computerize the state's massive personnel system, was rapped for having lax security and auditing functions in a Department of Management Services investigation McDowell prompted in a whistle-blower complaint last year.
STOLEN IDENTITIES
McDowell said Crist should have investigated the firm, considering a former Convergys employee is now serving four years in prison for stealing state worker identities and money. Convergys also is being sued by five state workers who say their identities have been stolen.
Their lawyer is McDowell's and is connected to Crist's Republican campaign rival, Tom Gallagher. In a separate but related case, the company is fighting a proposed $5 million state fine for its connection to a subcontractor that may have allowed the confidential information of up to 108,000 state employees to be accessed by labor in India, Barbados and China.
Convergys said in written statement it was ''misled'' by subcontractor GDX, which also denies wrongdoing, and shouldn't have to pay.
It is fighting the state-worker lawsuits as well. State and company officials point out that no identities have been reported stolen in the GDX false-claims case filed by two company whistle-blowers.
Crist's office declined to investigate that case, saying it is a ``contract dispute.''
Those whistle-blowers and their attorneys said in an article published Thursday in The Miami Herald that Crist's office barely spoke with them before declining the case.
''It sounds like my case,'' McDowell said. ``All of this has happened and Charlie Crist has not investigated. It's unbelievable.''
McDowell's complaint mentions the ''relationship'' between Convergys lobbyist Brian Ballard and Crist's governor's campaign, for which Ballard is an advisor.
Ballard said that Crist stands for and against his clients, depending on the issue. He said Crist this week publicly opposed an effort by one of Ballard's pharmaceutical clients to win favorable legislation during the 60-day lawmaking session that ends May 5.
For its part, Convergys said in a written statement that the results of the original investigation launched by McDowell ''do not support the allegations'' he's now making about its connection to Crist.
McDowell's ethics complaint faces a number of challenges, said ethics-law attorney Mark Herron.
He's not connected to the case but represents hundreds of clients before the ethics commission.
To make the charges stick, Herron said, McDowell will have to show that Crist had a ''clear legal duty to have acted'' and that Crist corruptly failed to act for the direct benefit of Convergys.
GOP RIVAL BENEFITS
But even if the ethics case is dismissed, the allegations are already benefiting one man: Tom Gallagher, whose strategists have long planned to portray Crist -- the front-runner in money and most polls -- as a do-nothing.
Democrats this week attacked the attorney general for seeming to change his position opposing abortion and for failing to investigate the GDX case, saying it made little sense because the attorney general can't help ''bloviating'' about how he's opposed to identity theft.
But Crist's office said ''no one has done more to fight identity theft than'' him.
``This office has been monitoring and investigating the Convergys/GDX issues for over one year.
``This case is not a false claim but is a contract dispute.''
FREEPERS, REMEMBER MARK HERRON WAS THE DEMOCRAT ATTORNEY WHO STARTED THE RECOUNT WARS FOR AL GORE HERE IN FLORIDA. Is he a Crist operative now? Avoid Charlie Crist like the plague. Support Tom Gallagher for Governor.
Re: Terri:
FLORIDA AG CHARLIE CRIST'S OFFICE TOLD CALLERS THAT THEY DIDN'T HANDLE CIVIL RIGHTS CASES AND HE WOULD NOT PROTECT TERRI'S CIVIL RIGHTS. HE WANTS TO BE GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA. HE'S A GREER SYCOPHANT and a MAJOR RINO. (FV tie-in to thread)
See 123.
I guess that about sums up how Crist will handle things as governor, if he's elected. He's a panderer first, then a do-nothinger second. I wouldn't expect anything to improve in Florida under his direction.
bttt!