PORTLAND (AP) - A state prison food service administrator under federal investigation for alleged kickbacks also had been the target of inmate lawsuits over food quality, according to court records.

Fred Monem was placed on administrative leave after the kickback and bribery allegations surfaced in an affidavit filed by federal agents to support a search of his office, home and bank safe deposit box in Salem earlier this month.

No charges have been filed in the case and Monem's attorney said his client should be presumed innocent.

But the court documents allege Monem and his wife, Karen, accepted about $680,000 in kickbacks from companies that sold the state Department of Corrections millions of dollars' worth of food during the past five years.

The affidavit also detailed a lavish lifestyle, including frequent trips to Las Vegas, a $77,000 BMW and a golf club membership.

The FBI and federal prosecutors have declined to discuss the case, and the Monems have declined comment.

State prison officials say they were blindsided. “There was not a single red flag,” corrections Director Max Williams told The Oregonian last Friday.

Monem won praise for using special procurement rules to aggressively pursue distressed and bulk foods on the spot market. The savings have helped Oregon regularly rank among the lowest in the nation for per-inmate food costs.

The rules allowed Monem considerable flexibility, but corrections officials said there were checks. Purchases required at least two comparable price quotes to ensure against overpayment, for example. Exactly how wholesalers were able to charge prices high enough to cover the alleged kickbacks remains unclear.

The state will seek recovery if it turns out that food prices were artificially “jacked up,” Williams said.

Although Williams defended the program as a money saver, a national expert on the prison food industry told The Oregonian that buying distressed products is rare in state corrections.

“It's not a good practice, and you sometimes end up losing more than you get because it's usually just about to go out of date. It leaves you wide open for lawsuits as far as inmates go,” said Barbara Holly, past president of the Association of Correctional Food Service Affiliates and the former food service administrator for Alabama's prison system.

The newspaper found that Monem has been named in multiple inmate lawsuits and has been the target of complaints about green bologna, moldy hamburger and food cartons reportedly marked “bait fish only.”

Williams insisted that “quality is not an issue” for the meals the state serves its 13,333 prisoners. Meanwhile, his agency is cooperating with federal officials by turning over documents and making employees available for interviews in an investigation that appears limited to Monem, he said.

Monem, 48, fled his native Tehran in 1979 to avoid mandatory military service, according to the newspaper. He owned and operated three family-style restaurants in California as he began his career in the food services industry, and later took his first job in prison food as supervisor for the now-defunct Service America Corp.

Monem helped oversee food service contracts at more than a dozen jails and prisons in Washington, California and Nevada. In 1991, as Oregon prepared to open the newly built Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario, the firm won a contract to handle inmate meals.

State officials were so impressed with Monem's efficiency and “ability to wheel and deal” they eventually hired him away in January 1996, and he moved into his current job in September of that year, according to corrections spokeswoman Perrin Damon.

Neighbors of Monem in Salem, Mark and Dorothy Graham, said they first heard about the kickback allegations when the FBI knocked on their door Jan. 10.

Mark Graham is a food inspector with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and said he is assigned to inspect processing plants and slaughterhouses. His job has “absolutely no connection” to the allegations against the Monems, he said.

But Graham and his wife were investment partners with the Monems, forming Leisure Quest Investments in 2002 to buy and lease real estate as a retirement investment. Property records show that Leisure Quest owns homes in Salem, Keizer and South Beach.

“We never knew where the (Monems') money came from,” Mark Graham said. “They didn't tell us any of their business.”