Politically connected counselors in spotlight
ELECTION INVESTIGATION: Counseling service has lucrative contracts
NWI Times
Jan 29, 2004
nwitimes.com/news/state-and-regional/politically-connected-counselors-in-spotlight/article_cb4c48ed-03c5-5371-bb11-89673a89ec0c.html
HAMMOND -- North Township trustee office employees gathered Wednesday at the Briar East strip mall to hear about the virtues of diversity in the workplace.
It was one of the mandated visits to the Addiction and Family Care, which some township employees claim degenerate into pointless games, mood music and massages intended to make them sensitive, caring public servants -- all on the public's dime.
The value of these training sessions isn't lost on Robert Cantrell, who is paid to bring these and hundreds of others through the doors of the counseling service owned by Nancy Fromm.
Cantrell is a former East Chicago Republican chairman, a political adviser to many Democratic Party figures and the apparent focus of a joint state and federal investigation into public corruption and vote fraud.
Together Cantrell and Fromm have massaged enough local government entities to create a flourishing market for the counseling service.
The services' centers in Hammond and Merrillville calm stressed-out government employees and offer advice to substance abusers incarcerated the Lake County work release center in Crown Point and drunken drivers referred by Lake Superior Court and municipal judges around the county.
Former Schererville Town Judge Deborah Riga; Hammond City Judge Jeffrey Harkin; County Sheriff Roy "Rogelio" Dominguez; Lake Superior Court Division Julie Cantrell, Robert Cantrell's daughter; and Lake Station City Judge Kristina Kantar, a former employee of Julie Cantrell, have all steered business to Fromm.
Fromm was briefly in the running to obtain a lucrative contract to provide counseling to Lake County Jail inmates, but the sheriff said Wednesday she has dropped out of that bidding.
Dominguez and county commissioners awarded her an $84,000 contract last year to counsel inmates in the sheriff's work-release center.
"She works with compassion and does a good job for us," the sheriff said.
Even Fromm's critics say she provides excellent services in the field of substance abuse.
Although Indiana State Police investigators questioned North Township employees about Cantrell and Fromm, it's business as usual for Fromm. She said no investigators have visited her.
Fromm said she's troubled by the reports the agency has been drawn into the investigatory limelight.
"I don't want people to think this agency has done something wrong."
Cantrell "brought in business," she said. He was paid for each person referred to the agency and for the amount of money each respective counseling services contract brought in.
"I just wrote out his W-2," Fromm said, declining to cite the amount.
Cantrell did not return a call seeking comment.
Fromm is a licensed clinical social worker and a master's level drug and alcohol counselor.
She also is the daughter of political sophisticates from Hammond, John and Donnabelle Mahoney. She assisted in campaign efforts to elect Thomas McDermott Jr. as mayor of Hammond, along with Robert Cantrell. She also had aligned herself with Riga, who lost her job following an absentee voting fraud investigation.
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