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It’s not that they don’t believe in second chances, but $44 million is a lot of money.

While they were happy that the contract was taken from Dismas House — the longtime residential reentry nonprofit that became known in recent years for the millions of dollars its board members siphoned off the contract — there were questions raised about the new nonprofit that won the contract.

Exodus Reentry Villages was founded in 2020 by Thomas Utterback. He was a St. Louis-area lawyer until he was convicted of money laundering in a drug case in the late 1990s. He served his time, even going through Dismas House. When the reentry program came up for bid, Utterback put together a team to try to win the contract.

On paper, it was an impressive enough team. But it appears the Bureau of Prisons didn’t look beyond the paper. For instance, in his proposal, Utterback said that the former longtime head of the St. Louis federal probation office, Doug Burris, would be on his board. Burris has advised Utterback but is not on his board.

In fact, Burris wrote a letter supporting another bidder for the contract, a coalition led by the nonprofit Criminal Justice Ministry and St. Louis University. That group also includes the nonprofit Magdala Foundation and Center for Women in Transition.

Utterback’s initial proposal was for the new residential facility to move to an old school in Wellston, but that fell through. When the contract was awarded last fall, he planned to put the facility in the former Little Sisters of the Poor building in north St. Louis.

But now that deal has fallen through, as well.

“We could have been ready by the March 1 deadline,� says John Brencick. He owns the Little Sisters building, which had been operating as a homeless shelter during the pandemic. “But it didn’t materialize.�

Brencick declined to say what happened to Utterback’s plans, but he has been in contact with the Criminal Justice Ministry team, which operates state prison reentry programs, to see if it would be interested in the building, should the BOP reopen bidding.

That’s what Thomas Casey, executive director of Criminal Justice Ministry, hopes will happen.

“CJM and our partners remain committed to assisting the formerly incarcerated to successfully return to the community,� Casey said. “We look forward to learning the BOP’s intentions for a reentry center in St. Louis and opportunities to participate in its success.�

For now, BOP isn’t saying what comes next. A spokesman from the federal agency declined comment. Dismas House said in a statement that it believes its contract will be extended because of the Exodus problems.

And Utterback? He’s still going full steam ahead, he says: “As far as I know, we still have the contract.�

He says he’s back to looking at a vacant public school as a possible site, this time an unnamed one in the city.

To date, Utterback hasn’t listed board members of his nonprofit with the Secretary of State. Utterback has added another ex-con to his team who wasn’t mentioned in his proposal to BOP: Mark Repking, a former Illinois banker convicted of falsifying documents in an embezzlement case.

One of Utterback’s board members, former St. Louis County Executive Gene McNary, believes Exodus “is still on course.� But another one, John Bowman, head of the St. Louis County NAACP, says the delays are troublesome.

“I’m a little bit concerned with some of the snafus,� Bowman said.

More than $44 million in federal dollars are at stake. The last nonprofit board that won that contract used millions of those dollars to line family members’ pockets with exorbitant salaries. The new nonprofit that won the contract can’t seem to keep its promises. Meanwhile, the experienced reentry nonprofits that were lining up to do the hard and important work of helping former federal detainees integrate back into the community sit on the sidelines, wondering what’s going on.

It’s no wonder the Bureau of Prisons has nothing to say.