Four employees of the Connecticut Department of Correction (DOC) were issued a combined $3,900 in fines by the Office of State Ethics (OSC) in late 2025 and early 2026 following an internal department investigation and state audit that found DOC employees had abused hotel privileges paid for with federal COVID funds during the pandemic.
Through the Coronavirus Relief Fund, the DOC administered the Temporary Emergency Lodging Program (TELP), which paid for DOC employees who tested positive for COVID-19 to isolate in hotel rooms to limit spread of the virus. The pandemic saw thousands of DOC employees and inmates sickened, resulting in dozens of deaths.
The 2022 statewide audit of federal of funds provided through the Coronavirus Relief Fund revealed that an internal DOC investigation “disclosed various issues related to the program including double booking/billing, misuse, ineligible employees, employees who did not have a TELP form on file, as well as other misconduct,” according to the audit. The DOC investigation had already recovered tens of thousands from employees for “questionable costs.”
“The department did not limit the number of days it allowed employees to stay at participating hotels and did not develop a process for employees to certify their stay and confirm and verify that it agreed with the amount billed,” the audit stated. “As of March 2022, DOC identified approximately $116,225 in questioned costs related to the TELP cases, $40,293 which the department has recovered and $75,425 which is outstanding.”
The Office of State Ethics (OSE) found that DOC employees utilized the program to book hotel stays for themselves and family members and charge those stays to the TELP program without DOC approval. The program, according to the OSE, “was available only to DOC employees who were confirmed to be COVID-19 positive or suspected to be COVID-19 positive, and/or to DOC employees whose family members were self-quarantined or quarantined at the direction of a medical provider.”
In one instance, former DOC nurse Tamiki Jackson booked hotel stays to the TELP program while she was out on paid administrative leave; in another instance, Correction Officer Jose Prerez-Cesar racked up $18,000 in hotel costs for multiple hotels across the state, sometimes at two different hotels simultaneously and had his girlfriend and other friends and family at the hotels.
“Respondent’s hotel stays were taken for his own convenience and/or personal use and not for the purposes permitted by the Hotel program,” Ethics Enforcement Officer Mark Wasielewski wrote in the November 2025 consent order.
While Prerez-Cesar was fined $2,500 as part of his agreement with OSE, the three other DOC employees were fined either $400 or $500, totaling altogether $3,900 for utilizing the hotel program without authorization and having visitors to their hotel rooms when they were supposed to be quarantining.
The DOC investigation found that other DOC employees utilized the program for booking reservations for weddings, hotels for family members to live in full-time, booked multiple hotels simultaneously, charged many months’ worth of hotel stays to the program, and attempted to mislead investigators. The DOC recovered thousands from some of those employees, and some were disciplined, according to CT Mirror.
According to the OSE decisions, three of the four employees issued fines are no longer employed with DOC. However, other employees cited by DOC in their investigation either remain employed with the state or have retired with their pensions.
Duwyane Blocker and David Crenshaw were both cited for allegedly booking hotel stays for weddings using the TELP program. State records indicate Blocker retired and is receiving a $67,000 pension, while Crenshaw remains employed as a correction officer earning more than $100,000 in 2025.
Similarly, DOC Correction Officer Brian Cagle, who used the hotel program for himself and his family as a residence after ending his lease, earned over $155,000 in 2025 with more than half from overtime but appears to have left state service this year; Correction Officer Roberto Oliveras, cited for allegedly booking multiple hotel stays, including on New Years Eve, remains employed by DOC.
Although former DOC Commissioner Angel Quiros stated that he would refer these incidents to law enforcement if there was “any evidence of fraud,” according to CT Mirror, thus far, there appear to be no criminal convictions for any of the employees mentioned in this article or by OSE.
Billions in federal funds sent to states during the pandemic period proved ripe for abuse. Numerous individuals and companies have been convicted for defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program, designed to help keep small businesses afloat and paying employees during the pandemic; American Rescue Plan dollars were distributed by the Connecticut state government to numerous nonprofits, some of whom were connected to state lawmakers either through business or personal relationships.
The most recent audit of the DOC found the department had improperly paid more than $800,000 to employees on administrative leave pending investigations for wrongful conduct, including one employee who was on paid administrative leave for three and a half years. The audit spurred a hearing before the General Assembly’s new Committee on Government Oversight and the Judiciary Committee.
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