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The Miami Herald

March 23, 2006 Thursday

Decision haunts attorney general;

A scandal over the improper release of confidential state worker
information is nagging at Attorney General Charlie Crist, who
declined to investigate the case and now faces questions from
political opponents.
BYLINE: MARC CAPUTO, mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com

SECTION: B; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1037 words

The disclosure that a company doing work for the state may have given cheap labor in India access to
the confidential information of up to 100,000 state employees -- making them vulnerable to identity
theft -- is starting to haunt the governor's race of state Attorney General Charlie Crist, who declined
to investigate the case.

The issue was first revealed by two whistle-blowers who said they were so worried about what
Denver-based GDX was doing, that they asked for Crist's help in a lawsuit replete with internal company
e-mails and spreadsheets.

But the response, they said, ''appalled'' them even more: They heard almost nothing from his office,
which declined to take the case without explanation.

As strategists from Crist's Republican opponent, Tom Gallagher, take note, Democrats are now trying to
use the case to define Crist as an incompetent do-nothing.

Democrats also say Crist is beholden to a powerful company involved in the case, Convergys, which
hired a lobbyist who's a Crist advisor. Convergys, a computer-systems firm that won a $350 million
contract to computerize and centralize Florida's personnel records, hired GDX as a subcontractor and
now faces a $5 million fine.

Crist, who has meticulously burnished his credentials as a champion of the little guy and a staunch
opponent of identity theft, dismissed the attacks as ''part of the deal'' in a ''political season.'' He noted
that no one's identity has been reported stolen.

Still, the state's Department of Management Services is notifying employees of the possibility of a
''breach'' of confidential information, such as people's Social Security numbers and medical history. But
DMS says it has no idea if the data were misused, or whom it was seen by in India, which is not bound
by any U.S. or Florida laws protecting people from identity theft. The lawsuit also mentions the
possibility the workers' information was sent to China and Barbados, also beyond the reach of American
ID-theft laws.

The problems began soon after Convergys won its contract and hired GDX in 2003 to help index the
electronic -- and confidential -- personnel records. Convergys' contract specified that the work must be
performed in Denver or Jacksonville. Convergys officials now say GDX misled them and allowed workers
in Bangalore, India, to work on the records. GDX declined to comment.

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One of the whistleblowers, GDX worker Kristina Gilmore, told The Miami Herald that it it was clear GDX
would use ''offshore'' labor to cut costs right from the start. She said Convergys should have suspected
this because of the cheap cost of GDX's contract -- a claim Convergys disputes. Convergys refused to
provide the Deparment of Management Services a copy of the contract that showed how much it was
paying GDX for its services.

Gilmore said she and co-worker Tara Pagano were so worried, they filed a lawsuit in Tallahassee in
March 2005 to alert state officials to the ''fraud'' perpetrated by GDX because it was putting people's
identities at risk.

Gilmore said she was ''disappointed and appalled'' by what Crist's office did: Nothing. Her court filing
included GDX e-mails mentioning the challenges of doing the ''Florida job'' on ''India time,'' as well as
lists of Indian workers who were working on the files.

''I was definitely shocked and surprised that no one would think enough about what the potential was for
identity theft to at least ask some questions,'' she said. ``Tara had lived in Florida and she and I had
conversations about the fact that, because of the political issues, that the AG's office did not want to
take it on.''

Crist said his office began ''taking a look'' into the case three weeks ago -- a year after the suit was filed
-- because ''new facts are developed every day.'' But he said he was unaware that DMS and Convergys
told a legislative committee last week that a security breach had occurred.

Crist suggested the whistle-blowers' law firm -- Tampa-based James, Hoyer & Newcomer -- ``may be
somewhat frustrated that we did not sign on with them [and join the lawsuit]. We have private counsel
who come to our office every week wanting us to sign on to this action and that action.''

Crist's office issued a written statement Wednesday listing all the work it had done on the India case,
including ''consulting'' with the Tampa law firm.

Not true, said attorney John Newcomer. He said Crist's office called only a few times to inquire about
``procedural issues, nothing substantive.''

''It's not sour grapes. We will prosecute the case on behalf of the state of Florida. If the AG doesn't think
it's important enough, we do. We will do their work for them,'' said Newcomer, who found the lack of
interest by Crist's office ``unusual.''

The nation's premier expert on such whistleblower actions, Washington-based attorney Jack Boese, said
normally government investigators talk to the whistle-blowers and their lawyers. But Boese said, the
attorney general probably relied on the counsel of DMS in deciding not to take the case.

Crist said his agency didn't get involved because it was ultimately a matter for DMS, which oversees the
Convergys contract. DMS secretary Tom Lewis said he knew little of the suit and never discouraged
Crist's office from getting involved.

Lewis checked with Convergys and was told in a May 20 letter that no work was performed outside the
United States.

Lewis said last week he now believes Convergys knew some of its work was performed overseas, and
therefore proposed the $5 million fine. Convergys denies it knew of the offshore work and said it
shouldn't have to pay the fine. It has agreed to set up a program to help state employees alert officials
to identity theft.

Lewis said his department gathered its information after heading to Denver, where its investigators
interviewed Gilmore and Pagano in February -- the first contact they had with Florida officials in the
year after filing the action.

Democrats say Crist did nothing for an overarching reason: Convergys is a Republican Party donor and
hired a top Crist campaign advisor, lobbyist Brian Ballard.

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Ballard said Democrats are grandstanding and there's no merit to their claim.

Said Crist: ``I would encourage them to stay tuned and not be too judgmental.''

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Below are concepts discussed in this document. Select terms of interest and either modify your search or search within the
current results set
Subject Geography
ATTORNEYS GENERAL INDIA
JUSTICE DEPARTMENTS FLORIDA, USA
FRAUD & FINANCIAL CRIME UNITED STATES
IDENTITY THEFT People

INVESTIGATIONS CHARLIE CRIST

POLITICAL PARTIES
US DEMOCRATIC PARTY
US STATE GOVERNMENT
CONTRACT AWARDS

OR

Show Major and Minor Index Terms | Show Relevancy Scores | Clear Selections

SUBJECT: JUSTICE DEPARTMENTS (91%); ATTORNEYS GENERAL (91%); POLITICAL PARTIES

(90%); FRAUD & FINANCIAL CRIME (90%); IDENTITY THEFT (90%); INVESTIGATIONS (90%); US
DEMOCRATIC PARTY (90%); US STATE GOVERNMENT (90%); CONTRACT AWARDS (87%); US
SOCIAL SECURITY (77%); US REPUBLICAN PARTY (77%); CAMPAIGNS & ELECTIONS (77%);
SOCIAL SECURITY (77%); GOVERNORS (73%); CONTRACTS & BIDS (71%); LARCENY & THEFT
(57%)

COMPANY: CONVERGYS CORP (55%)

TICKER: CVG (NYSE) (55%)

INDUSTRY: NAICS541512 COMPUTER SYSTEMS DESIGN SERVICES (55%); SIC7373 COMPUTER

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS DESIGN (55%); NAICS518210 DATA PROCESSING, HOSTING & RELATED
SERVICES (55%); SIC7374 COMPUTER PROCESSING & DATA PREPARATION & PROCESSING
SERVICES (55%)

PERSON: CHARLIE CRIST (96%)

GEOGRAPHIC: JACKSONVILLE, FL, USA (75%) FLORIDA, USA (92%); COLORADO, USA (79%);
KARNATAKA, INDIA (58%) INDIA (94%); UNITED STATES (92%); BARBADOS (79%); CHINA (79%)

LOAD-DATE: March 23, 2006

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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Copyright 2006 The Miami Herald

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