'Improper Transfer Of Inmates' Yields Demotions

TAMPA - The state Department of Corrections today released letters it sent last month to a Tallahassee lawyer and his associate, a former corrections department staff member, saying the men used "overt and covert actions to improperly influence" inmate transfers.

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, Corrections Secretary James McDonough said, though the department thinks the way the transfers were permitted was unethical, unfair and perhaps dangerous.

McDonough said Monday that the department 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. Those staff members' names weren't immediately available.

The investigation continues.

An inquiry has turned up the names of two lawyers and two former corrections department staff members, including two people mentioned in the letters sent last month, who helped the inmates arrange transfers, according to the department, McDonough said.

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

The department found several hundred transfers made this way from July 2006 to July.

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.

The letters released today state that former staff member Ron Jones and Tallahassee-based lawyer Bernard F. Daley Jr. are forbidden from communicating in any manner, directly or indirectly, with department members regarding the movement, transfer or classification of inmates.

"This letter will serve as a formal instruction that you immediately cease and desist your unseemly way of conducting business," the letters state. "You have apparently provided services to facilitate the improper transfer of inmates for illicit purposes, such as manipulating the movement of pairs of inmates who wish to engage in improper relationships and manipulating the movement of groups of inmates to the same institution for improper associations.

"In addition, you have conspired with others to obtain and disseminate advance notice of inmate movement, which disrupts the security and order of the correctional institutions, such as increasing the risk of escape attempts."

Neither man could be immediately reached for comment.

According to the letters, Jones and Daley now must send communications regarding inmate transfers in writing to McDonough, along with a copy to the department's general counsel.

On Monday, McDonough said that six department staff members 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."

Often transfers were made quickly, and inmates on a waiting list to transfer were leapfrogged.

McDonough said that it wasn't fair to inmates who had 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.

Inmates must apply to transfer. According to the department, most transfers are approved, but the approval could take a long time - even years.

Even after a transfer is approved, it might not come for a week to six months or longer.