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Pinellas Investigates Inmate Abuse Allegation

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 29, 2007

LARGO - Deputies were suspected of making a Pinellas County Jail inmate urinate on himself, according to documents released Wednesday.

In June, Jeffrey Faulk was arrested on drunken driving charges. At the jail, he was left strapped in a chair for more than two hours while detention deputies repeatedly pushed buttons that flushed a floor drain in his holding cell, according to internal affairs documents.

Sgt. Thomas Mahoney, one of the detention deputies investigated, resigned this month on the day before the incident was to go before an administrative review board, the documents say. On June 9, Mahoney pushed the drain buttons eight times between 12:50 a.m. and 3:43 a.m., the documents say.

Detention Deputy Christopher Turcotte, who flushed the drain twice during that almost three hours, received a five-day suspension to be served next month, the documents say. Detention Cpl. Ryan Key, who flushed it once, received a one-day suspension to be served next month.

Three other deputies - Cpl. Joseph Shwallon, and deputies Armando Mirelez and Joseph Sigmund - were reprimanded. They did not push the drain button, but their reports on the incident were contradicted by a video documenting it, the documents say.

Mahoney, Turcotte and Key also were disciplined for their reports not jibing with the video. Turcotte also failed to report the hazardous floor condition to his supervisor and was less than candid to internal affairs investigators about pushing the button, documents say.

In his resignation, Mahoney did not allude to the internal affairs investigation; rather, he said in a resignation memorandum that he had a chronic spinal injury, documents say.

The inmate, Jeffrey Faulk, was taken to the jail on drunken driving and marijuana possession charges, the documents say. Although the arresting officer did not consider Faulk's behavior as warranting a resisting arrest charge, the detention deputies said they found him uncooperative.

During a strip search, according to Key, Faulk threw a shirt at a detention deputy and stood up with a closed fist. He was put down on a bench, continued to resist and then shot with a stun-gun, Key said.

Faulk then was put in the chair and taken to the room with the push-button floor drain, the documents say.

"There was some kind of toilet system, I guess; they flushed it, flushed it, flushed it, kept flushing it and, well, essentially I eventually pissed my pants," Faulk told internal affairs investigators, according to a copy of their interview with him.

Internal affairs investigators suspected the deputies knew Faulk was drinking.

"Obviously if you had a few beers, if you're drunk, whatever, sitting in a room, it's hard to hold your" bladder, the internal affairs investigator said.

"Right," Key replied.

"But that's not the reason you were pushing that button?"

"No," Key said. "I wouldn't push it to make him go."

Key said he pushed the button because "it was just there."

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336 or spthompson@tampatrib.com.

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