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For the past several years, the management of that contract has been a comedy of errors that has cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The troubles with the contract started in earnest in 2006. That’s when the Rev. Joseph Kohler died. He had been one in a long line of Catholic priests to run the Dismas House of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, the oldest halfway house in the nation for federal detainees. It was founded in 1959 by a Jewish lawyer with alleged ties to the mob and a Jesuit priest named the Rev. Charles “Dismasâ€� Clark.

After Kohler died, John Flatley and his sister, Vivienne Bess, took over management and turned the halfway house into their personal piggy bank. Between 2011 and 2016, according to federal tax records, Flatley and Bess, who is married to former city and county parks director Gary Bess, were paid more than $4.9 million in salary. Money from the Dismas House contract was used to buy an Arkansas lake house. Properties were moved to a real estate company owned by the family.

Even after I reported the massive transfer of assets funded by the more than $40 million contract, there was nary a peep out of the Bureau of Prisons. Then, two years ago, the contract was put out for bid again. A reconfigured Dismas board submitted a bid. So did a group that involved ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ University and a conglomeration of nonprofits with experience in state reentry programs. The final bidder was a man named Thomas Utterback, and his nascent nonprofit, Exodus Reentry Villages. Utterback, who had been convicted in 1998 of trying to launder $3.2 million in drug money by flying it first to Panama and then Switzerland, lined up some strong community leaders to back his effort, including former ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County Executive Gene McNary and ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County NAACP President John Bowman.

Utterback won the bid. Then the problems started. His deal for a school in Wellston as the location for the halfway house fell through. So did a deal on the former Little Sisters of the Poor facility in north ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½. People started questioning Utterback’s bid. He wouldn’t reveal his full list of board members. His application contained numerous inaccuracies.

In late February, after I reported on Utterback’s ongoing problems and inability to meet the March 1 deadline set in the contract, I asked the Bureau of Prisons for an update on the contract.

All I received was a “no comment.�

I tried again earlier this week.

“We have no further updates,� a spokesperson told me.

Then, on Thursday, I got an update from the Freedom of Information office at the BOP. I had filed a request seeking emails between Utterback and various officials. One of those officials left the BOP shortly after the contract was awarded. He went to work for a company that provides GPS services to organizations, like halfway houses, that have to track detainees. Utterback had told people that he was going to contract with the specific company where the former BOP official went to work.

The FOIA office wanted to know if I still wanted to see the records.

“We were informed that the contract has been terminated,� they told me.

That was news to me. It was also news to Bowman, one of Utterback’s board members. Bowman had been concerned with Utterback’s lack of communication to the board, and inability to nail down a site for the halfway house. When I talked to Bowman Friday morning, Utterback had not told him the contract for Exodus had been canceled.

But, Bowman was not surprised. “It is understandable that the BOP would find it necessary to move forward in another way,� he told me. “It’s my hope that they won’t hold on to the present contract with Dismas.�

Once I told the BOP communications office that the FOIA office had spilled the beans, they gave me the news they had been keeping from the public. The Exodus contract had been canceled a few days after my last column on Utterback.

“The contract with Exodus Reentry Villages, Inc. was terminated on February 25, 2022,â€� a spokesperson emailed. “The services for residential reentry and home confinement services will be resolicited by the Bureau of Prisons. The current contract with Dismas House of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ was extended through March 31, 2022.â€�

So what happens now? Based on how badly BOP botched the last bidding process, at least one of the nonprofits that was part of the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ University bid, Criminal Justice Ministry, is having second thoughts.

In the meantime, yes, I still want the records I was seeking. Perhaps by the time the next bids are opened, the Bureau of Prisons will provide them.