Criminal

---

WhiteHouse.gov biography:

Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Prior to his current appointment, Robert Flores was the Vice President and Senior Counsel for the National Law Center for Children and Families and Legal Counsel to Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He served in the Department of Justice from 1989 to 1997 in the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Criminal Division. He is a graduate of Boston University and Boston University Law School."

20080613
J Robert Flores - Crime - Political - Juvenile - Justice - Science - Sports - New Jersey - Texas - "Football Charity Says It Deserved a $500,000 Govt Grant: Despite Not Even Applying, the Charity Was Awarded a Grant; Some [Department Of Justice] DOJ Staffers Objected." ... "A group that promotes leadership through football says it doesn't know how it was awarded a $500,000 federal grant to help stop juvenile crime, but that it "wasn't political."" ... "The grant is one of a number for the Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) that has come under scrutiny after current and former employees said the official who awarded the money ignored professional staff recommendations and played favorites with groups connected to the [Republican] Bush White House. ABC News conducted an investigation into the OJJDP, which aired earlier this week on "Nightline"." ... "The National Football Foundation (NFF), formerly based in New Jersey and now in Texas, says they did not apply for the grant and have had no contact with J. Robert Flores, the official who awarded the money." ... "Some OJJDP staffers said this program did not deserve the funding." ... ""The football program, like the World Golf Foundation, has lots of private resources and outside funding. They have wealthy powerful people on the board," one staffer said." ... "The staffer added that by law the OJJDP's primary focus is to fund programs that intervene and protect kids who are on the cusp of entering into the juvenile justice system or who are already in the system, and there is no research that shows this program targets the most at-risk kids." (1, 2) -By Anna Schecter -ABCNEWS.com

---

20080612
J Robert Flores - Political - Federal - Juvenile - Justice  - Health - Science - "Questions Surround Govt Funded Abstinence Program: Why Did a Lower-Ranked Organization Get Money While Higher-Ranked Groups Were Denied Funding?" ... "An organization that promotes sexual abstinence for teens received a federal grant of over a million dollars, twice what it had requested, despite the skepticism Department of Justice staffers had about the group and the fact that it refused to participate in a congressionally mandated study." ... "So why did the Best Friends Foundation receive the grant from the Justice Department's juvenile justice office even though dozens of competing organizations were rated higher by the office's own reviewers? Current and former staffers say it was because of Best Friends' powerful president and founder, Elayne Bennett." ... "Not only is Bennett the wife of Bill Bennett, a former [Republican President] Reagan and [Republican President] Bush administration official and conservative political commentator, but she is also personally close to the chief administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), J. Robert Flores." ... "DOJ staffers were deeply skeptical when Best Friends applied for a grant of around a half-million dollars last summer. For one thing, the organization had backed out of a congressionally mandated study to examine whether or not abstinence programs are effective." ... "Then there were the DOJ staffers own internal reviews, which placed Best Friends behind dozens of other competing organizations. Out of 104 grants in their category, Best Friends ranked 53rd." ... "But those other organizations didn't have Elayne Bennett. Bennett, say current and former DOJ staffers in the OJJDP, often spoke on the phone with Flores and had access to him and his aides that other juvenile organizations ordinarily wouldn't have." ... "Meanwhile, competing with Best Friends for a federal grant from the OJJDP was a Washington non-profit, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), an advocacy group for victims of rape and sexual assault." ... "In the category of OJJDP grants for which both organizations applied, Best Friends ranked 51st, while RAINN came in at 14th. RAINN did not receive a grant from the OJJDP." (1, 2, 3, 4) -By Murray Waas -ABCNEWS.com

---

20080610
Special Report - J Robert Flores - Money - Politics - Secret - Government- Juvenile - Justice - Nev
• "Special Report: Juvenile Justice." ... "The following documents accompany Youth Today's ongoing reporting on the [United States] U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention." ... "*From "At Justice, 84th Place Wins"" ... "OJJDP spreadsheets containing scores and place-rankings for bids submitted under various 2007 grant programs, including mentoring, research and delinquency prevention (winners are highlighted by red borders)." ... "*From "Former Justice Official Says Juvenile Chief Misled Her" and "A Friend at Justice"" ... "A memo that U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Administrator Robert Flores wrote to Regina Schofield last July, in which he explained how he chose 10 winning proposals from among more than 100 bids for the National Programs grants." ... "*From "Juvenile Judges Group Secretly Pays to Settle U.S. Fraud Claim"" ... "Under a set of confidential agreements, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges will pay $300,000 to settle allegations that it committed fraud to get grant money from the U.S. Department of Justice, while its director [Mary Mentaberry] will pay $16,500 to settle conflict-of-interest charges." ... "The Justice Department charged that the council falsified employee time sheets, billed the federal government for work by "ghost" employees, failed to disclose that it hired the spouses of employees and fired a worker who questioned those practices, according to settlements filed this month in U.S. District Court in Reno, Nev. [Nevada]" ... "Serena Hulbert, who alleges she was wrongfully fired from the council, filed a new lawsuit for wrongful termination on April 23, according to court records." ... "*From "Juvenile Justice, A Panel of One"" ... "Here are PDFs of the winning 2007 National Juvenile Justice Program bids." ... "Here is a detailed list of bidders for OJJDP's 2007 National Juvenile Justice Program grants (winners are highlighted)." ... "Here is a spreadsheet of all OJJDP 2007 discretionary grants." -YouthToday.org 

  ---

20080609
J Robert Flores - Crime - Political - Federal - Sports - Religious - Juvenile - Justice
• "Justice Department Official Awards $500,000 Grant to Golf Group: Former Staffer Tells ABC News Anti-Crime Funds Given to Programs With The "Right" Connections." ... "A senior Justice Department official says a $500,000 federal grant to the World Golf Foundation is an appropriate use of money designed to deal with juvenile crime in America." ... "The Justice Department, in a decision by [Republican President Bush's Department of Justice Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention J. Robert] Flores, gave the money to the World Golf Foundation's First Tee program, even though Justice Department staffers had rated the program 47th on a list of 104 applicants. The allegations were first reported earlier this year by the trade journal Youth Today." ... "Current and former Justice Department employees allege that Flores ignored the staff rankings in favor of programs that had political, social or religious connections to the [Republican President George W.] Bush White House." ... "The honorary chairman of the First Tee program is former [Republican] President George [H.W.] Bush [George W. Bush's father]." ... "A key witness will be a former employee of Flores' office, Scott Peterson, who says the grants were awarded based more on politics than merit." ... ""This is cronyism, this is waste, fraud and abuse," Peterson told ABC News in an interview aired on Nightline Monday night." ... "Many top-rated programs were denied federal grants." ... "Flores was appointed to the position by President Bush six years ago and has overseen about $1.5 billion dollars in grants during that time." ... "A Washington, D.C. program, Best Friends, that promotes abstinences was awarded $1.1 million by Flores even though it ranked 53rd on a list of 104 applicants." ... "Best Friends is run by Elayne Bennett, the wife of Bill Bennett, a former Republican cabinet member and now political commentator. " (1, 2, 3) -By Brian Ross, Anna Schecter, and Murray Waas -ABCNEWS.com 

  ---

  WATCH: "Does the White House favor social programs based on politics?"

  ---

20080508
J Robert Flores - Politics - Federal - Juvenile - Justice - Investigation
• "Former Justice Official Says Juvenile Chief Misled Her: Says Flores ‘misrepresented’ scores on grant proposals so that she’d approve his choices." ... "A former assistant attorney general says the head of the nation’s juvenile justice agency misled her into approving millions of dollars in grants to organizations that he favored." ... "Regina Schofield said Thursday that J. Robert Flores, administrator of the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), “misrepresented the rating scores” of bidders for the National Juvenile Justice Programs last year, hiding the fact that most of his choices received lower scores than many of the proposals that he rejected." ... "Schofield’s statement on Thursday could undercut a defense that Flores has given as a congressional committee investigates his agency’s grant making: that Schofield approved the grants." ... "Flores declined to comment about the allegation by Schofield, whose Office of Justice Programs oversaw the OJJDP. Flores has previously said that he followed proper procedures in awarding the grants. On May 2 he traveled to Capitol Hill to discuss the investigation with members and/or staffers of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, according to people familiar with the committee’s investigation." ... "At issue is a memo that Flores wrote to Schofield last July, in which he explained how he chose 10 winning proposals from among more than 100 bids for the National Programs grants. The memo repeatedly uses the phrase “highest scoring” to describe his choices, even though those choices ranked behind the top bids as scored by the OJJDP staff, and in some cases below dozens of proposals that didn’t get funded." ... "Here’s what explains the discrepancy: After the agency invited bids for the funds through a Request for Proposals, Flores created new criteria and categories for the grants. The incoming bids were assigned to those new categories." ... "Out of the 10 winning bids, eight were the only bids assigned to certain categories – and therefore were the highest-scoring bids in those categories. (For a detailed explanation, see “A Friend at Justice.”)" ... "For example: Under a criterion called “School-based outreach efforts directed at preventing high-risk activity (out-of-wedlock pregnancy),” Flores’ memo says the application of the nonprofit Best Friends Foundation [controlled by Elayne Bennett, Republican politician Bill Bennett's wife] “has the highest score that met the criteria.” The memo does not say, as other OJJDP documents show, that Best Friends was the only qualified bidder in that category, or that among all the bidders, it ranked 51st." -By Patrick Boyle -YouthToday.org 

  ---