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Last
year Tri-Met
put most OMAP
passengers on its own buses and MAX cars, racking up a total
of 491,000 medical rides--worth $424,000
in fares.
Tri-Met
brokered an additional 335,800 rides in private cars and
vans, billing Medicaid and the Oregon Health Plan for $5.52
million.
Cheryle Rattey adopted Tammy 25 years ago after the girl's
mom was killed in a car wreck. The crash left Tammy, then
7, with permanent brain damage.
Some
of the people Tri-Met trusts to do background checks, like
A1 Medtrax owner William Chinn, have records themselves.
Chinn was convicted in 1991 of illegally carrying a concealed
firearm.
A1 Medtrax
owner William Chinn, who drove Tammy on several occasions,
is convinced that her account of the rape is accurate.
"What
Tri-Met is not being honest about is that the kind of people
who do these jobs often have criminal records," says criminologist
Dr. Joan Petersilia.
Last
year LIFT driver Laurence E. Stratton was convicted of attempting
to
kidnap and rape a 15-year-old special-needs student while
driving for the Reynolds School District.
Jane Paulson, Tammy's attorney, worries that there won't
be enough
financial incentive for Tri-Met to change its policies.
Paulson plans to
sue Tri-Met, but Oregon law limits the financial liability
of public agencies to $100,000.
Tri-Met's
lack of oversight is "shocking and appalling," says Jim
Francesconi, the Portland city commissioner in charge of
the Bureau of Licenses, which regulates some OMAP companies.
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Stonewalled:
Tri-Met's denial of requests for public records.
Justice
Delayed: the new general manager increases security.
Rape is always tragic. For Tammy Rattey, a brain-damaged 32-year-old,
the tragedy was multiplied. Not only was she the victim of
a traumatic crime, but it came at the hands of someone working
for a trusted public agency--a man who should never have been
alone with such a vulnerable person.
Rattey was assaulted by Daniel Richard Robertson, who picked
her up for her weekly doctor's appointment, a trip that's
paid for by the federal government and arranged by Tri-Met.
What makes Rattey's rape doubly tragic is that it could
have been avoided. Robertson is a convicted murderer and,
according to Tri-Met's own rules, should never have been
part of the transit agency's program that transports more
than 11,500 disabled people in the metro area.
What's even more disturbing, however, is that Robertson
is not unique. Dozens of drivers who participate in Tri-Met's
medical-transportation program have criminal backgrounds,
which should disqualify them from the job.
Last week--after a three-month public-records battle with
Tri-Met--Willamette Week was able to obtain documents
that allowed WW to identify nearly 900 drivers who
serve disabled passengers. WW then ran their names
and birth dates through an Oregon criminal-records check,
a relatively simple process.
What did we find? That at least 44 drivers in addition
to Robertson have criminal records. Their crimes include
sodomy, sex abuse, robbery, theft, assault and menacing.
Like Robertson, these drivers--according to Tri-Met's own
rules--should not be transporting disabled passengers in
unsupervised situations.
There is no evidence that any drivers other than Robertson
have harmed their passengers. What is clear, though, is
that in the 15 months since Robertson raped Rattey, Tri-Met
has not bothered to run background checks on the drivers
who serve its most vulnerable passengers--even though the
agency has the technology to do so at a minimal cost.
When told about this fact June 11, George Passadore, president
of Tri-Met's board of directors, said that reforms were
overdue.
"Obviously we're not doing enough in this area," says Passadore.
"We shouldn't take one day longer. I will suggest we take
this entire area of background checks and call for an outside
independent audit."
To understand how Tri-Met let Tammy Rattey, who is an epileptic
with the mental capacity of an 8-year-old, end up alone
in a car with Daniel Robertson, you have to understand the
Oregon Medical Assistance Program.
More than 140,000 Oregonians in the Portland area qualify
for federal medical assistance--or Medicaid--because their
incomes are below the federal poverty level. As part of
Medicaid, the federal government pays to transport Medicaid
recipients to and from medical appointments. Since 1994,
the feds have put the medical-assistance transportation
program in the hands of Tri-Met. After all, Tri-Met already
provides individual door-to-door service for disabled people
who are not poor--as part of a program called LIFT,
which uses Tri-Met-owned mini-buses. And Tri-Met has plenty
to gain by taking on the OMAP business: It can put most
of the Medicaid recipients on its regular buses, thereby
increasing its annual ridership and revenue figures. Those
clients who can't get where they want on buses can be transported
door to door in cars and vans--and the feds will still pay
the way.
When Tri-Met took on this program, it decided to contract
with small car companies for the door-to-door medical transport.
Today, 62 such subcontractors have a piece of the business.
"We have many very small mom-and-pop companies who provide
excellent service for our clients," says Nancy Thomas, manager
of Tri-Met's Accessible Transportation Program.
To qualify, a company needs a decent car and a willingness
to follow certain rules. It doesn't take much else. Consider
William Chinn, the owner of A1 Medtrax, the Beaverton company
that hired Rattey's rapist. When Chinn started A1 Medtrax
in 1997, he had been a bar owner and driven a dump truck,
a fuel truck and an airport shuttle. He started with just
three cars and three drivers--including himself.
Compared with some OMAP companies, Chinn's outfit was a
Rolls Royce. For instance, Community Towncar was started
in 1998 by Chanyalew Tadesse, an Ethiopian immigrant who
had only one prior job on his résumé--he worked
as a Plaid Pantry cashier for a year--and one car, a 1989
Chevrolet with 185,914 miles on it.
The OMAP business isn't all that lucrative. Last year Tri-Met
arranged for 335,800 rides in private cars and vans--and
billed Medicaid an average of $16.43 per ride. Drivers say
they're lucky to take home $6 per hour after accounting
for all their expenses for gas, cars and insurance and the
time between rides.
"I can't afford health insurance for myself," says Mike
Mansfield, owner of Tri County Medi-Car. "I only make money
by working 18-hour days."
Given the low pay and minimal skill requirements, it's
not surprising that the job of driving for OMAP and LIFT
would attract some people with questionable backgrounds.
This ought to be a serious concern to Tri-Met, a public
agency entrusted to serve 11,500 disabled passengers last
year.
The situation is particularly troubling given the fact
that disabled people are so vulnerable to crime. According
to Dr. Joan Petersilia, who's directing a national study
on the subject for Congress, disabled people are 10 times
as likely to be victims of sex crimes as non-disabled people,
and 12 times as likely to be victims of theft.
Indeed, that's why Tri-Met's own rules state that no one
who has been "convicted of any crimes against people or
any drug- or alcohol-related offenses" can drive for the
OMAP and LIFT programs.
But those rules have not been followed--which is why Tammy
Rattey ended up on her nightmarish ride with Robertson.
Tammy's adoptive mother, Cheryle Rattey, says she never
feared for her daughter's safety when she called Tri-Met
for Tammy's weekly ride to her Lake Oswego psychologist.
"I placed trust in them as a public organization," says
Rattey, a chemist at Allied Signal.
On the afternoon of March 23, 1998, Tammy climbed into
a tan Chevrolet Caprice owned by A1 Medtrax and driven by
Robertson. According to the police report, Rattey got in
the front seat of the car and soon told Robertson she was
retarded. (People subsequently interviewed by the police
stressed that Tammy's childlike intellect is instantly evident
when she talks.)
Tammy told police that Robertson started to look at her
in a "strange way" and asked if she had a boyfriend. Shortly
after Tammy replied that she did not, Robertson put his
hand on her thigh, rubbed her leg, put his hand up her untucked
shirt and rubbed her breast, whispering, "Yes, yes."
Tammy said she was afraid. Robertson--who was described
by police as missing his front teeth, being dirty and smelly
and sporting a swastika tattoo--leaned over and kissed Tammy.
By then they had made the 10-mile journey from Tammy's house
in Tigard to the doctor's office.
At 5 o'clock Tammy emerged from her appointment and Robertson
arrived to take her home. Instead, he drove to Tryon Creek
State Park, a heavily wooded area straddling the Lake Oswego
and Portland city limits.
Robertson parked, took Tammy by the wrist and walked approximately
480 feet down one trail, and 75 feet down another, smaller
trail. The 190-pound Robertson laid Tammy on the ground,
took off her clothes, pried her knees apart, held her wrists
and raped her.
Tammy recalled that she was too scared to say anything
except that her mom would be mad if she was late.
On the ride home, Tammy told police, Robertson stuck his
fingers into her vagina and made her promise that what he
had done was secret.
Tammy said that when she got home, she went in, lay on
her bed and became sick.
Two weeks later, before a routine gynecological exam, Tammy
told her mother what had happened.
Cheryle Rattey called the police. According to the police
reports, Tammy's doctors and work counselors said that she
was intellectually incapable of maintaining a complex lie.
When contacted by police on May 7, Robertson didn't deny
that he had sexual contact with Tammy. But he defended his
actions by claiming, "She was all over me...she jumped in
my lap."
As for the park incident, Robertson, 47, said she was "just
a loose woman" and her mental abilities were "normal."
Robertson was arrested and later pleaded guilty to first-degree
rape, a crime that carries an automatic sentence of 100
months behind bars.
At Robertson's rape sentencing in March, Tammy prepared
a statement for the record. "When I told him that I was
epileptic and retarded, I thought that he would not hurt
me then, but he did," she said. "I did not know what to
do; I thought that he would kill me."
Judge John Lowe then had a few words for Robertson: "My
sincere hope for you, sir, is that you will wake one morning
in anguish over what [Tammy and her mother] have said, because
if you did that, that might be the first day you have become...a
human being."
Tri-Met's response?
Karen Frey, director of risk management for Tri-Met, told
Tammy's lawyer that the agency wasn't at all liable for
her rape. "Tri-Met cannot be held responsible for the alleged
actions of our contractor's employee," Frey wrote.
Tri-Met has the tools to run background checks and, in
fact, does run them on its regular bus and MAX drivers.
The agency subscribes to a database called Commercial Information
Systems. Enter a person's name and date of birth into the
database, click on "Search" and within seconds any criminal
records and driving infractions appear on the screen.
But Tri-Met doesn't run background checks on LIFT and OMAP
drivers like Robertson. If the agency did, it would have
found that in 1972 he had killed a 21-year old college student,
Daniel Boles of Southwest Portland, with his bare hands.
Tri-Met would also have learned that Robertson had been
convicted of at least a dozen traffic infractions since
1990.
Instead, Tri-Met leaves such checks to the LIFT and OMAP
subcontractors themselves. Chinn, the owner of A1 Medtrax,
claims he did pay for an Oregon State Police background
check on Robertson but doesn't know why the check failed
to reveal Robertson's past. "Maybe someone was too busy
eating M&Ms," he says.
Tri-Met officials who manage the LIFT and OMAP programs
defend the practice. "I have a fairly high degree of confidence
in the subcontractors," Thomas told WW. "It's their
livelihood that's in jeopardy."
But others question the subcontractors' incentive to run
thorough checks. Some of the company owners themselves have
criminal records. Chinn, for instance, was convicted of
illegally carrying a concealed weapon. Mansfield, the owner
of Tri County Medi-Car, has four felony convictions for
burglary and theft on his record.
Tri-Met's policy is not a good one, says Petersilia, a
criminology professor at the University of California at
Irvine. "Clearly that doesn't make good sense," she says.
"About 30 percent of the disabled people who are victims
are, in fact, abused by service providers, so we know there's
an extremely high risk from people's caregivers."
Other public agencies take a more careful approach than
Tri-Met.
For example, Portland city officials don't leave it to
the cab companies to check the criminal backgrounds of people
who want taxi licenses--the city runs the checks itself.
(Applicants can't get a cab license if they have a criminal
record unless John Hamilton, who oversees taxi licensing
for the city, grants a special exemption.)
The Portland School District takes checks one step further.
It uses cab drivers to transport special-education students
door to door. But the school district doesn't think even
the city's background check is stringent enough, so it fingerprints
all drivers and runs the prints through an FBI check.
"The reason you want to do it [yourself] seems pretty obvious
to me," says school transportation supervisor Charles McAlister.
"That's our check. That way there's no chance of [the city
or the cab companies] overlooking something."
Had Tri-Met run background checks--as WW did after
overcoming all of Tri-Met's public-record roadblocks--it
would have discovered something alarming.
Out of 894 drivers on Tri-Met's LIFT and OMAP lists, 44
had criminal records. (That's not counting a number of drunk-driving
and domestic-abuse charges.) Their crimes ran the gamut:
sodomy, incest, sex abuse, assault, menacing, theft, robbery,
burglary, forgery, stalking, food-stamp fraud and drug-dealing.
Some of the drivers on Tri-Met's list of LIFT and OMAP
drivers include: Lloyd B. Jacobson, who has felony convictions
for sodomy and sex abuse; Kevin R. Gifford, also convicted
of a sodomy felony; and Michael E. Giancone, who was convicted
of a sex abuse felony.
(Again, there are no reports or indications that any of
these drivers have abused any Tri-Met passengers.)
In May 1998, six weeks after Rattey was raped, Tri-Met
learned that Robertson was a convicted killer. You might
think that would have set off all kinds of alarms about
the need to conduct background checks. To date, Tri-Met
has made no changes.
General Manager Fred Hansen, who replaced Tom Walsh just
eight months ago, calls the Robertson case "outrageous"
and vows Tri-Met will soon start running its own national
background checks--including fingerprint checks--on drivers
(see "Justice Delayed," page 24).
Board president Passadore is even more adamant that Tri-Met
fix its flaws. "You're only underscoring the need for an
outside audit," he told WW.
As president of all Wells Fargo banks in Oregon, Passadore
knows well how scam artists and predatory criminals can
disguise their real backgrounds. "You're talking to a hawk
on this. I don't see how anyone thinks what we've been doing
is adequate. The system has got to be smarter than [criminals],"
he says.
Hansen pledges that change is coming soon, maybe even by
the time this story is printed.
Somehow, though, Hansen's promises ring hollow to Cheryle
Rattey. "I don't think Tri-Met will make any changes unless
they're forced to," she says.
On June 11--the day after WW spoke to Hansen about
Tri-Met's lack of background checks--Hansen sent a memo
to Tri-Met managers. Hansen's memo says Tri-Met "will begin
taking fingerprints of all new prospective employees and
contract employees by no later than June 28."
If Tri-Met follows through with the promised reforms, it
will be the first good news Cheryle Rattey has had in a
while.
Since the rape, Tammy's mental condition has grown progressively
worse, according to her mom. "To her, Robertson is always
going to be right around the corner," Cheryle Rattey says.
"She is scared to death of anything that looks like a taxi
cab. She told her 5-year-old brother that he can't trust
anyone because they might hurt him. Tammy is suffering from
something like post-traumatic stress."
Tammy can't take anti-depressants, Cheryle adds, because
they increase the chance of epileptic seizures. And Tammy
is already having more frequent seizures, which have caused
broken teeth and a broken nose. "There's so little we can
do to help her," Cheryle says.
Meanwhile, the Ratteys are waiting to see if Tammy still
faces more harm from Robertson. "We asked for an AIDS test.
To date there hasn't been one," Cheryle explains.
Dr. Petersilia thinks Cheryle and Tammy Rattey may help
bring about much needed change. There are an estimated 5
million crimes against disabled people in America every
year, Petersilia says--compared with 8,000 hate crimes,
which receive much more media attention and legislative
action.
"Why isn't it a national issue? Because people who are
cognitively impaired are the least able to advocate for
themselves," she says. "They don't have money and votes.
They need a visible victim who can become an advocate.
"I greatly admire Cheryle," continues Petersilia. "The
problem will remain until we put a face to these 'invisible
victims.'"
Katia Dunn contributed to this story.
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Willamette Week | originally
published June 23, 1999
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