Halfway House Operator Charged in Wife’s Shooting

Glen Cornist, the controversial operator of a halfway house for state prisoners who has been dogged by legal problems, was arrested by San Diego police earlier this month on charges that he attempted to murder his former wife.

Cornist, the founder of Model Ex-Offenders Inc., surrendered to authorities on Oct. 7 and has been held in the downtown County Jail on $50,000 bail ever since, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Militza Durovic, who is prosecuting the case.

Durovic said Cornist is accused of shooting his estranged wife once in the back on Oct. 2 outside a Southeast San Diego restaurant where she was dining with friends. Barbara Cornist, 44, was treated at Paradise Valley Hospital and released the same night.

Durovic said she would seek life imprisonment if Cornist is convicted on the charge because he allegedly told his wife he intended to kill her before firing with a handgun.

Ordered to Serve in Program

Cornist, 47, made headlines last year when he hoodwinked a Municipal Court judge into sentencing him to a corrections program that he himself had founded. When Cornist pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol in August, 1986, Judge Thomas Gligorea placed him on probation and ordered him to serve 120 days in California Halfway Houses Inc., a now-defunct private work furlough program that Cornist incorporated.

“I think a fraud was perpetrated on me,” Gligorea said later, upon learning of Cornist’s connection to the facility. Gligorea, presiding judge of the Municipal Court’s South Bay branch, then sentenced Cornist to a 120-day jail term.

In addition to his former connection with California Halfway Houses, one of a handful of privately run jail alternatives in San Diego until it closed earlier this year, Cornist is the founder of Model Ex-Offenders, a re-entry program that opened in the 1970s and has a contract to house state prison inmates during the last 90 days of their term.

Harold White, deputy regional administrator for the state Parole Division, said the state has a $450,000 contract with the 40-bed Model Ex-Offenders program for this fiscal year, ending in June.

‘A Perceptual Problem’

In an interview, White said he was aware of Cornist’s arrest and that state officials would be evaluating the contract with Model Ex-Offenders.

“We understand he is having some personal problems but as of this point it has not had any direct effect on that operation,” White said. “Although he has been and still is listed as president, it does not seem like he has had any direct involvement in the day-to-day running of the program. . . . Still, there is concern about a perceptual problem in the community, so we will be investigating.”

A year ago, after Cornist was jailed for duping Gligorea, parole officials decided to allow Model Ex-Offenders to continue competing for the lucrative state contracts but pledged to take his continuing legal problems into consideration in the future.

Cornist will be arraigned in San Diego Superior Court on Nov. 9. Last week, a judge denied his request for bail reduction.