Yesterday, Dr. Liane Leedom wrote that “false beliefs about sociopaths are very dangerous.” She quoted a judge who said:
“Well I tell you, the world is full of productive sociopaths. Some of them hold high public office. Some of them are lawyers. It could be that a couple of them are judges, and sociopathy by itself is not necessarily a dangerous condition. It can be productive. I think it was Clarence Darrow who commented on that”¦”
Today I’d like to present a case to prove her point.
Over the last 10 days, the Philadelphia Inquirer has been reporting about Carl Greene, the executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA).
The agency Green heads is the city’s biggest landlord, providing housing to 81,000 low-income residents. The PHA has a budget of $345 million per year, funded by the federal government, and 1,150 employees.
Greene, who was hired in 1998, currently earns $306,000 per year. But 10 days ago, it was revealed that his $615,000 townhouse was in foreclosure, and he owed the IRS $52,000 in back taxes.
And, one of his former employees has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. The woman says Greene promised her a promotion, if she submitted to his sexual advances.
Greene’s tenure
Here’s where the “productive sociopath” comes in.
Before Greene was hired, the PHA had a history of waste, fraud and abuse. Greene turned the agency around, and it’s now considered to be a major success. Public housing high rises—magnets for drugs and crime—have been demolished and replaced by townhouses. Complaints about Section 8 housing have disappeared.
But here’s what else has been going on during Greene’s tenure:
• Since 2004, six women have filed complaints against Greene with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging sexual harassment, verbal abuse, retaliation, and sex discrimination. (Greene denies them.)
• Greene spent $1 million over the last two years for outside public relations experts, even though the agency has an in-house spokesperson.
• Four times a year, for the last several years, the PHA staff, outside lawyers and consultants were expected to pay up to $150 each for dinners at expensive restaurants in honor of Greene. According to the Inquirer,
There was an annual party to celebrate Greene’s birthday, one to mark his anniversary with the agency, another to laud his accomplishments, and, at Christmas, a breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Those gatherings were small compared with the bash PHA put together for Greene’s 10th anniversary on April 11, 2008. Hundreds of vendors, attorneys and “friend[s] of PHA” received letters asking them to donate $1,000 to $5,000 to Tenant Support Services Inc., a PHA nonprofit on which Greene has been a board member.
• In 2002, an audit by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development described Greene as a “demanding supervisor” who drove “a number of executive personnel” to quit.
• Employees say he’s created a culture of “fear and intimidation” at the PHA.
Transformation
What’s really strange about this case is how, back in 1998, Ed Rendell, then mayor of Philadelphia and now governor of Pennsylvania, worked so hard to hire Carl Greene. At the time, Greene was head of the Detroit Housing Commission, and one of his employees had accused him of sexual harassment. At first Greene turned down the Philadelphia job, but then accepted it. According to the Inquirer, he signed a three-year contract with an amazing stipulation:
If he were found liable of sexual harassment in Detroit, PHA could fire him – but would still have to pay the balance of his contract, then worth $160,000 a year.
“One simple reason,” Rendell said last week, when asked about that clause. “When I took over as chair of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, it was perhaps the worst public-housing authority in the nation. . . . I don’t think it’s an understatement to say now that PHA is the best in the nation.”
The transformation is due to Greene, whose work “has been stunning,” Rendell said. “He has done more to improve the lives of poor Philadelphians than anyone I know.”
Bloody daggers
Money problems, sexual harassment, self-promotion, and a management style based on bullying—Carl Greene sounds like a classic sociopath. Here’s what an Inquirer columnist wrote about him:
The rap on Greene was, and is, that he’s an effective egomaniac. A vicious visionary, a determined developer, a brutal boss ”¦ Politicians and advocates learned to accommodate the two Carls because he controlled zillions in federal money and the fate of the city’s most vulnerable residents.
In other words, according to his supporters, Carl Greene was getting the job done. If a few folks got steamrolled in the process, well, that was just collateral damage that they really didn’t want to know about.
When all these troubles came to light, what did Greene do? First, he disappeared—for several days, no one knew where he was. When he did talk to the media, he apologized for his personal failings.
He also said, “People with bloody daggers are doing whatever they can to finish me off.”
UPDATE:
Cost to settle sex-harassment cases against Philadelphia Housing chief near $900,000 on Philly.com.
In 2003, PHA planned to solicit big contractors on Philly.com.
Former Housing and Urban Development director ‘not surprised’ by Carl Greene’s troubles on Philly.com.
hens
Hopeforjoy – Your spathy rules describes them to a T..I love #4 how funny but true and #8 that’s the one that causes ‘cognitive disonance’ in their victims..One thing I can say about my X is he did work but with a history of only lasting about 3 years or less at each job, I think it was boredom or his fellow employees ran him off, and he did have sex on the job with women and men, thats why he had no problem getting these women co- workers to drive 30 miles out of their way to pick him up and take him to work then back home, on the days I wasnt driving his sorry ass back and forth..I asked him one time if he helped pay the gas when Betty Boop or Fugly Turner gave him a ride and he looked at me so confused like well no..Oh it all makes sense now, the old hag across the road would walk down my driveway and if she saw my truck she would turn around and leave, I said Hon – I wonder whats that all about? I dunno he would say as he looked up from the computer..and the fights the old hag was having with her husband I could here her screamin OH I am sorry…sounded like her husband was about to kill her, I felt so sorry for her I once thot of calling 911 because the husband was screamin so loud. I said Hon Can you here them fighting? He would go get in bed and cover up his head with a blanket – Oh my I was so stupid..Well I thot he was gay, he sure seemed to be to me..little did I know he is not gay but screwsexual…Oh I could go on and on and on and on with his spathisodes..Not to mention the time he dissapeared at Ross Dress For Less for 45 minutes when I was xmas shopping , and the male floor clerked dissapeared at the same time… I remember the look ‘we’ got from the clerk when we went in – Oh I am so stupid – excuse me was so stupid,,,funny how he could lie to me and even with concrete evidence he could convince me I was crazy and I would sometimes end up opologizing for doubting him….wheewh where did all this come from I was just going to say I liked the spathy list…
hens
Hopeful Hopeforjoy I get the two of you confused but I like both of ya..sorry..
hopeful6596
Hens~
i like that you are using the word I have contributed to LF–spathisodes. Okay, so I’m proud of myself. I feel witty. 🙂
You just had me bustin’ out! Betty Boop and Fugly Turner? Bwahahahahah! Hens, it’s sounds like it was just terrible. And you are not stupid expecting that the person you are with has the same genuine motivations. These people are SO sick, that before we know it, we DON’T know it, because most people aren’t required to wrap their brains around that level of sickness. So cut yourself some freakin’ slack eh?
Ya know what I think is interesting? I’ve heard many times–and you mention in your post about your X being with both men and women–that Spaths (not all) don’t care who they are sexual with. This is very interesting because there had been a couple of times where something the Spath said made me wonder if he was gay, even though he is the big, strong, athletic man. Before I knew he was a liar/womanizer, he was planning a trip to Burning Man and he brought up the issue of monogamy and said that he would make sure he didn’t put himself in any positions where it may be hard to resist temptation. He then asked, flippantly, if I would be less jealous (or something like that), if he were with a man. Um…excuse me? Now, I have no problem whatsoever if someone is gay or bisexual or whatever–but I believe that one should be clear with their sexual partner. With that said, I asked him if he had ever been, and he said no but….I wonder. There have been other things too where I’ve wondered. So, I wonder how many here on LF have thought the same about their Spath
hopeful6596
Everyone!!
Perhaps I should change my username since there are two hopefuls? I can understand the confusion. What do you think?
hopeful6596
Ox Drover
NaH, DON’T CHANGE it, It got to be a fad around here to change names for a while and it was utterly confuuuuzin!
There is HOPE=FULL and HOPE-4 we ought to be able to keep that straight.
hens
Dont change your name hopeful6596 just give me sometime and I will get it figured out..and I bet you a donut your X was screwsexual..just as Donna has said before – sociopaths will screw anything. And dont ever be fooled by the big strong butch athletic men not being gay..specially those that cant pass a mirror with out striking a pose or checking their hair..Anyway I think number 8 on the list triggered me – LMAO – I have tried to maintain some kind of affection for this pond scum frog turd of a guy – but as I reflect on the total disbelief of him and MYSELF it has become so f–ing evident that he is 100% certified con artist – I dont want to say hate because I dont, that would take an effort…I am also reflecting on how insane I must of sounded telling the few people about his spathisodes, I remember them lust looking away from me like I was a crazy pitiful screwed up guy…I did have my smear campaign on him I smeared the truth ..but here I no I am believed..
one/joy_step_at_a_time
hopeforjoy – the neurofeedback is helping. we did a bit too much the last three times and it slayed me for a day each time. I’ll have her cut back tomorrow; i don’t want to be overwhelmed by my healing…that just reinforces ‘overwhelmed’ as acceptable, and i need to ‘practice’ underwhelmed in my life.
the flash backs have gotten a bit more intense (as predicted by the PTSD shrink), but i have less emotional reaction to them…i can ride them a more than them riding me…can stay with them and examine the experience, and deconstruct it. that is a measure of self control i didn’t have before. 🙂
i am making progress, but i still want her dead. maybe even more so. there is a pretty big flame of anger burning. may it someday burn itself out and leave me with peace.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
um hens, what does a frog turd look like?
oh okay, i googled it…EWWWWWW!
hopeful6596
Hens and Oxy-
okay, I won’t change it…but I was kinda gettin’ excited to change it to Smellsofsunflowers. Pretty, eh?
Hen–yep, I bet you’re right, but I love donuts so much, I’ll take the bet if there’s even the slightest chance of winning one! 😀
And Hens, I know how hard that must have been/be for you. When we’ve been betrayed in such a way, we wanna shout it from the flippin’ roof tops. But, many people just haven’t had an experience with a Spath, so they cannot possibly relate. And I know that in my experience, that when you HAVE had an experiences with these F***tards, even if you try and tell people, the issue is so emotionally charged for us and we SO WANT people to understand WHO this person IS and what they did and are capable of doing—I think sometimes my intensity has been offputting—I don’t know. Maybe I’m just projecting, but my point is, that people don’t seem to really get it. They usually just want to think someone is a garden-variety jerk–no big deal.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
hopeful6596 – they are predators and opportunists. will do anyone to get what they want.
what he said was ” i am going to burning man to F*** other people. it may be women or men..don’t know until i found out what they have that i want.” it just sounded like something else.