MAHONING COUNTY Fake address reveals flaws in work-release oversight

A municipal judge has canceled the inmate's work release privileges.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Inmate Nimala I. Alamin left the Mahoning County jail each weekday to work at an address on Belmont Avenue that doesn't exist.
Terri Bright, Alamin's mother and an employee of Community Corrections Association Inc., was designated to chauffeur her son to work because his license is under suspension. They were to travel in a white 2000 Pontiac Grand Am.
Alamin, 24, of Roxbury Avenue, has been in jail since Oct. 28, serving 40 days for his fifth loud music conviction. Municipal Judge Elizabeth A. Kobly granted work privileges Oct. 29.
Alamin was permitted to leave jail weekdays at 7:30 a.m., work 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Professional Security Services, 2205 Belmont, then be back in jail by 4:30 p.m.
The address could not be found in the city directory.
Alamin was driving alone at 10:30 a.m. Monday when Patrolman Jimmy Rounds clocked a red 1998 Ford Expedition doing 67 mph in a 50 mph zone on Interstate 680 northbound. Rounds arrested Alamin on charges of driving under suspension and speed and released him on a municipal court summons for 9 a.m. Tuesday. Rounds had no way of knowing Alamin was on work release.
Bright refused to answer a reporter's questions about why her son was driving alone Monday, and she hung up.
In court
The jail, unaware of Alamin's arrest, released him as usual Tuesday morning to go to work.
Instead, Alamin was in court at 9 a.m. as scheduled for arraignment on the traffic charges and, after inquiries by The Vindicator about Alamin's arrest while on work release, so was sheriff's Detective Gary Wollet.
Wollet took Alamin into custody, and Judge Kobly revoked his work privileges. He's due back in court Dec. 24 on the traffic charges.
Sheriff's Maj. Michael Budd said Alamin had $300 on him Tuesday when taken from court by Wollet, even though inmates are not permitted to have cash. Budd said it's obvious that Alamin knew how to work the system and had "scammed" his way out of jail on work release.
Budd said Wollet verified that there is no 2205 Belmont.
The sheriff's department also contacted CCA, a halfway facility on Market Street that monitors inmates given work release privileges.
Reprimand
CCA has reprimanded the woman responsible for tracking Alamin, said Richard J. Billak, chief executive officer. The woman, Billak said, didn't physically verify the Belmont address, she only communicated by phone with a Mr. Staples, the man Alamin listed as his work contact person.
Billak said CCA makes daily phone checks to verify that inmates are working. From now on, CCA workers will first verify that a business actually exists at the address the inmate gives, he said.
Van Staples told The Vindicator that he once had office space at 2023 Belmont for Professional Security Services, but because business has been so bad, he's been working out of his aunt's house on West Delason Avenue.
Deputy sheriffs visited the South Side home Tuesday and learned from the aunt that Staples doesn't stay there, Budd said.
The aunt, though, told a reporter that Staples, a traveling salesman, stays there once in a while. She knew nothing of Alamin.
Budd said the paycheck Alamin provided to prove he'd been working had the company name typed in on the line reserved for "memo." The major said the sheriff's department is investigating the source of the check.
Staples said he paid Alamin cash when he could, not by check.
Billak said that CCA collects inmates' paychecks and that roughly 25 percent of the amount goes into an offender services fund, which now has about $1,000 in it.
Budd said the fund is a monitoring fee.
Monitoring begun in May
CCA began monitoring work release in late May, after an inmate was accused of going to his girlfriend's house and beating her up. The inmate returned to the jail later in the day, as if he'd been at work.
At that time, inmates were on an "honor system" and if they returned to the jail when due, no one checked to see if they had actually gone to work.
meade@vindy.com