Nutter taps ex-con for prisoner re-entry office

Mayor Nutter yesterday appointed a former deputy mayor who spent three years in prison for aggravated assault to head the office for ex-offenders.

Ronald Cuie, a deputy mayor under Mayor Ed Rendell before he was arrested in 1999, will serve as director of the Mayor's Office for the Reentry of Ex-Offenders, which helps former convicts get back into the workforce.

"Addressing this issue is a legitimate part of a crime reduction strategy," Nutter said during a news conference. "If we're going to seriously reduce crime in this city we have to bolster our efforts with re-entry services."

Nutter has already created a program to provide $10,000 tax credits to employers who hire ex-offenders. That legislation was introduced by Councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr. and passed by City Council late last year.

Nutter stressed that jobs are the key to keeping ex-offenders from returning to criminal behavior. He said the city will also hire former prisoners.

"I will not ask [businesses] to do anything that we are not prepared to do ourselves," he said.

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who joined Nutter at the news conference, said he plans to announce federal legislation next week that would create a pilot program modeled after the Philadelphia tax-credit effort.

"When people who are ex-convicts come back to the community, they don't find jobs," Specter said.

Specter said his pilot program would provide $10,000 credits, like the Philadelphia program.

"I'm delighted to join with Mayor Nutter on a very important program," he said.

Cuie said he was honored to accept the new position.

"I'm just tremendously humbled with this opportunity," he said. "Our cultural fabric has been torn and damaged, and it needs to be repaired."

Cuie was a deputy mayor for Rendell and a deputy managing director for former Mayor W. Wilson Goode Sr. He saw his life go off the rails in 1999 due to a drug and alcohol addiction.

After a week-long binge, he brutally beat an acquaintance, bound him with duct tape and tortured him afterwards, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer report.

Cuie was convicted of robbery, aggravated assault, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment and criminal conspiracy. He served more than three years in prison.

During that time, he worked with correctional staff to develop ways to better rehabilitate inmates. Since his release, Cuie has worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole and other agencies on reentry efforts.

Cuie said that under Nutter the city has more tools to help ex-offenders.

"We have more to work with," he said.

Nutter said former Mayor W. Wilson Goode headed the interview team to find the director of the re-entry office. *