America’s Largest Disability Employer Accused of Running Like the ‘Mafia’

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The Daily Beast received an audio file and transcript from a source participating in one of the federal investigations. The recording is of a December 2013 conversation between Jean Robinson, then-General Counsel of SourceAmerica, and Ruben Lopez, CEO of Bona Fide Conglomerates Inc. (Bona Fide is a nonprofit company that trains and employs workers with severe disabilities. It has been embroiled in on-and-off legal battles with SourceAmerica since 2010.) Lopez was participating in one of the federal investigations and wearing a wire.

During the recording, Robinson is heard describing her firsthand observations of ongoing conflicts of interest and mismanagement among the higher-ups at SourceAmerica. She paints a picture of back-scratching and underhanded deals in which SourceAmerica recommended federal contracts not for the most deserving organizations, but for their friends.

Robinson expresses her belief that she was sidelined as she attempted to rope the organization into good governance. She repeatedly denounces what she describes as “scheming” by a “mafia” or “allocation machine”; that is, a group of insiders at SourceAmerica who unfairly award lucrative contracts to themselves and to allies.