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                 Copyright 1994 Sentinel Communications Co.                    
                              THE ORLANDO SENTINEL                              
                                                                                
                          April  3, 1994 Sunday, 3 STAR                         
                                                                                
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A1                                                      
                                                                                
LENGTH: 2475 words                                                              
                                                                                
HEADLINE: TOXIC PAINT FOULUPS COULD COST MILLIONS, 
LEAVE KIDS AT RISK;  FAULTY TESTS MAY LEAVE HUNDREDS 
OF CHILDREN EXPOSED TO A POTENTIAL POISON.      
                                                                                
BYLINE: By Mark Vosburgh and Christopher Quinn of The Sentinel Staff            
                                                                                
 BODY:                                                                          
   Housing officials across Florida have spent thousands of dollars for  lead   
paint tests that have turned out to be wrong, and now they are set to spend tens
of millions more to remove toxic paint that doesn't exist.                      
                                                                                
   In other cases the faulty tests also have meant that  lead  paint has been   
missed, leaving children in some Florida public housing exposed to dangerous    
levels of a paint that was banned 16 years ago because of its potential health                                                                        
hazard.                                                                         
                                                                                
   An investigation by The Orlando Sentinel discovered the inaccurate tests and 
found two brothers at the center of the controversy.                            
                                                                                
   One brother gets jobs to test public housing projects for  lead -based paint,
then helps the housing authority choose a company to clean up the toxic paint.  
In case after case, he has reported finding dangerous levels of  lead  where    
there is none and then has steered costly cleanup work to a company owned by his
brother.                                                                        
                                                                                
   In the past four years the brothers have obtained contracts worth more than  
$1 million from Florida public housing authorities for this work and are in line
to receive much more business.                                                  
                                                                                
   For months, the U.S. government has looked the other way, even after being   
alerted about the inaccurate tests by three Florida housing authorities.        
Federal officials are charged with ensuring that hundreds of millions of dollars
allocated nationally for  lead  paint removal are spent responsibly.            
                                                                                
   Congress banned  lead  paint in 1978 because of its health risks. Once       
ingested, toxic levels of  lead  can cause brain damage and learning            
disabilities. Children are drawn to  lead  paint chips because of their sweet   
taste. They also are exposed to its dangers through  lead  paint dust.          
                                                                                
   The brothers say they have done nothing wrong and stand by their work.       
                                                                                
   The Sentinel hired a chemical lab to re-test at public housing projects in   
seven cities where one of the brothers was hired to conduct tests for the local 
housing authority and reported finding dangerous levels of  lead.  In every     
community sampled, there were significant discrepancies. In some cases, no      
 lead  was detected. In other cases, the lab found dangerous levels of  lead  in
only half the samples.                                                          
                                                                                
   The newspaper isn't alone in discovering the problem. Housing authorities in 
Jacksonville, Gainesville and Sarasota found that the brothers' tests are       
flawed. In those cities, as in the seven tested by the newspaper, subsequent    
tests show no  lead  where dangerous  lead  levels had been reported. More      
disturbing to the housing authorities, the inaccurate reports certified as clean
areas that are covered by  lead  paint.                                         
                                                                                
   In all, at least 26 cities from the Panhandle to South Florida are relying on
the reports.                                                                    
                                                                                
   In response to the Sentinel's findings, the U.S. Department of Housing and   
Urban Development last week began an investigation into the validity of the     
 lead  test results. A HUD engineer from Atlanta visited the state to collect   
information, and his report is due in 30 days.                                  
                                                                                
   The company under investigation is called Accutest Inc., a Miami-based       
business owned by David Mingus, 43.                                             
                                                                                
   Mingus said he is not colluding with his brother and that he does not profit 
from the work he steers to his brother.                                         
                                                                                
   "We are very comfortable in our position legally," he said.                  
                                                                                
   Mingus stands on his record and said he will assist any housing authority    
that wants to question it. As for recommending his brother to remove the paint, 
Mingus said he does so only when his brother is the most qualified bidder.      
                                                                                
   Mingus said the Sentinel and the housing authorities that have challenged his
 lead  tests may have used inferior forms of testing. He uses a hand-held X-ray 
machine that he aims at surfaces to detect the presence of  lead  by measuring  
light reflected off a painted surface. Mingus said he takes a paint sample to a 
lab when his results are unclear.                                               
                                                                                
   The testing company hired by the Sentinel, Flowers Chemical Laboratories of  
Altamonte Springs, is one of the state's largest labs. For its tests, it uses an
atomic absorption spectrophotometer, which reduces the paint to its atomic form 
to determine the  lead  content.                                                
                                                                                
   HUD allows housing authorities to use the hand-held tester. Its position,    
though, is that the spectrophotometer is far more effective than the X-ray      
instrument in determining  lead  in paint, though the X-ray machine is cheaper  
and portable.                                                                   
                                                                                
   The Sentinel hired Flowers after conducting its own preliminary checks using 
home  lead  test kits available in most home centers. The kits showed no  lead  
where Mingus reported finding  lead.  The newspaper then hired the lab to do a  
second, independent examination.                                                
                                                                                
   Flowers retested in the exact locations that Mingus had listed in reports    
filed with the housing authorities.                                             
                                                                                
   In three cities the lab found no evidence of  lead  in the paint. In the     
other four cities the lab found dangerously high levels of  lead  in only about 
half the samples.                                                               
                                                                                 
   Four of the Sentinel tests were in small Florida Panhandle towns. In         
Blountstown and Bonifay, Flowers took seven samples and found no  lead,  though 
Mingus had reported finding dangerous levels there. In Marianna, Flowers found  
 lead  in just three of six paint chips. And in Crestview, Accutest seemed to   
have better success. Only 25 percent of the tests didn't hold up; Flowers found 
 lead  in three of four paint chips.                                            
                                                                                
   It was in the late 1980s that HUD began pushing housing authorities to remove
the poisonous  lead  paint.                                                     
                                                                                
   About the same time, David Mingus came to Florida from Colorado Springs. He  
had spent a decade in construction after his glass installation business went   
bankrupt in 1979. His brother, Jonathan Mingus, 34, came to Florida a year or so
later, after his Denver roofing business went bankrupt in 1985.                 
                                                                                
   The brothers set up shop together as AQC Contracting Inc. of Miami and       
planned to go into the  lead  paint cleanup business. In 1991, David Mingus     
headed off on his own, deciding to get into  lead  testing. He bought Accutest  
from its Orlando founder.                                                       
                                                                                
   An early client was the Fort Pierce Housing Authority, which hired David     
Mingus to test five homes and two day-care centers. Accutest reported finding                                                                        
 lead  and then was paid an extra $7,500 to help select and supervise a cleanup 
company. Mingus chose his brother's company for the $100,000 job.               
                                                                                
   Clarence Brown, director of the Fort Pierce authority, said he always knew   
David Mingus would be overseeing his brother's work. Brown said he had some     
initial qualms about the relationship but felt better after the authority's     
lawyer approved the arrangement.                                                
                                                                                
   In early 1992, Brown hired Accutest again, paying $44,880 for  lead  paint   
tests in four projects where 380 families live. In one, Eldorado Terrace,       
Accutest found high levels of  lead  paint throughout the apartments.           
                                                                                
   The Sentinel, using home testing kits, found no dangerous paint on surfaces  
Mingus identified as tainted.                                                   
                                                                                
   In its followup tests, Flowers Labs took six paint samples there and found   
that none contained what is considered a dangerously high level of  lead.       
                                                                                
   "This is so maddening," said Jefferson S. Flowers, president of the lab.     
"There's more  lead  in your body than there is in that paint."                 
                                                                                                                                                           
   Based on the Accutest findings, HUD has committed $3.3 million to remove the 
 lead  paint Mingus found and to remodel the Eldorado Terrace apartments.  The  
contract has yet to be awarded. But the low bidder is Roma Construction Co., a  
business tied to Jonathan Mingus'  lead -abatement company, RCI Corp. of South  
Florida. Roma and RCI bid $3.9 million on the job, with Jonathan Mingus' company
set to work as a subcontractor in removing the paint.                           
                                                                                
   RCI shares some corporate officers with Roma. When RCI bids on work that     
involves construction, it does so through Roma, which is a licensed general     
contractor. Jonathan Mingus has no contractor's license, so he must submit bids 
through the other company.                                                      
                                                                                
   As David Mingus was overseeing Jonathan's work in Fort Pierce, Accutest won  
another contract in Palatka. Accutest reported finding  lead  on steel doors and
door frames in 71 homes.                                                        
                                                                                
   Larry Shoeman, head of the Palatka Housing Authority, was so happy with      
Accutest's work that he hired the firm as a consultant to select and oversee a  
cleanup company.                                                                
                                                                                
   Once again, a partnership between Jonathan Mingus' RCI and AQC - the Mingus  
brothers' construction company - was the low bidder.                            
                                                                                
   Shoeman, like Brown, knew David Mingus would oversee his brother and was     
worried about the arrangement. He asked HUD officials, who warned Shoeman to    
make sure the brothers were not officers or directors in each other's companies.
                                                                                
   If Shoeman had checked public records with the Florida Corporations Office,  
he would have learned that David Mingus was a corporate director of AQC. He did 
not. The result was that Palatka ended up paying David Mingus to vouchsafe the  
work of a company run by himself and his brother.                               
                                                                                
   David Mingus acknowledges that overseeing his brother's work appears         
inappropriate.                                                                  
                                                                                
   "It's very bad, actually, that he is doing the abatement and I am doing the  
consulting," he said.                                                           
                                                                                
   When he is a consultant evaluating bids from his brother, David Mingus said, 
he always discloses the family tie.                                             
                                                                                
   He said he did not profit from the Palatka cleanup.                          
                                                                                
   Fort Pierce and Palatka officials may have known about the Mingus family tie,
but the head of St. Petersburg's housing authority says he did not, at least    
not initially.                                                                  
                                                                                
   The relationship was one reason Ray Price says he "trashed" the $2.8 million 
 lead  cleanup contract. Price said he learned of the relationship              
"inadvertently," but would not explain how.                                     
                                                                                
   Records show that two years ago, after Accutest found  lead  in St.          
Petersburg's Jordan Park housing project, David Mingus was hired as a           
consultant. He drew up rules for cleanup companies and evaluated bids for the   
work. As part of the evaluation, he rejected the four lowest bidders.           
                                                                                
   The fifth-lowest bid was from Roma Construction and Jonathan Mingus' RCI.    
David Mingus recommended them as the most-qualified, but two of the rejected    
bidders claimed they were entitled to the work and threatened to sue. The       
contract was not awarded.                                                       
                                                                                
   David Mingus said he recommended his brother solely because he was the most  
qualified bidder. Jonathan Mingus said the authority's contract officer, Frank  
Harmon, knew about the family relationship.                                     
                                                                                
   Harmon left the authority last year and now works for Accutest, David Mingus'
company, as a manager.                                                          
                                                                                 
   Since then, the authority has hired Accutest to do comprehensive testing in  
Jordan Park. The previous tests were only in sample areas.                      
                                                                                
   Accutest began reporting the latest results in February. The Sentinel        
obtained those results, and Flowers took seven paint samples from surfaces in   
St. Petersburg that Accutest said were covered by  lead  paint. Only four were, 
according to Flowers' findings. The other three contained only small amounts of 
 lead  not considered dangerous by the U.S. government.                         
                                                                                
   Price, the St. Petersburg director, said he has built a safeguard into the   
latest tests. He has arranged with an independent agency to spot-check          
Accutest's findings in the next few months.                                     
                                                                                
   In Polk County, the community of Mulberry spent $27,000 from a federal grant 
to clean  lead  paint that Accutest identified. The money went to Jonathan      
Mingus' firm, the low bidder his brother recommended.                           
                                                                                
   Mulberry officials are applying for grants to clean up the rest of the       
dangerous  lead  that Mingus said is present in 27 homes. Accutest found  lead  
on 14 kinds of surfaces in Mulberry, including walls and attic doors.           
                                                                                
   Flowers sampled seven of those surfaces, all specifically identified as      
tainted by Accutest. Only three showed dangerous levels of  lead.               
                                                                                
   Earlier this year, as Accutest was helping Mulberry plan the rest of its     
cleanup, David Mingus was coming under fire in Jacksonville.                    
                                                                                
   There, public housing officials are preparing a lawsuit to recover at least  
$10,000 paid to Accutest. Carlos Cusatti, the housing authority's technical     
adviser, said Accutest's report was "worthless" because it showed  lead  where  
none exists and cited tainted areas as clean.                                   
                                                                                
   By the time follow-up tests revealed the problem, city officials already had 
awarded a $2.4 million contract to a company not affiliated with the Minguses to
clean  lead  paint.                                                             
                                                                                
   Jacksonville officials now worry that they are in the position of having     
awarded a contract to clean up paint that they know is  lead -free while leaving
dangerous paint behind.                                                         
                                                                                
   To prevent that, they spent an extra $20,000 to obtain new tests from an     
independent company and are awaiting a report.                                  
                                                                               
   But Accutest's inaccurate reports could cost the city hundreds of thousands  
of dollars for retesting and more extensive  lead  paint removal, said city     
officials who oversee public housing.                                           
                                                                                
   Mingus defends what has been going on by saying some of the  lead  test      
errors were typographical by clerks in preparing reports. He said in an         
interview that readouts from his  lead -testing machine are difficult to        
discern. Why did he certify his reports if the numbers were unclear? He had no  
response.                                                                       
                                                                                
   He blamed the Jacksonville errors on the condition of walls and surfaces in  
the housing projects. He said they were thick with paint or stripped, making it 
difficult to calibrate his machine.                                             
                                                                                
   Jacksonville has reported the inaccurate reports to HUD, which told the city 
to try and get its money back.                                                  
                                                                                
   Two other public housing agencies also have notified HUD of inaccuracies in  
Accutest's  lead -test reports.                                                 
                                                                                
   One was the Gainesville Housing Authority. It spot-checked Accutest results, 
finding  lead  in areas Mingus reported clear and clean areas that Mingus said  
were tainted. Accutest had tested 59 homes in five housing projects there.      
                                                                                
   Karen Godley, director of maintenance in Gainesville, said Mingus has been   
trying clear up the problems. She said some inaccuracies were based on          
Accutest's typographical errors. She said the company that spot-checked also    
made some clerical errors.                                                      
                                                                                
   In Sarasota, the housing authority told HUD in a stinging letter that        
Accutest failed to find  lead  on walls and stair rails. Another testing company
discovered the  lead  during a precautionary spot check.                        
                                                                                
   "It is the desire of the Sarasota Housing Authority to relay this information
such that the other authorities are aware that there could be a 'Quality        
Control' problem at Accutest," said the letter, by authority director Walter    
Brown.                                                                          
                                                                                
   Upon returning to Sarasota at the housing authority's request, Accutest      
confirmed that its tests were inaccurate.                                       
                                                                                
   Mingus said Sarasota officials, like those in Jacksonville, stopped talking  
to him. Brown told a different story. He said in an interview he is relying on  
Mingus' results for his five-year, $4.5 million plan to remove  lead  paint.    
He said his staff has assured him that Accutest's results are reliable.         
                                                                                
GRAPHIC: PHOTO 2:   Jefferson S. Flowers, president of Flowers Chemical         
Laboratories, and chemist Sandra Franco (above) weigh paint samples             
during testing. Chemist Lori Mangrum (right) treats  lead  molecules            
to determine the  lead  content of the paint at the Altamonte Springs           
lab. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development warned                
Palatka officials in a letter (below) to make sure the Mingus                   
brothers were not officers or directors of each others companies.               
Local officials did not make any checks and ended up paying David               
Mingus to oversee the work of a company run by himself and his                  
brother.   
                                                                     
JOHN RAOUX/SENTINEL                                                             
DRAWING:   (A cutout of a HUD warning to Palatka government                     
officials of the Mingus brothers)                                               
MAP:   Accutest cities                                                          
Accutest Inc. of Miami has tested for  lead -based paint at public              
housing authorities in 26 cities. The Sentinel found incorrect test             
reports in 7 cities:                                                            
1. Blountstown                                                                  
2. Bonifay                                                                      
3. Crestview