TDCJ Prison Volunteer Banned

[Manny Cuellar]

TEXAS-TDCJ

Prison volunteer banned after admitting improper relationships with ex-cons
By Mike Ward

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

The founder of the nationally acclaimed Prison Entrepreneurship Program has abruptly resigned after she was banned from entering state prisons for having improper relationships with four ex-convicts who graduated from her program.

In a letter to supporters, Catherine Rohr, 32, who founded the Houston-based program five years ago, acknowledged that "mistakes in my personal life involved inappropriately close relationships with four free men who were also PEP graduates."

Catherine Rohr started program for prisoners.

Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said Thursday that Rohr was banned last week from prisons and from work with parolees after investigators confirmed she had "engaged in inappropriate behavior."

"Our policies are clear: Volunteers cannot have personal or intimate relationships with current or former offenders," Lyons said.

Prison officials said they are investigating whether Rohr had inappropriate relationships with any convicts still in prison or any still on parole. They said she acknowledged only two improper relationships to investigators in an interview two weeks ago.

Rohr, a former Wall Street venture capitalist, had been widely credited with training felons in how to start businesses and become successful once they left prison.

Rohr recruited support from Fortune 500 companies and executives, and her claimed successes had made headlines in Texas Monthly, The New York Times, "NBC Nightly News" and other national news outlets since she started the program at age 27.

Touting her strong Christian faith, she had appeared as a speaker at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit two years ago that was televised across the nation, including to a large church audience in Austin.

In a recent interview with The Dallas Morning News, Rohr explained how she made convicts give up their gangster nicknames for new ones such as "Peaches" and "Honey Bear," as part of the program's regimen to emphasize how different their new focus was from their old one of crime.

To date, about 500 ex-cons, including drug dealers, murderers and gang leaders, have graduated from the program, prison officials said. Fifty-nine reportedly had launched companies. More than 95 percent had been successful, Rohr said on the program's Web site.

Rohr could not be reached for comment, but in a letter to supporters she attributed the lapse to "the darkest period in my life, resulting from my divorce in December 2008."

"I took emotional comfort in released graduates — the easiest people for me to relate to through my failures — which led to inappropriately close relationships," Rohr wrote.

She said she revealed her mistakes only a month ago to the entrepreneurship program's board.

"I realize that I have destroyed much of the credibility that I worked so hard to earn with you," she wrote. "I am so remorseful for my poor choices and the negative consequences of my actions. While serving PEP wholeheartedly as a consultant, I hope to have the opportunity to earn back your confidence."

Brad Livingston, the prison system's executive director, said in a letter Wednesday to program officials that if Rohr continues "in any capacity ... TDCJ will be forced to terminate the PEP program."

Lyons said the investigation began after the agency received an anonymous letter. She said Rohr was banned from visiting prisons because "inappropriate relationships between volunteers and offenders compromise the safety of the volunteers, staff, and the overall security of the facility. Volunteers are trained extensively before entering units on what is considered appropriate conduct."