Former Philly Convention Center CFO sues, alleging patronage

Correction published Nov. 3:

The Inquirer erred Saturday in reporting a certain allegation in a federal court lawsuit against the Convention Center and its top executive, Ahmeenah Young.

The Inquirer additionally erred in quoting Riley on Saturday as saying that the law firm Reed Smith had investigated virtually all of Apollo's lawsuit allegations on behalf of the board. Riley said Wednesday that Reed Smith consulted with the board, which did its own investigation.

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A former top official at the Convention Center alleges in a federal lawsuit that her boss, chief executive officer Ahmeenah Young, operated the billion-dollar facility as a patronage trough, steering a cleaning contract to a friend, using a credit card as a "personal piggy bank" for political events, and even stealing food.

Madeline Apollo, who was paid $213,000 a year as chief financial officer before being fired in September 2010, comes across in a 39-page legal complaint as personally angry at Young, with whom she often butted heads.

But she also raises serious allegations that former board chairman Thomas A. "Buck" Riley helped direct "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in "secret legal fees" to his personal law firm in Exton, and then "rubber-stamped" the bills himself.

Riley, in an interview Friday night, denied that his firm had done any work for the Convention Center or received any payments. "Not a nickel, nothing," he said.

He said "virtually all" of the allegations in Apollo's lawsuit, Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, were investigated on the board's behalf by an outside law firm, Reed Smith, before her firing. Her claims, he said, were found to be invalid.

Riley specifically defended Young, a longtime ally of State Rep. Dwight Evans who became president and CEO in 2008. He called her "one of the most respected business people in Philadelphia.'

Apollo contends that she was "wrongly terminated for attempting to protect the integrity of the Convention Center's operations and finances."

Her suit says Young - along with Riley and board vice chairman Carl E. Singley, a former Temple law school dean - helped cover up misconduct.

She cites a 2010 bidding process on a contract worth several million dollars for cleaning services at the center.

Team Clean, the company selected to do the work, was run by a friend of Young's, Donna Allie, she said.

Allie - whom Apollo also calls a friend to Singley and Evans - was not the required low bidder, the suit contends. Apollo says Young blocked her effort to look into the financial resources and work histories of all the bidders, to see who could handle such a large job.

When she raised objections to Team Clean's getting the contract, she says, Young overruled her. Instead, Apollo says, Young called an "emergency meeting and insisted that this contract be immediately awarded."

Not only wasn't Team Clean the lowest bidder, Apollo says, it was "one of the highest."

The suit additionally claims that Young dismissed Apollo's objections to "at least $1 million" in public money being spent on a party to open the Convention Center addition. It says Young stole food for "private parties." It also alleges that a Convention Center credit card was used for political fund-raising parties.

Apollo, who is white, paints a picture of a workplace in which being both black and female counted.

She says Young declined to discipline a Convention Center vice president, Stephanie Boyd, who she alleges made a racially insensitive remark.

She says Boyd demanded of another African American woman, "How black are you?", and then added, "Don't you know that black women are running the Convention Center . . .?"

"Stephanie Boyd's 'how black are you' comment was significant because the Convention Center was then defending several legal charges that had been previously brought by other Convention Center employees against her," the lawsuit contends.

Neither Young nor Boyd could not be reached for comment Friday. Carolyn P. Short, a lawyer for the Convention Center, said in a statement that Apollo raised "numerous false and meritless allegations." Those "baseless claims" would be aggressively fought in court, Short said.

Singley, in an interview, said Apollo was a disgruntled ex-employee attempting to cash in financially.

He said Apollo felt passed over when Young was named CEO after the exit of the former boss, Albert Mezzaroba.

"She, from the beginning, resented that she did not get the job," Singley said.

Apollo became so obsessed with Young's leadership, he said, that she and another employee - the technology director - secretly installed security cameras outside Young's office, the board room, and the human resources office.

Singley said that was one of the issues the board investigated before Apollo was let go.