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Suspicious Prison Transfers Lead To Demotions

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By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 8, 2007

TAMPA - The state Department of Corrections will demote three high ranking officials and has taken steps to suspend them without pay because of how they allowed hundreds of inmates to transfer between prisons throughout Florida, Corrections Secretary James McDonough said today.

The department became suspicious months ago that transfers were influenced by money or favors offered to nine of its employees at corrections headquarters in Tallahassee.

No illegal activity has been found, McDonough said, though the department believes the way the transfers were permitted was unethical, unfair and perhaps dangerous.

The investigation continues.

McDonough would not name which employees will be suspended. But he said six people under investigation for the past 90 to 100 days "seem to have been innocent dupes. They were told what to do by people who had the authority to tell them and that they trusted."

An inquiry conducted by the Corrections Department Office of the Inspector General has turned up the names of two attorneys and two former corrections department staffers who helped inmates arrange transfers, McDonough said.

The former corrections department staffers would ask current corrections department members to transfer the inmates.

The department found several hundred transfers made this way from July 2006 to July 2007. McDonough said it is likely that transfers were facilitated this way for years.

But the department has not found that any of the nine employees under investigation were bribed with money or favors.

"They did it out of respect and deference to the former members of the department, and perhaps friendship," he said.

Often those transfers were made quickly, and inmates on a waiting list to transfer were leapfrogged. McDonough said it wasn't fair to inmates who waited a long time for a transfer, and the shifts created security issues, too, because "the very act of moving inmates is risky business."

Florida's prison system has about 94,000 inmates. About 2,000 inmates are moved each day for everything from medical needs to security reasons, McDonough said.

Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at jpoltilove@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7691. Follow crime news throughout the day at Keyword: Crime Blog.

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