Armed and unarmed guards at 10 Philadelphia Housing Authority facilities and at the Navy Yard business center weren’t paid by a PHA contractor for weeks this summer, and some are still trying to collect thousands of dollars each from their then-employer Sovereign Security LLC.
PHA renewed Sovereign’s two-year contract for a third year in May, despite complaints from workers about late and bounced paychecks and a refusal by some banks, credit unions and check-cashers to cash Sovereign checks because of the company’s payment practices.
At least 50 Sovereign workers staffed PHA sites, which are also patrolled by PHA’s own police and security staff, records show. Three other firms also supply PHA with contract guards.
PHA canceled Sovereign’s contract on July 9, giving owner Richard D. Cottom two days to stop work and file final reports. The letter states that PHA and its property management unit had determined “that it is in the best interest” of the agencies to terminate Sovereign, according to records obtained by a Right to Know request.
Records show PHA had warned Cotton that “it has come to the attention” of PHA that Sovereign “may be delinquent in paying its employees in a timely manner,” that late payment was “a breach of the contract,” and that it is “imperative” to ensure guards are paid and show up. The letter was dated Jan. 27, 12 days after The Inquirer first reported the late payments.
But PHA renewed the contract anyway.
Cottom, a former Drexel University vice president who started Sovereign in 2004, didn’t respond to calls, emails or visits to his Center City offices. Guards say staff stopped responding to their inquiries in July. A $1,000 donor to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s successful 2023 election campaign, Cottom served as vice chair of the Montgomery County Community College Foundation board from 2015 until recently.
While Sovereign’s contract, like other city contracts, requires the firm to adhere to employment laws, PHA executive vice president Nichole L. Tillman said the agency considered wage issues a matter between the contractor and its employees.
Guards have turned to legal action to try to get paid. John Crawford, a former guard at PHA’s Nellie Reynolds Gardens, an apartment building on West Glenwood Avenue, quit Sovereign last spring after his checks were repeatedly late and hard to cash. He filed a complaint in small claims court to get back his $150 uniform deposit. On July 2, two weeks before his scheduled hearing and the week before PHA fired the company, Crawford received his money from Sovereign, plus $100.25 to cover his court fee.
Others are owed far more.
“I don’t know what to do,” said Robert Livingston, who worked as a Sovereign guard at the Navy Yard, where he wasn’t paid for the last six weeks before the company lost its contract there in July. He said he is owed $6,000.
“I owe my rent,” said Livingston, a North Philly resident. “I went to their office” in the Wells Fargo office tower on South Broad Street. “They won’t let me upstairs. I call, no one answers. The only guy I knew there would ever pick up the phone, they fired him” in July.
“The last check I got was dated June 23, but I continued working ‘til July 11, and they owe me four weeks. That’s about $1,400,″ said Daniel Baynes, a guard at Mount Olivet Village in West Philadelphia.
He said PHA replaced Sovereign at his site with another guard service, Ingage, which “hired me on the spot.” His former supervisor told guards he had been assured they would be paid July 14, and some showed up to the company’s office, “but it was a lie.” No one was in the office.
“They owe us five weeks’ pay,” said Shirell Williams, a guard most recently assigned by Sovereign to the Navy Yard, who now works there for PChange Protective Services, a Maryland-based guard contractor that took over her station. Her husband, who worked at a PHA development in West Philly, is still looking for a job.
“PHA doesn’t care,” she said. “They say they paid Sovereign. ‘Get Sovereign to pay you.’” But at Sovereign, “no one answers emails, no one answers voicemails, nothing.”
Josh Rubinsky, a Center City-based labor lawyer, said he’s helping to file guards’ unemployment claims and signed up an initial 15 clients for a class-action complaint he’s drafting for violation of Pennsylvania’s wage payment collection and minimum-wage acts.
Rubinsky said Sovereign, its owners and employer clients could potentially be liable, not only for back pay, but also for penalties of 25% on unpaid wages, plus 25% of each of the checks that weren’t paid as of scheduled paydays, paid later than the company’s promised paydays, and for lawyer fees. In some cases, he said, unpaid wages can trigger criminal prosecution.
The guards at PHA facilities were paid $16 an hour or $18 if they were firearms-certified and armed. That’s roughly half the $29 to $38 an hour Sovereign collected from PHA.
“The way they went about it, it was crazy,” said Karon “Ron” Jones, a former Sovereign armed guard who worked at PHA’s South Philly data center for $18 an hour until he left in May.
Jones said PHA’s own security officials “were well aware” of the company’s late and missing paychecks but told guards the agency “couldn’t control” the contractor’s payment practices. He collected his late paychecks in early July, six weeks after he left, after filing a complaint with Pennsylvania labor officials. He said he is still owed vacation pay and his uniform deposit.
Navy Yard business center managers say security there is contracted to Allied Universal, the formerly Conshohocken-based giant, with 800,000 employees. Allied Universal hired Sovereign and other guard providers as subcontractors at the Navy Yard.
Sovereign founder Cottom began his career as a security guard at SpectraGuard, a predecessor of Allied Universal. Allied Universal also used Sovereign guards at Philadelphia Gas Works until it was replaced in 2024 and its successor terminated Sovereign. Allied Universal didn’t respond to inquiries.