October 11, 2005 Courier-Journal
A Bullitt County man who claimed he was duped into sexually humiliating a teenage McDonald's worker last year by a man impersonating a police officer pleaded guilty yesterday to a felony charge of unlawful imprisonment. In a plea bargain approved by his victim, Walter Nix Jr., 43, will get probation after agreeing to a one-year term for the felony and for sexual misconduct, a misdemeanor. He originally was charged with sodomy and assault, for which he could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Bullitt Circuit Judge Tom Waller tentatively accepted the plea pending formal approval of it by victim Louise Ogborn at Nix's sentencing, set for Nov. 2. Nix was engaged at the time to the store's assistant manager, Donna Jean Summers, who asked him to come watch Ogborn. A man who phoned the store pretending to be a police officer accused Ogborn of theft and ordered her strip-searched. According to police and court records, Nix said he thought he was following an officer's orders when he directed Ogborn, who was detained four hours in the restaurant's office, to do exercises in the nude and perform oral sex on him. He also slapped her several times on her buttocks, at the direction of the caller, the records show. The incident was the focus of a Courier-Journal story Sunday that noted that the strip-search was among at least 70 performed at fast-food restaurants and other businesses from 1995 through 2004 at the direction of a caller who claimed he was investigating crimes. Ogborn agreed to be identified by name in the newspaper. A private prison guard, David N. Stewart, of Fountain, Fla., was charged in July 2004 with impersonating a police officer and soliciting sodomy in the Mount Washington case. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is set for Dec. 13. Summers is charged with unlawful imprisonment, a misdemeanor, and her trial is scheduled for Dec. 7. She also has pleaded not guilty. Ogborn's co-counsel, William C. Boone Jr., said his client approved the deal because "she wants somebody to say they are sorry and for somebody to say she did nothing wrong," both of which he said Nix has promised to say at sentencing. "She is tired of McDonald's blaming her for what happened," Boone said. In a lawsuit, Ogborn has alleged that the company failed to warn employees at the Mount Washington store about prior strip-search hoaxes at other restaurants around the country. McDonald's has said in court papers and through its lawyer that Ogborn was in part responsible because she failed to realize the caller wasn't a real officer. Nix and Summers were among at least 13 people across the United States charged with crimes for executing searches for the caller. Seven have been convicted of various crimes. Stewart so far has only been charged in the Bullitt County incident.

November 11, 2004 Arizona Republic
A teenage girl who was strip-searched by the manager of a Taco Bell earlier this year has filed suit against the restaurant chain. The lawsuit alleges Taco Bell officials were aware of a string of prank calls to fast-food restaurants across the country where a caller persuaded employees to do strip searches, but did not adequately update franchises. In the March incident at 17230 E. Shea Blvd., a male caller claiming to be a Scottsdale police officer persuaded the Taco Bell manager to body search the girl, a patron, in a back room. According to the suit, Taco Bell knew of incidents at restaurants in Wyoming in 2004, Alaska in 2003 and Georgia in 2002 and issued warnings to franchises, though not enough was done to educate employees.

July 29, 2004 Nation's Restaurant News
One of the most bizarre and longest-running con games in foodservice may have ended with the arrest of a prison guard who was charged with duping scores of restaurant managers over the phone into strip-searching their employees.  The Panama City Police Department was holding David Stewart, a 38-year-old corrections officer, under a governor's warrant, a kind of fugitive warrant, until his bid to fight extradition to Mount Washington, Ky., was exhausted.  Stewart, a father of five and a former auxiliary policeman, worked for the Bay County State Facility, a privately run prison operated by the Corrections Corp. of America. better know as the CCA.  Police in Mount Washington--a bedroom community of 13,000 residents seven miles from Louisville--were seeking to interrogate Stewart in connection with an April 9 incident in which a man posing as a cop called a local McDonald's and convinced a manager to strip-search a young female cashier. Stewart faces a $ 500,000 bond once he is in the custody of Mount Washington authorities.   Investigators used phone records, calling-card numbers and security surveillance cameras in a Wal-Mart outside Panama City where the calling cards had been purchased in order to link Stewart to the assault.  Mount Washington is only one of nearly 73 police departments in 30 or more states whose Burger Kings, McDonald's, Taco Bells, KFCs, Applebee's, Hooters, Wendy's, Perkins and dozens of other restaurants were victimized by similar ruses. In almost all cases the restaurants were located in small towns.  As the story first was reported in Nation's Restaurant News in March, police nationwide had been looking for a man who posed as a cop or a senior executive of a restaurant company. He had persuaded as many as 73 unit managers of major brands to strip-search young staffers in bogus hunts for stolen valuables.  The perpetrator listened in over the phone while the managers were coaxed into giving detailed descriptions of the hapless victims' underwear and body parts. The crime had gone largely unreported for years, possibly as far back as 1995, because the victims and their employers were too embarrassed to report it to authorities, once they realized they had been duped. Even when they did report it, most small-town police departments didn't know how to investigate the con, so police tended to file the reports away under "miscellaneous" and the cases died.  Particularly anxious to interrogate Stewart are detectives of the police departments of four Massachusetts towns--West Bridgewater, Abington, Whitman and Wareham--where single Wendy's restaurants were victimized on the same day this year, Feb 19. One civil lawsuit has come out of those cases against Dublin, Ohio-based Wendy's International Inc.  The four towns pooled their resources and appointed detective sergeant Victor Flaherty of West Bridgewater to lead a task force to find the perpetrator. Wendy's financed the task force's expenses for travel, phone record recalls and overtime.  Flaherty waded through hours of security video footage of calling-card purchases from the Wal-Mart store until he and other investigators linked a customer to cards used in the Wendy's incidents in February and an incident at a Kentucky McDonald's in April.  In one tape a man wearing a Corrections Corp. of America uniform purchased a calling card used in the February assault in Massachusetts, but other security footage identified the same man in civilian clothing purchasing a card used in the April con in Kentucky.  Flaherty first showed prison administrators the tape of the man in civilian clothes, and they immediately recognized him. The clincher occurred when they were shown the other tape of the suspect wearing his uniform. Supervisors were certain that the man was one of theirs

January 11, 2004 News Herald
A 26-year-old corrections officer stabbed two sisters — including one who is pregnant — with a butcher knife early Saturday during an argument over a man, authorities reported. Investigators charged Cachetta Ann Barnes with two counts of aggravated assault after the altercation at 4 a.m. at 1013 Spring Ave. An arrest affidavit said Barnes stabbed 19-year-old Tikila Walker on the left arm. Tiffany Walker, Tikila’s 24-year-old sister, heard a commotion near the door and went to Tikila’s aid, the affidavit said. "She started calling my house around 3 in the morning threatening us," Tiffany Walker told The News Herald Saturday afternoon. Authorities said Barnes is a corrections officer at the Bay Correctional Facility on Bayline Drive, a private prison run by Corrections Corporation of America. CCA officials did not immediately return phone messages. 

November 15, 2005 News Herald
She was in labor for more than four hours, crying in a crowded dorm room, bent and writhing on a bunk, crooked with pain and sweat and gritted teeth, pleading for help. When help finally came, so too did her child. The 26-year-old woman who gave birth in the Bay County Jail annex said Monday that guards and nurses repeatedly ignored her pleas for medical attention, allowing her to struggle for four hours - using inmates as nursemaids - before the baby was born in the infirmary. While jail officials have hedged against the release of information related to a personnel investigation, Jennifer Bozeman offered sharp criticism of the annex and its medical staff, saying Monday that officials failed both mother and child. "They just ignored me," Bozeman said in an interview with The News Herald. "They should have gotten me to the hospital. I kept telling them: 'It hurts, I'm in labor.' They didn't do anything. It was just handled wrong. I'm still hurt by it. I'm still having flashbacks." Bozeman's account was confirmed by two female inmates who stood by her throughout the labor, as both women said that it took more than four hours before the expectant mother was transferred to a medical pod at the Nehi Road annex. The inmates both issued stinging rebukes of the jail staff, calling the situation untenable but believable. In fact, Charla Meadows, 33, said medical attention is hard to come by at the facility - if it comes at all. "It's crazy in here," said Meadows, being held on a cocaine charge. "Jennifer told them at about 2 o'clock that she was hurting bad. I mean, you could see her all bent over. One of the guards asked me if could get her some ice, so I did. I just had to stay with her. She started hurting worse and worse, and nobody would do anything to help her." According to all three women, the incident unraveled like this: Bozeman first told an officer that she may be in labor shortly after 2 a.m. The officer asked Meadows to deliver some ice, and later allowed Bozeman to take a warm shower. As the pain progressed, Meadows continued to ask for medical help. An officer tried unsuccessfully to contact the overnight nurse, and at about 4 a.m. guards told Bozeman to fill out a "sick call." The "sick call" is a form used to notify personnel of medical problems, although Bozeman said the form went unheeded for an additional two hours. During that period, another inmate - Tris Souza, 43 - sat with Bozeman, massaging her back and rubbing her forehead. As the pain reached its zenith, Souza began pounding on a cell window, pleading for help. "We were just trying to get their attention," said Souza, also being held on drug charges. "She just kept getting worse and worse, and I was like: 'When are y'all going to help her?' They just kept ignoring us. That's not so uncommon in here, though. "I've seen things that are totally unbelievable. They think ibuprofen will cure anything." About 6 a.m. - with a shift change - the daytime nurse ordered guards to have Bozeman delivered to the infirmary. Once there, Bozeman said medical personnel diagnosed her condition as kidney stones and allowed her to wait in a chair. The baby, Crystal, was born within minutes. "I had to catch my own baby," Bozeman said. "It fell out into her pants," Meadows added. Officials from Corrections Corporation of America, the private, Tennessee-based company hired to run a pair of facilities in Bay County, have hesitated to release details of an internal evaluation. Warden Mark Henry cited medical privacy laws last week and declined to release information, although he did note that the annex was at full staff during the incident. Roger Hagen, the county's jail contract monitor, said he is awaiting information from CCA, and said the timeframe between Bozeman's first complaint and the birth appears to be a key factor in the evaluation. "That's my concern," Hagen said Monday. "There is, however, some question of whether the midnight nurse had competing priorities. The length of time it took the nurse to see her is a concern, but I'm waiting to see what this person was up against. Were there other things going on that prevented (the nurse) from seeing (Bozeman)?" Bozeman's delivery came about two months early, and the child remained in a neonatal care unit at Gainesville's Shands Hospital on Monday. The baby was born with birth defects, Bozeman said, and the family is concerned about her health. Bozeman has been jailed since Sept. 10 for failing to pay a $500 fine related to a previous adoption. Since then, county taxpayers have paid nearly $3,000 - or about $45 per day - to keep Bozeman behind bars. "I'm still so upset," she said. "I'm still so hurt by it. It was just handled wrong. They should have gotten me to the hospital."

November 11, 2005 News Herald
Jennifer Bozeman owes the state of Florida $500. She never paid, got sent to jail, birthed a baby in the infirmary, and now Bay County taxpayers are footing the bill - to the tune of about $2,730 so far. And she has not been charged with a crime. By holding Bozeman in jail, taxpayers have vastly outspent her debt to the state Department of Revenue regarding a child support fee for a previously adopted child. The county pays about $44 per day per prisoner. The new mom has been in jail for 62 days and has 28 to go. If she stays in jail the full 90 days, it will cost taxpayers about $3,960. That does not include her hospital costs, which the county could be billed for. Bozeman, 26, was back Thursday at the Bay County Jail annex, where she gave birth early Monday to a 5-pound, 8-ounce daughter in an infirmary. The birth is the subject of a personnel investigation into several questions, including, according to the county's jail manager and the Bozeman's mother: How long did officials wait to give Bozeman medical treatment? In a brief phone interview earlier this week, Bozeman said she told a jail guard that she was suffering the pangs of labor just after 2 a.m. Bozeman's mother, Doris Ayers, said the baby was born between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Officials from Corrections Corporation of America, the private, Tennessee-based company that was paid $14 million in 2005 to run two Bay County facilities, have repeatedly hedged against releasing documents related to the birth. Warden Mark Henry said Thursday he could not speak to specifics of the case, citing medical privacy issues that hinder the release of Bozeman's information. Bozeman could not be reached in jail Thursday for a waiver. The News Herald has requested documents related to staff levels and medical procedures the morning that Bozeman gave birth. "At this point," Henry said, "there isn't a whole lot I can tell you. I wish I could, but I can't do it without violating her rights. Even as an inmate, people still enjoy rights and privileges that I would not want to violate." One of those rights, Ayers said, would be a proper birth. "It's just absurd," she said, "that it happened like this. No one should have to catch their own baby."

November 9, 2005 News Herald
The last of four men accused of taking hostages last year in a jail standoff will not go to trial next week as planned. Instead, Kevin Winslett will be evaluated for his mental competency to stand trial. Bay County Sheriff's Office investigators said Winslett, 33, Kevin Nix, James Norton and Matthew Coffin took over the fourth floor of the Bay County Jail on Sept. 5 and 6, 2004, and held jail nurses hostage in a police standoff. The standoff ended when deputies shot one of the men and a nurse.

November 9, 2005 News Herald
Bay County Jail officials have launched a "full-fledged investigation" of personnel at the Nehi Road annex after a pregnant prisoner repeatedly called for medical attention hours before she gave birth in the infirmary early Monday morning, according to the county's jail liaison. Conflicting reports have emerged about the birth of a 5-pound, 8-ounce baby girl named "Crystal," who was born at least one month premature and was expected to be taken Tuesday to a neonatal facility at Shands Hospital in Gainesville. The baby's mother, Jennifer Bozeman, was recovering Tuesday afternoon at Bay Medical Center, where she was under watch by authorities and was expected to return soon to jail. "I don't know what happened really," Bozeman said. "I went into labor early Monday and I told one of the (corrections officers), but they didn't really do anything. They were supposed to get me down to the infirmary, but they didn't." According to Bozeman's mother, Doris Ayers, jail officials have been evasive, releasing scant information about Jennifer, the baby or the birth. Ayers said the birth announcement came from the lips of a fellow prisoner during a mysterious phone call early Monday morning. "(The warden) is not saying a whole lot," Ayers said Tuesday. "You know, they actually told (Bozeman) that she had a kidney stone. That's what they said was bothering her. … She told them she was having labor pains, and she told me that by the time somebody came to get her, she had to catch the baby. "That's exactly what she told me - that she actually had to catch her own baby." Officials offered a slightly different account, although Roger Hagen, who monitors the county's contract with the private company hired to run the downtown jail and Nehi Road annex, said Tuesday that early indications show a procedural breakdown among personnel. "That's my understanding," Hagen said. "There is an indication that there were some problems in the way it was handled. The warden is conducting a full-fledged investigation. Right now, he's doing a personnel evaluation to find out what happened." Henry is the third Bay County Jail warden in 22 months, and was hired in September by Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America, the private company that holds a contract to run three county facilities. Henry, who last worked at the Jackson County Jail and spent nearly 30 years in the federal prison system, took over after the former warden quit and an assistant warden was fired.

October 1, 2005 News Herald
A man convicted of DUI manslaughter and an accused killer face additional criminal charges after attacking guards at the Bay County Jail on Friday, according to court records. William Deshonn Jones, 25, and Lashod Marquis Black, 21, each face a charge of battery on a corrections officer following separate incidents at the county's main jail. According to court records, at about noon, Jones became upset at a jail guard and threw two trays of food at the guard's chest. Jones' outburst came a little over an hour after a guard accused Black of grabbing her arm during a cell inspection, according to court records.

September 21, 2005 News Herald
Kevin Winslett should be ready for a new trial in November. Winslett, the accused ringleader of a takeover of the Bay County Jail last September, went to trial in August with his three co-defendants, but his case was declared a mistrial. Co-defendants Kevin Nix, Matthew Coffin and James Norton were convicted of false imprisonment and sentenced to 15 years in prison. They went to trial on the same charges that Winslett faces, but were acquitted of the most serious charges against them.

September 20, 2005 New-Herald
Lucrative contracts to operators of Bay County facilities and a $5 million increase in funds for blighted communities contribute to the county’s budget increase for fiscal year 2006. Operating costs for the two county-owned jails is projected to rise $2 million, to $16.3 million for FY 2006. That’s despite a decrease in the inmate population from about 1,100 last year to 900 currently, according to Roger Hagen, Bay County correctional program manager. Usually, there are 3 percent to 4 percent more inmates each year. There are fewer inmates now because those nabbed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials no longer are being housed in the Jail Annex. The operations cost per prisoner is expected to be $45.35 in FY 2006, about $1 more than it is now, said County Budget Officer Mary Dayton. Corrections Corporation of America runs the jails, but its contract expires next year. The county is looking to cut back on the amount it pays the contractor, whomever is selected. Emerald Correctional Management Corporation, based in Shreveport, La., also is bidding to operate the jail. “I feel like the CCA contract has been far too lucrative,” Gainer said. “If we don’t have a bid that’s much lower, then the county ought to consider running it by ourselves.”

September 13, 2005 News Herald
For the third time in 22 months, the Bay County Jail has a new warden. Corrections Corporation of America officials have hired Jackson County’s corrections chief to run the beleaguered Panama City Jail after the former warden quit and an assistant warden was fired less than a month ago. Mark A. Henry, who last worked at the Jackson County Jail and spent nearly 30 years in the federal prison system, is expected to start next week, according to Bay County’s jail contract monitor. Roger Hagen, who acts as a liaison between Bay County commissioners and the private company hired to run three local facilities, said commissioners signed off on the hire after CCA officials tabbed Henry sometime last week. The hire came shortly after the dismissal of Assistant Warden John Rochefort for violating an undisclosed company policy and Warden Kevin Watson asked for a transfer for “personal reasons,” CCA officials said in mid-August. The company declined to give the exact reason Rochefort was fired, nor would they say in what capacity Watson would be retained. CCA officials did not return phone calls Tuesday.

September 12, 2005 News Herald
Strategy is a part of any trial. But when four men accused of taking hostages in a police standoff at the Bay County Jail were preparing to go to trial together, strategies were everywhere. The Bay County Sheriff’s Office had a plan to keep the four from attempting anything in the courthouse like what they were accused of doing at the jail. Prosecutors had their reasons for trying all four together, despite the security risks. And the four defense attorneys had the job of devising an attack that would work for their individual client, but not hurt the other three. Coffin’s lawyer, Nancy Jones Gaglio, said there was an agreement going into trial that their clients would not try to blame each other for the takeover. Gaglio was able to address issues about jail conditions. “Judge allowed me to go there a little bit,” she said Wednesday. “But part of my defense was it was just a chaotic place and (jail operator Corrections Corporation of America) certainly wasn’t taking care of and running the place properly. I was trying to show that what happened was a direct result of CCA’s negligent maintenance.”

September 7, 2005 News Herald
Kevin Nix and Kathy Baucum share the same nightmare. Nix is one of three men convicted of falsely holding three jail nurses, including Baucum, against their will in a September 2004 takeover of the third floor of the Bay County Jail. The inmates were convicted last week of false imprisonment. On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Michael Overstreet sentenced Nix, 29, and co-defendants Matthew Coffin, 20, and James Norton, 32, to 15 years in prison each, to begin after their current prison sentences expire. That basically means that Norton will spend the next 16 years in prison, Nix 28 years, and Coffin 24.

September 2, 2005 News Herald
Three Bay County Jail inmates who held nurses prisoner last September during a jail takeover were acquitted Thursday of the most serious charges against them. Jurors acquitted Kevin Nix, James Norton and Matthew Coffin of kidnapping, aggravated assault and escape. Instead, they each were convicted of three counts of false imprisonment. In addition, Nix was convicted of attempted aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and Norton of simple assault. The three were facing up to life in prison on the kidnapping charges, but could now see greatly reduced time. False imprisonment is a third-degree felony punishable by five years in prison.  Specifically, Nix, 29, Norton, 32, and Coffin, 20, were convicted of illegally holding jail nurses Glenda Baker, Kathy Baucum and Amie Hunt against their wills during a 12-hour standoff with deputies Sept. 5 and 6. They were acquitted of any charges involving former jail guard James Hall, who was kept in a cell for two hours before being released in exchange for pizzas and cigarettes.

September 1, 2005 News Herald
A September standoff at the Bay County Jail ended in gunshots, but testimony in the case ended on Wednesday without the smoking gun. Circuit Judge Michael Overstreet ruled that testimony about gunshots from a hostage negotiator and SWAT team that wounded an inmate and a hostage were irrelevant to the charges against Matthew Coffin, Kevin Nix and James Norton. The three men began trial this week on charges of kidnapping, escape and aggravated assault. They are accused of participating in a takeover of the jail’s third floor on Sept. 5 and 6 and face life in prison if convicted as charged. Ann Marie “Amie” Hunt told jurors that the takeover went from a kind of “nutty” situation to a dangerous one as the night progressed.  “At the very beginning,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “they were a little nutty. They just wanted to find a way out. They were as polite as they could be for the situation we were in.” Then, Hunt said, the inmates broke into the drug storage lockers and began ingesting narcotics. As the night progressed, she said, Nix became agitated with nurse Glenda Baker’s praying. Another nurse, Kathy Baucum, said Baker was constantly praying and also “speaking in tongues.” When it came time to offer a hostage in return for pizza and cigarettes, Nix insisted Baker go because she was “freaking him out,” Hunt said. Hunt said an inmate told her she might end up as “collateral damage” when officers stormed the jail. The standoff ended, Hunt said, when she was brought before a barred gate at the end of a hall. Nix, she said, was standing behind her with a scalpel to her throat. “I don’t know who shot me,” she said. “He was just a figure, a person standing there, then, boom. I looked down, and I got shot. Then, boom, and I got shot again.” One bullet shattered her knee, an injury that incapacitated her for months. Hunt was able to walk into court and take the witness stand with the help of a cane.

August 27, 2005 News Herald
Kevin Winslett got a mistrial. Kevin Nix stuck a pen up his nose. The first day of trial for four men accused of taking hostages in a jail standoff in September got off to an interesting start Tuesday. Testimony in the trial of the remaining three defendants will resume today. Winslett, Nix, James Norton and Matthew Coffin began trial on charges of kidnapping, aggravated assault and escape. They are accused of holding four people hostage during an attempted escape Sept. 5 and 6 at the Bay County Jail. The standoff ended with gunfire that wounded two of the men and a jail nurse. All four face up to life in prison if convicted as charged. The first prosecution witness Tuesday was James Hall, a former jail guard and one of the four allegedly held hostage. He said he was the only guard working the jail’s third floor the night of Sept. 5, with 80 inmates to watch. Hall said he opened a cell during “pill call,” when medications are dispensed, to check on an inmate who did not respond to him. Hall said while he was in the cell, he was hit twice from behind and knocked to the ground. Initially in his testimony, Hall said it was Norton who hit him. Hall changed that later and said he did not know who hit him, only that Norton was the closest to him when he looked up from the ground. Hall said he first told jail administrators that he had been knocked unconscious and during that time his keys and radio were taken. Months later, when being interviewed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, he changed that, saying he was not unconscious but told jail officials that to try to save his job. Hall also said inmates ripped his uniform shirt before releasing him to make it look like he had put up a struggle. Hall was fired from the jail for several policy violations stemming from the incident on the third floor. Former jail nurse Glenda Baker told jurors she was working her first full day at the jail on Sept. 5. Baker said she never actually was threatened during the incident but felt threatened. “You said you felt like you couldn’t leave,” Chris Patterson said to Baker during cross-examination. “Did you ever ask?” Baker thought about it for a minute and said, “I don’t remember.” Prosecutors decided to try the four together, a rare strategy, that made for extraordinary security as well as legal complications. Tuesday morning began with prosecutor Quentin Broxton’s opening statement. He described the takeover as an elaborate escape attempt that backfired. Winslett’s attorney, Doug White, then began to lay out his defense for jurors. He said this would be a case of perspective in which jurors may have a hard time understanding the thinking of those behind bars. “If we’ve never been jailed, can we still understand the context of a prisoner?” White asked. “Can a deaf person appreciate a classic symphony?” Fellow defense attorney Nancy Jones told jurors in her opening statement that conditions at the jail were “horrible” and “horrendous.” “Conditions in that jail were so bad they made one’s toes curl,” she said. White said the four men’s actions on Sept. 5 were to bring attention to jail conditions, but were not well thought out. “These four young men acted out in ways that were not brilliant,” he said. “They were not smart. And in some cases, they were downright dumb.” White then said that Winslett’s conception of reality also may be skewed by a diagnosed mental disorder. Prosecutor Bill Lewis objected. The defense lawyers, prosecutors and Circuit Judge Michael Overstreet left the room to discuss the objection. A part of White’s defense was that Winslett has a “mental defect” that would affect his ability to form the necessary intent to have committed the crimes. White denied that it was an insanity defense and refrained from calling it a “mental health” defense. Lewis argued that any mental health defense requires a notice to the prosecution that would give the state an opportunity to prepare witnesses and have the defendant evaluated. White argued that a notice was required only if he was pursuing an insanity defense. Overstreet found that a notice was required in this case and prevented White from pursuing that aspect of his defense. White asked for — and Overstreet granted him — a mistrial so White can file his notice and prepare for another trial. While the lawyers and judge were out of the room discussing Winslett’s case, Nix, who was one of the defendants sitting closest to the jury, started playing with a blue Sharpie felt-tip pen. He took off the cap, sniffed the tip, put the tip in his mouth and chewed on it, then spit a piece of it onto the table. He then put the tip up his nose. When Nix’s lawyer, Mike Hunter, returned to the courtroom, he found Nix with blue lines on his nose, lips and hands. Hunter asked for a continuance, saying he needed to have his client evaluated for his mental competency to continue. Hunter said Nix told him that in times of stress, fear or anger Nix “loses time” or blanks out. Hunter said Nix did not know what he had done in court. Overstreet asked two psychologists to interview Nix from noon to 2:30 p.m. to give their best assessment of his mental ability to continue with the trial. Nix then was found competent to proceed. “Putting a pen up your nose isn’t really consistent with a mental disorder,” Dr. David Smith told Overstreet.

August 18, 2005 News Herald
Less than eight months after taking over as warden, the head of the Bay County Jail has resigned, according to a Corrections Corporation of America spokesman Wednesday. Kevin Watson submitted a letter to CCA officials Tuesday requesting a demotion and transfer for “personal reasons,” said Steve Owens, spokesman for the Nashville-based company contracted by the county to manage the downtown jail and annex. Watson’s resignation came the same day CCA fired John Rochefort from his position as an assistant warden for violating CCA policies, Owens said. Owens and Jennifer Taylor, CCA’s senior director for business development, said Watson’s decision to step down and Rochefort’s termination are not related. Taylor said Watson flew to Nashville on Tuesday to deliver a letter to CCA officials requesting the change of position. CCA has not determined what position Watson will fill with the company and he has taken an indefinite leave of absence, she said. Roger Hagen, the contract monitor for Bay County, said Wednesday that Rochefort was terminated for “performancerelated issues.” Hagen said he was aware Watson had requested vacation time and may not return as warden. Both facilities have been subject to increased scrutiny in recent weeks because of a foiled escape attempt by a suspected cop killer from the downtown jail and a sex scandal at the annex involving a prison guard, a nurse and an inmate.

August 11, 2005 WNYT
A man awaiting trial on charges stemming from the September hostage-taking at the Bay County Jail faces new charges after guards said he tried to smuggle a razor blade into the jail. The Bay County Sheriff’s Office charged 32-year-old James Richard Norton with introduction of contraband into a detention facility Wednesday.

August 10, 2005 News Herald
Bay County Sheriff’s Office investigators and jail officials are trying to determine how an accused cop killer came within a few days of escaping from the sixth floor of the county’s downtown jail. Robert Bailey, 23, of Milwaukee, Wis., is accused of attempted escape and introduction of contraband to a detention facility after jail guards and Sheriff’s Office investigators searched his cell Monday evening and found hacksaw blades and evidence that Bailey was trying to cut his way out of the cell’s windows, according to a Sheriff’s Office report. The search of Bailey’s jail cell came after U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents contacted the Sheriff’s Office on Monday afternoon to report they had learned during an investigation that Bailey was planning a jailbreak, said Capt. Jimmy Stanford, head of the Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigation Division.  After pulling Bailey from his cell, located in a maximum security pod on the jail’s sixth floor, investigators said they discovered about seven hacksaw blades in the toilet, hidden under Bailey’s bed and stashed in a cutout and patched section of the ceiling. Investigators also reported finding bolts sliced in metal grates covering windows and cuts in a metal divider between the two windows. The grates placed over the 6-inch-wide Plexiglas windows are bolted into the window frame at the bottom and top. The top bolts had not been sawed through, investigators said. With Bailey remaining behind bars, investigators and jail officials are turning their attention to how the inmate was able to obtain the hacksaw blades and how his planned escape attempt went unnoticed, Stanford said. Because Bailey’s status as a “high-risk” inmate prevented him from having direct contact with visitors, investigators have not ruled out that a guard or fellow inmate may have supplied Bailey with the hacksaw blades, Stanford said.

July 20, 2005 News Herald
Four men accused of taking hostages in a Bay County Jail standoff last year have been scheduled for trial the last week of August.  It is unlikely, however, that the four will be tried together.  James Norton, Kevin Winslett, Matthew Coffin and Kevin Nix are accused of holding nurses hostage during a jail standoff Sept. 5 and 6. All four are facing kidnapping charges that could land them in prison for life.

July 18, 2005 News Herald
A married jail nurse was arrested late Saturday and accused of having sex with a female inmate on an examining table in the Bay County Jail annex, leading to a felony count that was vehemently denied Sunday by the man's wife. Authorities charged Christopher Michael Byrd, 33, with sexual misconduct between a detention facility employee and an inmate, a third-degree felony that could land the licensed practicing nurse in jail for five years. According to a Bay County Sheriff's Office arrest affidavit: Byrd asked a guard to release a female inmate to the medical unit sometime Saturday night. Byrd told the guard that he had permission from a supervisor to allow the inmate to walk to the medical pod without a runner. In jail lingo, a "runner" is an escort generally used to accompany inmates between units in a facility. Once the woman arrived in the medical unit, Byrd told her to go to an examination room. Inside, they began canoodling before the woman dropped her pants and the pair had sex on a table. It is unclear how authorities discovered the alleged intercourse. The charge against Byrd is part of a state law passed four years ago. Legislators passed in 2001 the "Protection Against Sexual Violence in Florida Jails and Prisons Act" as a measure to prevent misconduct between jailers and inmates in detention facilities. The act contains a provision that says consent cannot be used as a defense during prosecution.

June 16, 2005 AP
A state investigation has confirmed that a Bay County Jail inmate committed suicide in a shower room and found no evidence officials or other prisoners knew he planned to kill himself. A summary of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation into the April 5 death of James T. Sly Jr., 35, of nearby Springfield, was released Wednesday. Sly was found hanging by a bedsheet from a shower head. The summary does not address whether guards followed proper procedures before the death. A May report from Bay County's jail contract monitor alleged that a jailer included Sly in midnight head count without actually seeing him, assuming the inmate was there because water could be heard running in the shower. Company officials said they are waiting to review the full state investigation report before commenting on county allegation or the guard's status.

May 20, 2005 News Herald
Corrections Corporation of America officials remain silent about a report issued by the county’s jail program manager stating a corrections officer did not properly account for an inmate later found dead from an apparent suicide. However, the family of James T. Sly Jr. has not stopped demanding answers from the company contracted to oversee the Bay County Jail. They want to know why the 35-year-old jail inmate was able to hang himself while under the control of CCA. According to a recently released report by Bay County’s contract monitor, Roger Hagen, a jail guard identified as J. Harris "counted" James Sly as part of a midnight shift head count without seeing the inmate. The report states the guard "assumed" James Sly was in the shower because the shower water was running. Harris failed to follow CCA’s policy that requires guards to only count an inmate after seeing the person’s "living, breathing flesh," according to Hagen. Hagen’s report conflicts with previous statements made by the jail’s warden, Kevin Watson, who in April told The News Herald that a preliminary investigation suggested that no CCA policies or procedures were violated concerning James Sly’s death. Watson also said no CCA employees had been reprimanded because of the incident. In his report, Hagen called on CCA to "take appropriate disciplinary action" against the officer and "provide special training for all officers" on the counting procedures. On Thursday, Watson declined to comment further on James Sly’s death pending the outcome of the FDLE investigation. He also declined to comment on Harris’ status with CCA. A report from the FDLE is expected to be completed within the next two weeks.

May 17, 2005 News Herald
The correctional officer responsible for checking on inmate James T. Sly during the early morning shift on April 5 was supposed to see him "in the flesh." He did not, and that night Sly apparently hanged himself in the inmate showers. The death is still being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. However, an incident review by Roger Hagen, Bay County’s correctional program manager, found that the Corrections Corporation of America policies were not followed on the night Sly died. The fact Officer J. Harris did not physically see Sly when he was doing rounds is a violation of CCA’s policy "Count Principles and Procedures," Hagen says in the report, which was forwarded to the County Commission May 10. That finding counters Warden Kevin Watson’s preliminary investigation last month, which suggested that all CCA policies or procedures were followed on the night Sly died.

April 22, 2005 News-Herald
The Florida Ethics Commission found former Bay County commissioner Danny Sparks in violation of a gifts law Thursday. On terms he agreed to, he will pay a $1,000 civil penalty and admit fault. Kerrie Stillman, assistant to the executive director of the Ethics Commission, said that an attorney for Sparks met with an Ethics Commission advocate and they both approved a settlement agreement. This includes paying $1,000 "with public censure and reprimand." The ethics board will submit a final order of the case to the governor’s office on Tuesday. Gov. Jeb Bush will review it and issue an executive order stating the findings. He has the authority to impose the fine, Stillman said. Sparks, contacted at home Thursday, said he was unaware of any settlement or ruling regarding his case. He said he wouldn’t comment on it, anyway. Sparks is accused of breaching Florida ethics law during a trip he and other county officials took in February 2000 to Tennessee to visit a jail run by Corrections Corporation of America, which also operates Bay County’s jail and annex. He participated with others in a round of golf — valued at $240 per person — paid for by county financial adviser Gary Akers. Florida ethics laws prohibit public officials and employees from accepting any gift worth $100 or more from a lobbyist. In July 2003, the Florida Police Benevolent Association filed complaints with the Ethics Commission against Sparks and two other former county commissioners, Carol Atkinson and Richard Stewart, as well as former county manager Jon Mantay, former county attorney Nevin Zimmerman, and Bob Majka, county emergency services director. Public hearings on the charges would have been held if Sparks didn’t settle his case. His ethics violation admission frees the county from paying his attorney fees, said Commission Chairman George Gainer. In March, the County Commission agreed to pay for the fees of all parties being investigated for ethics complaints if they were eventually exonerated. Sparks’ case is the only to be resolved to date.

April 13, 2005 News-Herald
A week after apparently hanging himself in a Bay County Jail shower, James T. Sly was laid to rest Tuesday in a Panama City cemetery. Special agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have not released the results of their investigation into the death of the 35-year-old Springfield man, said FDLE spokeswoman Lisa Lagergren. Sly, a father of six children, was found dead in a fifth-floor shower room early April 5 by corrections officers, according to jail officials. Jail officials said because of Sly’s suicidal tendencies at the time of his arrest, he was placed in an observation unit of the jail and interviewed at least five times by a mental health counselor. Jail officials said counselors in February approved Sly’s move into a general population pod where he continued to receive treatment. Jail officials said Sly did not display signs that he wanted to hurt himself and guards had no reason to believe something was wrong when Sly requested to take a shower at about 2 a.m. on April 5.

April 9, 2005 News-Herald
A Bay County Jail corrections officer faces battery charges following an investigation into a fight between the guard and an inmate earlier this week.  Corrections Corporation of America fired Grant Cox, 35, of Panama City on Friday following an internal investigation of a Wednesday evening melee involving Cox and 19-year-old Skylar Jones, said Warden Kevin Watson. The incident occurred moments after a jury announced it could not reach a verdict in Jones’ attempted first-degree murder trial. Watson said Cox violated Tennessee-based CCA’s policy by striking Jones during a "verbal altercation" in the jail’s elevator. Watson said Cox allowed the inmate to "push his buttons." "That was certainly not the right thing to do," Watson said. Jones said the two men exchanged profanities in the elevator and said the argument became so heated that Cox grabbed him by the throat and threw him to the ground. He would not provide details on the argument. "He put his knee into my chest and said he was going to" hurt me, Jones said. Jones said he was not handcuffed at the time. Jones said Cox got off of him when the elevator doors opened but rushed at him as Jones started walking out of the elevator. Jones said the guard knocked him into the trash can. Three other CCA guards noticed the fight and rushed to assist Cox, Jones said. After his termination, Cox was cited on the misdemeanor charge and released without posting bond.

April 5, 2005 News-Herald
About three months after police thwarted a Springfield man’s attempt to kill himself on the DuPont Bridge, the 35-year-old was found dead inside the Bay County Jail on Tuesday morning. Jail officials said James T. Sly hanged himself at about 2:40 a.m. in the shower room of his fifth floor housing unit. Because of the attempt to kill himself in January, Sly originally was placed in an observation unit of the jail and interviewed at least five times by a mental heath counselor, Thore said. About a month later, Sly was allowed to move into a general population pod on the fifth floor of the downtown jail and continued to receive treatment, Thore said. At about 2 a.m. on Tuesday, guards conducting a head count listed Sly as being in the housing unit’s shower area, Thore said. When guards returned about 30 minutes later to conduct another count, Sly’s cellmate said Sly still was in the shower, Thore said.

March 14, 2005 News-Herald
You can turn a Styrofoam cup inside out and still drink from it. Several years ago, an inmate at the Bay County Jail asked then-corrections officer Kevin Watson if he was aware of this interesting fact.  "I said something like I didn’t think he could do it, but he took that cup he had and carefully worked it with his hands until it was turned inside out," Watson said. Having successfully completed the task, the inmate asked Watson: "Do you know what the moral of this story is?" "What’s that?" Watson responded. I have nothing but time," the inmate said. That is just one of many lessons Watson said he has used to guide him through 18 years in corrections and his first three months as the Bay County Jail’s warden. "He was right," Watson said of the inmate’s message. "These guys have nothing but time." During a recent interview with The News Herald, Watson explained how he has wasted little time making his mark on the aging facility and a staff trying to recover from repeated criticism by the press and the community. The newest warden for Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America’s Bay County facility has literally "cleaned house" since taking over the reigns from former Warden Denny Durbin.

March 2, 2005 News Herald
Bay County will reimburse former county officials for attorney’s fees paid to defend themselves against investigations of ethics violations.  On Tuesday, the Bay County Commission voted 5-0 in favor of reimbursing five people: former Commissioners Carol Atkinson, Richard Stewart and Danny Sparks; former County Manager Jon Mantay; and former County Attorney Nevin Zimmerman.  Commission Chairman George Gainer emphasized that the board will reimburse only the fees that pertain to the officials’ defense of taking a trip to Nashville, Tenn., in February 2000 to tour a jail operated by Corrections Corporation of America. The reimbursements also are contingent on the former county officials’ exoneration.  During the trip, at least one of the county officials, former Commissioner Danny Sparks, played a $240 round of golf paid for by county financial adviser Gary Akers.  CCA paid for county officials’ flights to Nashville, which The Florida Commission on Ethics found problem- atic because the county should have footed the initial expense for the trip, said county attorney Mike Burke. It would have been permissible, he said, for the county to collect reimbursement from CCA afterward.  Bay County was negotiating a contract renewal with CCA at the time. The Florida Police Benevolent Association, a union representing police and correctional officers, filed the ethics complaints.  The golf game was not part of PBA’s original complaint. Instead, the complaint was limited to allegations that CCA paid the officials’ travel, lodging and meal expenses for the trip.  Florida law prohibits public officials from accepting any gift with a value of more than $100 from a "lobbyist." In August 2004, Atkinson was cleared of the charges, so her $1,085 in legal expenses is guaranteed reimbursement. Burke said she proved that she was unaware CCA, not the county, was paying for the Nashville trip.

February 24, 2005 News Herald
Bay County Jail officials ordered last weekend the installation of exterior, sliding-bolt locks on transport van doors to prevent escape attempts by inmates, said the jail’s warden. The new locks come after an inmate broke out of a Corrections Corporation of America transport van Friday afternoon, resulting in an 18-hour manhunt. On Friday, 18-year-old Jeremy D. Aultman of Panama City Beach manipulated the CCA van’s door-locking mechanism through the interior paneling, CCA officials said. Aultman then escaped from the van that was transporting 13 inmates to the Bay County Jail Annex, CCA officials said.   Along with new locks, maintenance crews placed a steel plate over the interior passenger-door panels of the transport van that Aultman escaped from, Watson said. Watson said steel plates already were in place on other CCA vans. Watson on Tuesday defended the actions of his transport driver, who prisoners said failed to notice Aultman trying to escape and then ran from the vehicle to catch Aultman, according to police reports. Watson said Tyndal followed CCA policies and has not been disciplined. Tyndal climbed out of the van to chase Aultman but gave up and returned to the van, according to the reports. Though none of the 12 remaining inmates joined Aultman in trying to flee, some reported to police that they had ample opportunity. Inmate Ryan Meadows and Stanford W. Ferguson sat behind Aultman during the transport from the main jail to Bayou George, according to CCA incident reports. "Tyndal jumped out of the van, leaving his door and our door wide open — keys still in the van," Meadows stated in the incident report. Ferguson concurred Meadows’ report that Tyndal chased Aultman without securing the van’s doors. Meadows added that when Tyndal came back to the van, the guard took the inmates on a "high-speed" chase through the nearby residential area called The Cove. Friday’s escape attempt occurred about five months after four inmates at the main jail escaped from their cells and held CCA employees hostage. A faulty cell door lock received part of the blame for allowing the uprising, according to a state investigation.

February 24, 2005 News Herald
Former Bay County Commissioner Danny Sparks has entered into a "joint stipulation" with an advocate for the Florida Commission on Ethics in which Sparks admits he violated state law when he accepted a $240 round of golf paid for by the county’s financial adviser.  The Ethics Commission must approve the stipulation, which it will consider at its April 21 meeting.  The Florida Police Benevolent Association, a union representing police and correctional officers, filed ethics complaints against Sparks and five other former and current county officials in July 2003. The complaints targeted a February 2000 trip the officials took to Tennessee to visit a jail operated by Corrections Corporation of America, which also operates Bay County’s jail and jail annex. As a second leg of the trip, the officials traveled to Arizona to view a publicly run jail. Bay County was negotiating a contract renewal with CCA at the time.  The PBA also filed complaints, each with multiple allegations, against former Commissioners Carol Atkinson and Richard Stewart, former County Manager Jon Mantay, former county attorney Nevin Zimmerman, and county Emergency Services Chief Bob Majka.  The Ethics Commission issued probable-cause findings against all but Atkinson. All allegations against her were dismissed. Spark’s stipulation with the commission advocate includes a recommendation that he be fined $1,000 and that he be publicly censured and reprimanded. The public censure and reprimand would occur as part of an executive order by the governor. The $240 golf game, which was played during the trip, was paid for by Gary Akers, a financial consultant that assists the county with bond issues. Florida law prohibits public officials from accepting any gift with a value of more than $100 from a "lobbyist." Ken Kopczynski, PBA’s legislative assistant, said Ethics Commission investigators found out about the golf game as part of their review of the PBA’s complaint. The Ethics Commission dismissed allegations against Sparks related to CCA’s paying his travel expenses. The commission based the dismissal on its determination that Sparks was not aware that CCA was paying for the trip. The dismissal of the allegations against former Commissioner Atkinson was based on the same determination. In its probable cause findings issued in September, the Ethics Commission found: That Majka, Mantay and Zimmerman may have violated state gift laws by allowing CCA to pay their travel expenses. That Majka and Stewart, in addition to Sparks, may have violated gift laws by accepting rounds of golf from Akers. The commission dismissed the most serious allegations — that the officials accepted the gifts with knowledge that they were intended to influence future votes or decisions. Kopczynski said Wednesday that he believes the stipulation with Sparks is "reasonable." But he noted that allegations related to CCA would not be addressed until the other officials enter into stipulations or settlements or take their cases to hearing. Kopczynski’s organization, the Police Benevolent Association, opposes privately operated prisons and jails.

February 22, 2005 News Herald
Will Rogers famously said that if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. Corrections Corporation of America would do well to heed his advice. Last summer’s takeover and hostage situation brought scrutiny to CCA, the following investigations and News Herald reports exposed gaps in security. CCA went into damage control mode. Now that Bay County is talking about building an expansion to the existing jail annex for maximum-security inmates, nearby residents are worried — and rightly so ("Jail plans hit home," Feb. 21). Even as Ryan Burr was writing the story about residents’ fears, an inmate escaped from a van transporting prisoners to the facility from downtown. Residents raise these kinds of fears any time a new prison or jail is planned. "Not in my back yard" is a common refrain no matter how safe a facility is. Most of them are, in fact, safe as can be and the fears turn out to be all hype. This time, though, residents do have something to be worried about: a corporation which has, time and time again, proven itself to be incompetent and possibly dangerous to its prisoners and workers. According to the state of Florida, 109 prisoners escaped from the Florida Department of Corrections in the fiscal year beginning July 2003. But almost every single one came from a work release program — in other words, they only had to walk away. Inmates who escape these programs are non-violent and pose little threat to the communities around them. Only three actually escaped from the custody of correctional facilities. Since September, five prisoners have escaped their cells at CCA facilities in Bay County — more than other correctional facilities in the entire previous year in the entire state of Florida. That’s not the kind of record that inspires confidence. It’s more important for the county to ensure that CCA establishes a normal level of security than it is to build new facilities or shuffle prisoners from one jail to another. CCA is steadily losing the trust of Bay County citizens by failing again and again to meet security requirements. If CCA didn’t learn its lesson from the events of September, it’s unlikely that one more escape will drive the point home. First things first: Bay County needs to follow through on its plan to accept bids for the jail contract and decide who could do the job best — even if that means giving CCA the boot. A maximum-security jail doesn’t need to be a dangerous place for nearby residents. Normal jails don’t have escapes every year, or even every few years. It’s only because of CCA’s lax security that residents have to worry. Once the jails have a real measure of security, a maximum-security jail near residences might make sense. Until then, the NIMBY folks have a point — with CCA in charge, no one would want a jail in their back yard.

February 21, 2005 News Herald
When Dana Knight awoke one morning in 1997 to find bloody handprints on a rented U-Haul truck and the driver’s window busted out, she didn’t have to think long about possible culprits. Living near the Bay County Jail Annex on Nehi Road, she understands there is a risk of escapees coming onto her property. That is what happened in July 1997. Four inmates — three with previous charges of murder or attempted murder — broke out of the jail annex. When one of them could not jumpstart Knight’s U-Haul, the group went to another residence and stole a vehicle, Knight said. Within about two days, all of the inmates were apprehended. Knight and her husband, Dan, have two children, ages 6 and 11. The couple used to live near the main Bay County Jail in downtown Panama City, which keeps the most serious criminals in maximum security. "I don’t think the CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) has done their job," she said, referencing an inmate takeover on Sept. 5 and 6 at the downtown jail. Four men were arrested in that incident and face kidnapping charges. CCA operates both facilities.

February 20, 2005 News Herald
A 23-year-old Bay County Jail inmate faces a charge of introducing contraband into a corrections facility after he told a guard he was hiding money in his rectum, according to a jail investigation report. Chris Eckman of Panama City informed a jail guard Friday evening of a $100 bill hidden in his body, according to the report. The report does not explain the reason Eckman possessed the cash. Eckman is awaiting trial on charges of smuggling drugs into the jail , according to court records. Eckman was convicted of burglary and grand theft in 2001 and placed on probation, according to court records. In 2002, he was arrested for violating probation and in 2004 was found possessing methamphetamine and Ecstasy inside the jail , according to court records.

February 20, 2005 News Herald
Police captured and returned to jail a Panama City Beach man on Saturday, a day after he escaped from a transport van.   Panama City police found Jeremy D. Aultman, 18, at about 7 a.m., walking through a residential area about a block from where he escaped, according to police reports. Aultman became the subject of a manhunt Friday afternoon when he unlocked the transport van’s door from the inside and ran from the vehicle as it waited on a traffic signal. Thore said Aultman was en route to the Bay County Jail Annex in Bayou George with 12 other inmates when he escaped. Thore said Correction Corporation of America , the Tennessee company that manages the jail for Bay County , continues to investigate the incident.

February 19, 2005 News Herald
A Panama City Beach teen remained on the run Friday night after escaping from a Bay County Jail transport van Friday afternoon, a jail official said. Assistant Warden Richard Thore said police continued to search for accused felon Jeremy Daniel Aultman, 18, of 229 E. Lakeshore Drive. Thore said the search began at about 1:30 p.m. after a Corrections Corporation of America transport van driver reported that an inmate escaped from the van. The CCA driver was transporting 13 inmates from the downtown jail to the CCA jail annex in Bayou George, he said. CCA manages the jail , the jail annex and the Bay Correctional Facility. The CCA van was stopped at the intersection of U.S. Business 98 and Cove Boulevard, when Aultman tripped a locking mechanism, pulled the van door open and fled south, Thore said. The 12 other inmates remained in the van, he said.

February 9, 2005 News Herald
The four men who investigators say took hostages during a Bay County Jail takeover in September may be ready for trial by late spring. James Norton, Kevin Winslett, Matthew Coffin and Kevin Nix are accused of holding nurses hostage during a jail standoff on Sept. 5 and 6. All four are facing kidnapping charges that could land them in prison for life.

February 5, 2005 News Herald
Police arrested a Bay County Jail corrections officer on multiple drug charges while on his way to work Friday afternoon, according to a Bay County Sheriff’s Office news release.  Jamie Bishop, 29, of the 5200 block of State 22A, faces charges of selling cocaine, possession of cocaine, possession of steroids, possession of Xanax, possession of drug paraphernalia and sale of a controlled substance, according to the news release. Bishop was taken to the Bay County Jail and held pending bond.

January 24, 2005 News Herald
Former jail nurse Ann Marie "Amie" Hunt was a bundle of emotions Friday as she talked about the night she almost died during an inmate standoff at the Bay County Jail. Hunt was shot three times the morning of Sept. 6 after a 12-hour standoff between four inmates and Bay County deputies. Bullets entered her hip, back and left leg, damaging bones and vital organs. Hunt, who was unable to stop herself from crying through much of the interview and showed flashes of deep anger, said she has hired a lawyer to explore the incident, the way it was handled and how it has been investigated by the different agencies involved.  She declined to go into too much detail about the night of Sept. 5 and morning of Sept. 6, but did say she never felt like her life was in danger during the standoff.  Investigators said four hostages gained control of a third-floor holding cell, including the nurses’ station and prescription drug cabinet. Through the standoff, the inmates released all the hostages but Hunt. Her husband, James Hunt, is still employed by Corrections Corporation of America, the jail’s owner. He said he’s on the payroll but is allowed to stay home and care for his wife.

January 1, 2005 News Herald
On the evening of Sept. 5, four inmates at the Bay County Jail broke free from their third-floor cells, subdued a guard and took four people hostage. The standoff ended 12 hours later in a hail of gunfire that injured a hostage and two inmates.  Three months later, the incident continues to brew. A guard has been fired and the warden replaced while three deputies who opened fire have been cleared by prosecutors and investigators. But many questions remain: Did jail supervisors fail to fix broken door locks? Did a guard fail to secure the inmates’ cells? Does the county need to rethink its relationship with Corrections Corporation of America, the Tennessee company hired to run the jail and annex?  The Bay County Commission could answer the last question in the coming year, as it decides whether to put the jail operations contract — which CCA has held for nearly 20 years — out for bid.

December 30, 2004 News Herald
Like anything else, a jail is as secure as its weakest link. And as Anthony Cormier’s Wednesday article "County report addresses issues in jail incident" described the findings of Bay County’s contract monitor, any weak link can become the weakest under the right circumstance. Therefore, contract monitor Roger Hagen’s report on the September hostage incident should not be reviewed as just another attempt to get to the bottom of the inmate takeover. Investigative authorities have done that, tracing the immediate spark to an apparently manipulable guard whom Corrections Corporation of America has since dismissed. To some extent, CCA preempted Hagen’s report by also reassigning the jail warden. Clearly, too much was amiss to blame just a wayward guard. Supervisors rarely checked duty logs, Hagen found. And when they did, it apparently wasn’t to look for weak links — a broken key and a missing flashlight repeatedly were documented, for example, to no avail. CCA should correct notated security related maintenance issues within 24 hours, Hagen said, reasonably. The new warden’s biggest challenge will be to persuade jail staff that CCA really wants to start doing things right. Alas, from Hagen’s report, that’s a tall order. Hagen depicted a culture in which employees feared retaliation by management if they made supervisors "aware of any problems, staff errors or performance deficiencies." In other words, the culture outside the cells seemed little different from the culture that prevailed behind bars. We agree with Hagen that CCA needs to refute what he calls a "correctional code of silence." Do it by calling employees together, or in writing, but do it. If employees don’t believe that CCA means business, their business becomes to create even more weak links, not fix them.

December 30, 2004 News Herald
A man who says he was in the Bay County Jail in September when four other inmates took hostages on the third floor has sued the jail’s corporate owner in federal court. Richard Lewis Bell Sr. of Ellenwood, Ga., filed suit Nov. 8 against Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America seeking $100,000 for reckless endangerment, "cruel and harsh treatment," "mental stress," failing to maintain a maximum security area, and failing to comply with the state "no smoking" law. Bell stated in a handwritten complaint that he went through "living hell" during and after a Sept. 5 takeover of the third floor. He stated that after deputies stormed the cellblock and shot two alleged hostage-takers and a nurse, the jail’s guards "went total nuts." Bell wrote that he and other inmates who were not involved in the takeover were thrown to the floor and grabbed by the hair. He stated that in the days that followed, two-man cells were filled with four inmates each, and the inmates were fed once every 24 hours.

December 29, 2004 News Herald
Bay County Jail managers were not regularly reviewing duty and maintenance logs in the weeks before September’s inmate takeover and failed to address issues — including a faulty cell door — that precipitated the standoff, according to a county review obtained by The News Herald. An Unusual Incident Review, completed last week by Bay County’s jail contract monitor, Roger Hagen, offers a chronology of the takeover and 10 corrective actions for Corrections Corporation of America supervisors. Among the recommendations are disciplinary action for a third-floor guard — who two weeks ago was fired — and a more thorough review by managers of daily logs compiled by jail staff. In the county’s review, Hagen found that Officer James Hall was "less than truthful with law enforcement" when he recanted portions of his story during interviews with police. Hall repeatedly told Sheriff’s Office investigators that he was scared to work on the third floor of the downtown facility and acknowledged violating numerous CCA policies because he knew supervisors rarely checked duty logs. Hagen’s review seems to second that notion. "When reviewing this documentation, for a 2-4 week time period prior to the incident," Hagen wrote, "it was apparent that managers or supervisors are either not regularly reviewing the logs or if they are, they are not addressing the issues they document. As an example, a broken key and a missing flashlight were repetitively documented by different shift floor officers in the third floor post duty log for the entire time frame I reviewed." The logs show a history of maintenance problems on the third floor, including reports of broken locks that went unfixed at least two weeks before the takeover, according to a November examination by The News Herald. State agents confirmed the newspaper’s examination in an Florida Department of Law Enforcement report, in which guards, nurses and inmates all claimed that the door to cell C-1 easily could be defeated. Perhaps a more pressing issue cited in the review is a "correctional code of silence," which keeps staff from reporting problems for fear of retribution. "Most of the staff I had discussions with," he wrote, "were concerned about being identified if they shared issues or concerns with me."

December 19, 2004 News Herald
The Tennessee company that operates the Bay County Jail fired a corrections officer Friday, three months after inmates held him hostage during a 12-hour standoff with police. Corrections Corporation of America terminated James C. Hall of Lynn Haven for violations of CCA policy, according to Kevin Watson, Bay County Jail warden. Watson declined to comment on specific violations Hall committed. He confirmed that Hall’s violations were related to the escape of inmates from their cells in September. Hall, 26, had been on administrative leave since Sept. 6 pending police and CCA investigations into the jail break that resulted in four inmates escaping from their cells and taking Hall and three nurses hostage. According to an Florida Department of Law Enforcement report on the hostage-taking incident, Hall admitted during an interview with law enforcement agents that he allowed inmates to shut themselves into their cells and falsified shift logs relating to inmates’ time in the jail’s third-floor day room. The inmates, nurses and Hall told investigators that inmates were able to escape from their cells because of faulty locks on cell doors, something they said was common knowledge in the jail, according to the FDLE report. Inmates also told investigators they decided to start the incident because of inhumane living conditions at the jail, including insufficient medical care, physical and mental abuse by guards and low-quality food, according to the FDLE report.

December 16, 2004 News Herald
The Tennessee company that runs the Bay County Jail is "switching out wardens" less than a week after the release of a state report detailing personnel failures and maintenance problems that spurred September’s inmate takeover. Despite the timing, Corrections Corporation of America officials insist that the move — current Warden Denny Durbin is out; longtime CCA administrator Kevin Watson is in — has nothing to do with the 12-hour siege and torrent of scrutiny that followed. The Sept. 5 standoff, which ended in gunfire on the third floor of the downtown facility, left one hostage and two inmates with bullet wounds. But the FDLE also confirmed a News Herald investigation of equipment failures on the jail’s third floor, where shift logs and maintenance records show a history of broken locks in the segregation unit. One of the accused inmates slipped from one of the cells at the start of the takeover, and FDLE interviews indicate that the maintenance problems were repeatedly reported to jail supervisors. One of the hostages told agents, according to an interview transcript, that Durbin and security chief Chuck Bellows were aware of the broken locks before the takeover. Also, the lone guard working on the third floor told investigators that he routinely falsified shift logs, broke company policy regarding the number of inmates allowed out of their cells and allowed prisoners to lock their own cells the night of the siege.

December 9, 2004 News Herald
So, it all started months before, with a jail cell lock that didn’t work. It ended, of course, when a Sheriff’s Office SWAT team terminated with bullets a tense 12-hour hostage standoff. In between, from May to September, the broken lock repeatedly was brought to Corrections Corporation of America’s attention by guards and other jail personnel. It repeatedly got fixed but never for very long. It apparently didn’t work for almost two weeks before the Sept. 5 blowup. The last guard who brought it to CCA’s attention did so indirectly, by being knocked to the floor by inmates leaving the cellblock to raise havoc. The ensuing bloody confrontation involving inmates, hostages and SWAT team sharpshooters was unusual by any corrections measure. The broken lock wasn’t, at least not at the Bay County Jail.  The News Herald’s Anthony Cormier has written, and on Tuesday the release of a Florida Department of Law Enforcement report confirmed, that jail staff reported the broken lock at least five times. The easily opened cell was common knowledge around the jail. It does indicate that CCA was not concerned about oversight. Bay County has a stunningly ineffective full-time corrections program manager on county staff (he complains he gets no respect from CCA). The Sheriff’s Office, the jail’s best customer, has no say in managing what goes on inside.  County commissioners think only about cost.

December 9, 2004 News Herald
A guard failed to secure cell doors that he allowed inmates to shut themselves the night of a 12-hour siege at the Bay County Jail, according to interview transcripts obtained by The News Herald. Officer James Hall acknowledged to detectives that he falsified shift logs related to inmates’ time in a third-floor day room and said he made a "mistake" in allowing three of the four accused hostagetakers out of their cells in the hours before the Sept. 5 standoff, the transcripts show. Hall, 26, also admitted lying to Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents about the severity of a blow to his head during the takeover, according to an interview conducted more than a month after the incident. In a Nov. 22 interview with a Bay County Sheriff’s Office investigator, Hall said he did not secure a lock box —which ensures all the cell doors are locked — and told inmates to close cell doors themselves. According to the transcript: Hall had allowed four inmates — including suspected hostage-takers James Norton, Kevin Winslett and Kevin Nix — to mingle in a day room earlier in the day. Corrections Corporation of America policy maintains that only one inmate at a time be allowed to enter the segregation unit’s day room. Hall said he normally allowed more than one inmate into the day room, and often falsified shift logs to show that only one prisoner was in the room recreation area. The guard knew that this was a policy violation, but said that he knew he wouldn’t be disciplined because supervisors "hardly ever check the logs." Despite indications that the doors may not have been closed, Hall and others — including inmates and nurses — maintain that Norton escaped from his cell because a door lock was broken. Maintenance records show that the lock to Norton’s cell, 3C-1, repeatedly malfunctioned and had not been fixed in two weeks before the takeover. Nix, Nurse Kathleen Baucum and Norton’s cellmate each told FDLE agents that Norton’s door did not lock, and jail staff repeatedly told supervisors of the problem. A 750-page FDLE report, released this week, indicates that the equipment malfunction triggered the breakout. "It’s a well-known fact," Baucum told investigators. "It’s been put in writing by me … it’s been put in writing by my supervisor … and by another nurse and by (Chief of Security Chuck) Bellows himself." In an interview with FDLE agents, Norton accused Hall of being "in on" the escape plan and said Hall had only one request for the inmates: "Just don’t hurt me." Hall strongly denied the allegation that he knew of the inmates’ plan, saying he lied during his initial interview because he wanted to keep his job. Hall said he was "scared" to work on the third floor and believed that a second officer should be assigned to the pod during each shift. "The way the jail is run," Hall told investigators, "the way it was run when I was there scares me, it doesn’t feel safe ever."

December 8, 2004 News Herald
The use of deadly force by police during a jail uprising and hostage situation in September that left two prisoners and a hostage injured was necessary, State Attorney Jim Appleman has determined. In a letter sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on Monday, Appleman stated his office had reviewed the FDLE’s investigative report of the incident and determined that officers’ gunfire was justified, including a SWAT team member’s shot that injured a hostage. The standoff began at about 8 p.m. on Sept. 5, when officers from the Bay County Sheriff’s Office’s hostage negotiation and SWAT teams responded to a report of a hostage situation at the Bay County Jail, managed by Corrections Corporation of America. According to the FDLE report, during an attempt to escape, inmates Kevin Winslett, Kevin Nix, Matthew Coffin and James Norton had jumped a CCA corrections officer and three nurses working on the third floor of the jail and were holding them hostage. During the 12-hour standoff, the hostage negotiation team was able to free the corrections officer and two nurses before one of the inmates, Kevin Nix, threatened to kill the remaining nurse, Ann Marie "Amy" Hunt, according to the report. Lead negotiator Jimmy Stanford, who was conducting face-to-face negotiations with the inmates, saw Nix with his arms around Hunt with a scalpel to her neck and a syringe to her stomach, according to the report. At that time, convinced the "situation was getting worse," Stanford said Tuesday, he pulled a pistol and fired at Nix’s legs. SWAT team members Lt. Rad Nelson and Sgt. Tony Bruening were hiding in a room near the hostages and the inmates when they heard the shots, according to the report. They came out of the room and fired toward the inmates. One of the rounds from Bruening’s gun hit Hunt in her left hip and came to rest in her kidney, according to the report. Hunt was struck three times, including in her lower leg and the small of her back, according to the FDLE report. Nix suffered a gunshot wound to the front of his left calf, and Norton was shot once in the in the front lower left leg, according to the report.

December 8, 2004 News Herald
It was common knowledge, an open secret that everybody — guards, nurses, inmates and supervisors — was in on. Florida Department of Law Enforcement documents confirmed Tuesday that a broken lock triggered September’s inmate takeover at the Bay County Jail, allowing one prisoner to escape from his cell and ambush the lone guard on the third floor of the downtown facility. The FDLE file supports a recent News Herald investigation, which revealed two weeks ago that jail staff reported five times in the 60 days prior to the takeover that third-floor locks were broken or had malfunctioned. According to maintenance records, work orders and shift logs, jail personnel requested maintenance work for a door lock to Cell 3C-1. The first request was made on May 23; the final request came on Aug. 23, when a guard wrote that the door again needed to be fixed. But the work order was returned without a signature and remarks include: "need to fix door … officer did not have time." It was this broken lock, the FDLE case file shows, that allowed inmate James Norton to escape at the beginning of the 12-hour siege. Norton slipped out of his cell, then struck officer James Hall in the back of the head, stole his keys and freed four other inmates. FDLE interviews with guards, nurses and inmates indicate that jail supervisors were aware of the equipment problems, although officials from the private company hired to run the jail have declined comment on the matter. Hall, the officer who was slugged in the head with a padlock wrapped inside a sock, told investigators that the third-floor locks long had been a problem, according to an FDLE transcript. In a meeting with The News Herald last week, CCA President John Ferguson said Hall had been placed on administrative leave since the incident. "Cell 1 does not lock," Hall told the agents. "Everybody knows it. We have put in a request to get it fixed. Maintenance says that they have fixed it, but they can still roll right out of it."

December 1, 2004 News Herald
 It was an ambush. A corrections officer on the third floor of the Bay County Jail was tricked by an inmate "playing possum" and struck in the back of the head with a padlock or bar of soap wrapped in a sock, according to CCA officials who laid bare Tuesday the chronology of events that precipitated September’s standoff at the downtown facility. CCA President John Ferguson acknowledged that the incident on Sept. 5 was a watershed moment for the Bay County Jail and may have sullied CCA’s public reputation. A controversial afteraction report, compiled by an outside law firm to gauge CCA’s liability, sparked the disconnect and left both sides wondering how to mend a relationship fractured by the takeover. Last month, CCA officials delivered to the county’s contract monitor a ream of documents requested four days after the incident. The News Herald also requested and obtained those records, which showed a history of broken locks and equipment problems on the third floor of the jail, where the takeover occurred. According to Turner: At about 9 p.m. on Sept. 5, a third-floor corrections officer approached an inmate in a segregation unit about a dose of medicine. When the inmate didn’t respond, the officer entered the cell and tried to awaken him. The inmate, Turner said, was "playing possum" and setting the stage for a pre-planned escape attempt. With the officer in the cell, another inmate sneaked behind and swung at the officer’s head with an improvised weapon — likely a bar of soap or padlock wrapped in a sock and wielded like a mace. The officer radioed for help and the shift captain raced to the third floor, slamming shut a riot gate and shutting down elevators to keep the inmates from getting off that floor. With their escape foiled, the inmates rushed across the hall to a nurse’s station — where an examination of maintenance records shows at least one instance of broken locks in the 60 days preceding the takeover.  At least one CCA staffer has been placed on administrative leave since Sept. 6, although officials refused to identify the employee or the employee’s position. In a letter to Bay County’s jail contract monitor, a CCA attorney wrote that any employee who failed to follow company policy has been "counseled, retrained, reassigned or disciplined, as appropriate." It is unclear how many employees this applies to, and CCA officials said they could not immediately release that information.

November 22, 2004 News Herald
The medical pod and segregation wing of the Bay County Jail were plagued by broken and jammed door locks in the weeks leading up to September’s inmate takeover, according to maintenance requests and work orders obtained by The News Herald. There is plenty of smoke but no smoking gun in a ream of documents released by Corrections Corporation of America, the Tennessee company tasked with an internal investigation of policies, procedures and possible failures that contributed to the 12-hour standoff on Sept. 5. Records indicate that a series of equipment problems on the third floor of the Bay County Jail precipitated the uprising, which ended when negotiators stormed the medical pod and shot one hostage and two inmates. A CCA liaison met Friday morning with Roger Hagen, the county’s jail point man, to hand over records requested four days after the incident. The News Herald also filed public record requests for the documents. Hagen and CCA engaged for more than two months in a muted battle over the records, publicly squabbling over an "after-action report" and a dearth of communication during the internal probe. Hagen said Friday he expected to review the materials over the weekend before reporting back to the Bay County Commission, which soon is expected to seek bidders on the contract to run the downtown jail and Nehi Road annex. A News Herald examination of the paperwork reveals no definitive evidence suggesting how the inmates escaped their cells, although shift logs and maintenance requests show a history of equipment problems on the floor where the four accused inmates were being held. According to jail records: At least five times in the 60 days prior to the takeover, CCA personnel requested maintenance work for a door lock to Cell 3C-1.In interviews following the standoff, authorities suggested Norton set off the takeover by escaping from his cell, 3C-1, and beating a guard in the medical pod. One of the hostages, Glenda Baker, told The News Herald that she was distributing medicine on the third floor when the lights suddenly went off and one of the locks failed. Baker said one of the inmates released the others and overtook the floor’s lone guard, and negotiators contend that the inmates used a padlock to seal the faulty door from police. Perhaps the most controversial element of CCA’s investigation is the "after-action report," a compilation of liabilities put together for the company by an outside law firm. Jennifer Taylor, CCA’s senior director of business development, said Friday that there was some confusion about the legal probe, which resulted not in a tangible report but informal guidelines for the company to follow. CCA employees who failed to follow company policy in connection with the incident have been "counseled, retrained, reassigned or disciplined, as appropriate." It is unclear how many employees this applies to, and CCA officials said they could not immediately release that information.

November 20, 2004 News Herald
Bay County and the company hired to run its jail met Friday to make amends for two months of quiet bickering, with each side making concessions to the other in the fight for information about September’s hostage taking and standoff at the Bay County Jail. A Corrections Corporation of America liaison was in Panama City on Friday for a discussion with Roger Hagen, the county’s jail point man. Hagen previously said he was frustrated by CCA’s slow response to the request, which was made four days after the takeover.

November 14, 2004 News Herald
Everybody wants to know what happened — and CCA refuses to say.  Bay County officials trying to determine the root of September’s inmate takeover at the Bay County Jail have run into a corporate-size roadblock and are now trying to pry vital information from the tight-lipped, $141-million company that operates the county’s downtown facility.  Corrections Corporation of America was blamed last week for a lack of cooperation during the aftermath of the hostage-taking and standoff that landed a nurse and two prisoners in the hospital. County leaders criticized the company for operating in secret and failing to consult with local administrators on the outcome of a controversial after-action report.  The report is supposed to detail how four inmates got free from their cells, obtained weapons, took hostages and kept the Bay County Sheriff’s Office at bay for 12 hours.  Roger Hagen, the county’s correctional program manager, said CCA has kept him in the dark during its investigation and has not consulted with him. Commissioners Jerry Girvin and Cornel Brock said they were not aware of any communication between the county and the company — despite contrary claims by CCA. "We’ve been in contact with Bay County throughout this process," said Louise Chickering, a marketing executive at the company’s Nashville, Tenn., headquarters. "We are keeping them up to date." "They are? Well, who are they talking to?" Hagen asked last week. "It’s not me. You’d think by now they would have been in contact with someone." Said Girvin: "It sounds very confusing to me, on their part. On CCA’s part." The disconnect was triggered by an incident summary and review that Chickering said was completed more than two weeks ago. But last week, Chickering hedged against that claim, saying that only "the investigation is complete but the report is not." Several groups, including The News Herald, have filed formal requests to review the report, but a CCA attorney said the after-action report never will become a public record. That’s because the investigation was performed by a private law firm hired by CCA, legal counsel Gus Puryear said Thursday. The law firm, Puryear said, was brought in to protect the company from liability. For Brock and Hagen, CCA’s reluctance to share information is troubling. The county recently recouped $1.25 million from the company in return for a contract extension through September 2005. To dissuade the county from bidding out the contract to operate the jail — which commissioners ultimately decided to do — CCA offered to reduce Bay’s bill by $83,333 a month from June 1 through May 31, 2005. CCA also paid the county a lump sum of $250,000 on Oct. 1. The company also has been besieged by bad public relations, as CCA struggled with riots, takeovers and a homicide in the last four months. In a two-week period in July, inmates nearly overtook facilities in Colorado and Mississippi. That followed a July 7 homicide in Nashville and a smaller uprising in Oklahoma. A Colorado Department of Corrections report indicated that understaffing led to a slow response to a disturbance at the Crowley County Correctional Institution — where inmates beat cellmates and set fires across the facility. That the company has not been forthcoming during its investigation of the Bay County Jail is disconcerting, Hagen said. While he has remained in touch with local CCA administrators, Hagen said his dealings with the corporate office have been uneasy at best. Like others, Hagen has tried for weeks to keep abreast of the company’s critical incident review. But getting his hands on the after-action report has proved impossible. "I don’t know if I can get a copy," Hagen said, "and its contents have never been discussed." Brock, who leaves office Tuesday, said the problem may lie with the County Commission and its staff, which has never shown the "enthusiasm" necessary to keep tabs on the jail.

November 9, 2004 News Herald
A state investigation into September’s inmate takeover and police shootings at the Bay County Jail is complete and likely will be turned in to the State Attorney’s Office today. In its review of the incident, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement focused solely on the shootings of a jail nurse and two inmates accused of barricading themselves inside a third-floor medical wing. In addition to FDLE and Sheriff’s Office documents, CCA spokeswoman Louise Chickering said jail administrators completed an after-action report about two weeks ago. Chickering also said the company had been in contact with Bay County officials about its findings. A CCA attorney later denied a News Herald public record request to review that report.   Panama City lawyer Cliff Higby said the report had not yet been finished. And Roger Hagen, Bay County’s correctional program manager, said the Nashville-based company had not spoken with local officials regarding the after-action report. "I don’t know who in the world they’ve been talking to," Hagen said two weeks ago. "But they haven’t been talking to me."

November 3, 2004 News Herald
One of four men charged in a September jailhouse kidnapping pleaded Tuesday to the charges that had him in the Bay County Jail initially. Matthew Coffin, 18, pleaded no contest to escape, robbery with a weapon and attempted robbery with a weapon. Coffin is one of four men accused of taking hostages in a jailhouse standoff Sept. 5. The standoff ended when sheriff’s deputies stormed a third-floor holding cell and shot a suspect and the hostage.

October 9, 2004 News Herald
The company that manages the Bay County Jail has completed an internal investigation into a September hostage taking at the facility. Louise Chickering, a spokeswoman for the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, said company investigators have finished an "after action report" assessing the incident. "We have completed the report and are keeping the county up to date on all our processes and getting as much feedback as possible," Chickering said. The report is not available for public inspection, Chickering said. On Sept. 5, police said four jail prisoners barricaded themselves with four CCA nurses on the third floor of the jail. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is expected to complete a "fact-finding" report by the end of October, said Lisa Lagergren, spokeswoman for the FDLE.

October 6, 2004 News Herald
Police are awaiting the autopsy report for a 22-year-old Springfield man before closing the investigation into his suspected self-inflicted death at the Bay County Jail during Hurricane Ivan. Bay County Sheriff’s Office Investigator John Sumerall said it appears that William Henry Cantor hanged himself from his jail cell bunk with a bedsheet Sept. 15. He said Cantor died alone in a jail cell located in a section of the jail used specifically for inmates who request to be isolated from other inmates.

September 26, 2004 News Herald
An inmate disappeared from the Bay County Jail in downtown Panama City at about 8 p.m. Friday and remained on the lam Saturday night. "We’re working some leads. As of yet they have proven to be fruitless," said Lt. Dave Delaney with the Bay County Sheriff’s Office. "We are actively looking for him."

September 12, 2004 News Herald
I will not second-guess the command decision to utilize deadly force when SWAT members stormed the Bay County jail. I will let an objective and comprehensive afteraction investigation review those facts. There are, however, several initial items which warrant complete review. As a retired associate warden with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (22½ years), I’ve had some experience in these matters. First, was there a clear chain of command? Who was "calling the shots" regarding the negotiations — Bay County Officials or Corrections Corporation of America’s warden of the site? Second, was there a public information officer designated to speak on all matters to the media? Negotiators usually never speak to the media during negotiations as Sheriff Frank McKeithen did. Third, I read where a door would not lock and the staff panic-button alarm system malfunctioned. These issues are inexcusable. Security conditions (cell locking mechanisms, staff emergency equipment, etc.) must be checked each shift — daily — and when found inoperative fixed immediately, or replaced with functioning equipment. Fourthly, how could inmates access controlled medications? Facilities are required to have these items safely secured (behind a grille in a safe) and available for immediate disposal through a chute in event of an emergency. Finally, who’s overseeing CCA’s compliance with contractual requirements, correctional personnel and jail standards, and regulations? Many important issues must be addressed through an objective post-incident investigation team. Accountability for incompetence must be made. By Fred Apple. The writer, who helped run federal prisons in Minnesota, now is retired and lives in Panama City.

September 9, 2004 News Herald
He missed. He just missed. Bay County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jimmy Stanford was aiming for the inmate’s leg, aiming to end a 12-hour standoff that had quickly dissolved, that had been calm and controlled but soon spiraled into a violent, drug-laced nightmare. There he was Monday morning, on the third floor of the Bay County Jail, trying to quash a rebellion and earn freedom for the final hostage. He saw the nurse, a scalpel to her throat and a hypodermic needle at her chest, the inmate standing behind her.

September 9, 2004 News Herald
The Florida Ethics Commission on Wednesday issued probable-cause findings on two former Bay County commissioners, a former county attorney, a former county manager and a current county employee on charges related to a 2000 trip to Nashville, Tenn. The Ethics Commission’s findings are related to a February 2000 trip the county officials took to Tennessee to visit a jail operated by Corrections Corporation of America, which also operates Bay County’s jail and annex. Bay County was negotiating a contract renewal with CCA at the time of the trip.  In July 2003, the Florida Police Benevolent Association filed complaints with the Ethics Commission against former County Commissioners Carol Atkinson, Danny Sparks and Richard Stewart, former County Manager Jon Mantay, former county attorney Nevin Zimmerman, and Bob Majka, then and still the county’s emergency services director. The Ethics Commission dismissed all complaints against Atkinson because she believed the county was paying for the trip, according to the Ethics Commission’s report.

September 8, 2004 News Herald
The wisdom of the bloody end Sheriff Frank McKeithen ordered to a weekend hostage standoff at Bay County Jail will be thoroughly weighed under more tranquil circumstances, as it should. Given the criminal history of four inmates who took hostages and threatened to take lives, though, the sheriff for 11 hours lived with the knowledge that these were not just boys acting up. It appears that all four should have been in a better guarded state penitentiary or institution; one may be a mental case. The hostage-takers’ grievances deserve attention, not from sympathy for their diet or sloppy medication management, but as a more sober-minded look at the county’s repeated inability to properly monitor or control what goes on inside the jail or to properly address complaints raised by inmates over and over, year after year.  CCA also is constantly pressured to do everything more cheaply.

September 8, 2004 Tallahassee Democrat
A sheriff's negotiator won the release of three employees before a SWAT team stormed the Bay County Jail when inmates threatened to torture and kill their remaining hostage, a nurse who then was accidentally shot, authorities said Tuesday. The nurse suffered gunshot wounds in the back and leg Monday and remained hospitalized in stable condition, said sheriff's spokeswoman Ruth Sasser. Inmates had taken over the six-story jail's third-floor infirmary, and one of them was holding a scalpel to the nurse's neck when the SWAT team and armed jailers ended an 11-hour standoff that began about 9 p.m. Sunday, Sasser said. The hostages - three female nurses and a male guard - worked for Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America, which operates the jail under contract with the county. Licensed practical nurse Glenda Baker, however, told The News Herald of Panama City that she was one of the hostages released during the night. The lights had gone off and a door to the floor's cells failed to lock before the incident occurred, Baker said. One inmate then released others and four hostage-takers overpowered the only guard on the floor. Then a panic button failed, she said. A television anchor said she had received a telephone call Sunday night from someone claiming to be holding hostages at the jail. The caller said he was upset about health hazards there.

September 8, 2004 News Herald
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement continued its investigation on Tuesday into the Bay County Sheriff’s Office’s response to a Bay County Jail hostage situation that ended in gunfire early Monday morning. Four jail inmates were charged in the hostage taking, which ended when Bay County SWAT team members stormed the third-floor area where the men had barricaded themselves with four hostages. A CCA nurse and two inmates were injured by gunfire when the SWAT team moved in.

September 6, 2004 AP
A SWAT team stormed the Bay County Jail on Monday to end an 11-hour hostage standoff, injuring one hostage and three inmates, authorities said. An undetermined number of other employees were freed. The injured hostage, a nurse, suffered a leg wound and was undergoing surgery at a hospital, and her injury did not appear to be life-threatening. 

July 22, 2004 News Herald
A jail melee that left three prisoners injured this week was motivated by "racial prejudice," according to arrest affidavits filed Wednesday at the Bay County Courthouse.  Six men attacked two men "en masse," using their fists and a makeshift weapon — a padlock stuffed in a sock — during a quarrel Monday at the Bay County Jail, authorities reported. One of the alleged attackers also turned on a third man who tried to quell the fisticuffs, police said.  Five of the prisoners were charged with two counts of felony battery on a detainee. They are: Tyree C. Cleveland, 22; Danny D. Dorsey, 19; Shawn C. Ponds, 28; Demar J. Davis, 19; and Derrick M. Bell, 19. Johnny L. Brown, 23, was charged with three counts of felony battery, accused of shoving the man who tried to break up the fight into a metal bunk.  An official from Corrections Corporation of America, which runs the Bay County Jail and its annex on Nehi Road, said the fight occurred on the fifth floor of the downtown Panama City facility. Spokeswoman Mary Hughes said two guards were on duty at the time and called for backup when the melee began.   The injuries were minor, Hughes said, and the alleged victims were treated at the jail.  Arrest affidavits said the suspected attackers had been calling two of the victims a racial epithet the week before the incident and made the men complete their daily work assignments. The alleged attackers also used the epithet during the beating, the affidavits said.  "We were not aware of that," Hughes said. "The chief was told that by the (Bay County) Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating it."  

March 31, 2004 The Ledger
The last two of six Bay County Jail inmates charged in the beating death of a fellow inmate pleaded guilty and were sentenced Monday.  Investigators said Chad Littles, 18, was beaten to death in October 2002 because others thought he was an informant for the guards, The News Herald reported.  James DeRossetti, 22, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison; Larry K. Burks, 20, pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and was given seven years in prison.  "I'd just like to say I feel real bad for what happened," said DeRossetti. "I hate that it happened. I just wish this court and the people of Bay County could know what really happened, but it won't never come out."  Originally, the six defendants were charged with second-degree murder. The others were sentenced earlier.  Jeremiah Samuel Hinsey, 22, pleaded no contest to manslaughter in July and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Carlos King, 32, pleaded no contest to aggravated assault June 8 and was given five years in prison.  Malachi Najair, 26, was sentenced Aug. 22 to 12 years in prison after entering a plea to felony battery and violation of probation. Ronald Lawson, 26, was sentenced in October to five years in prison for felony battery.  Littles' mother has sued Corrections Corporation of America Inc., which operates the jail, claiming it did not protect her son. That lawsuit hasn't been resolved. 

March 15, 2004 News Herald
After a surprise visit to inspect the conditions of the Bay County Jail Thursday, Bay County Commissioner John Newberry shook his head in disbelief and said "the place needs to be dynamited."  Newberry told Denny Durbin, the facility’s administrator, that he visited the jail unannounced so there would be no question about whether or not he was seeing typical conditions. Newberry also questioned jail officials about their refusal to release medical records of two inmates who asked News Herald staff to look into claims of physical abuse by CCA employees.  On Wednesday, Kenneth Pringle, 28, called The News Herald from the Bay County Jail Annex and asked to be interviewed about beatings he said he’d taken from guards. In order to verify his claims that he received medical treatment for injuries, a reporter requested Pringle’s medical records.  After Pringle signed a waiver to make his records available, another inmate, Timothy Pilgreen, made similar claims and requested a waiver from jail officials.  But Assistant Warden John Rochefort refused to release the records and said The News Herald would have to subpoena them.  After News Herald staff submitted a freedom of information request for the medical records, jail officials released Pilgreen’s records. Pilgreen said he had been removed from the cell and handcuffed during the search.  Pilgreen said he followed a guard’s instructions to face the back wall of the cell, but when the officer came in and removed the handcuffs from one arm, he "slammed" Pilgreen’s head into the concrete wall, Pilgreen said.  Pilgreen said he fell to the floor and several correction officers began to punch and kick him. Then, he said one of the jailers climbed onto the toilet and jumped onto his left leg.  An inspection of Pilgreen’s medical records uncovered an evaluation from the jail’s medical staff that listed the reason for examination as "use of force and restraints." The record, dated Jan. 24, said Pilgreen’s left thigh was red and inflamed. It also said he had a large knot and a small laceration on his right eyebrow, an abrasion on his right knee and an "ecchymosis" — a bruise — on his neck.  Soon after the examination at the jail, Pilgreen was taken to the emergency room at Gulf Coast Medical Center for an evaluation because he was "taken down with force" and his thigh was "red and swollen," the medical records showed. Newberry asked about roach infestation based on comments inmates had made in a previous News Herald article. Officials had previously said they sprayed for roaches once a month, but Newberry suggested that might not be enough. Pilgreen’s medical records revealed that he was treated for ant bites in December of 2003 and complained of a spider bite in February.  Newberry asked about mold, and Durbin told him "there is very little ventilation." When Newberry asked about heating and cooling, Durbin said "heating hasn’t been reconstructed but (there) has been a lot of improvement."  Newberry said it was time to address the condition of the jail. 

March 10, 2004 News Herald
Even as it considers major changes in its jail operations in the next couple of years, Bay County is talking with current jail operator Corrections Corporation of America about ways to reduce costs in the meantime. "Right now you’ve got the best of all worlds," Roger Hagen, the county’s newly hired corrections program manager, told county commissioners Tuesday. "You’ve got two years to deal with the broader issue of where we want to be five, 10 years from now."  The county’s contract with Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, expires in 2006, but the county has an opportunity to terminate it this year. If it decides to do so, the county must notify CCA by the end of June.  The county pays CCA on a per-inmate, per-day basis. With the jail population exceeding capacity most days, the county has seen its jail costs skyrocket. If the current trend continues, the total cost for the current fiscal year will exceed $14 million.  

March 8, 2004 News Herald
Even though the combined population of Bay County’s two jails has swollen beyond the designed capacities by more than 300 inmates, jail officials say the buildings are not overcrowded. At the Bay County Jail in downtown Panama City last week, some inmates slept in steel bunks that lined the concrete walls of dayrooms — open areas outside of the cells, where inmates spend most of their waking hours. Mold and rust were visible on the walls of the shower room and inmates said it did not drain properly. Other inmates said the interior walls of the jail should be painted and still others complained that they did not get enough to eat.  Wesley Smith, a 20-year-old inmate, asked why his room constantly leaks around the ceiling. The walls of Smith’s cell, which abut the shower stall, were damp and what appeared to be mold was visible in the corners around the ceiling. Smith said living in the damp conditions often makes him sick.  During two separate interviews with Smith at the Bay County Jail, roaches could be seen crawling on the top of a desk in an interview room.  Bellows directed questions about the facility to the jail’s spokeswoman, Mary Hughes, the administrative supervisor for Corrections Corporation of America’s Bay County facilities. John Rochefort, assistant warden for the Bay County Jail Annex on Nehi Road, said the downtown jail was designed to hold 212 inmates. There were 445 in the facility on March 1. On the same day, he said there were 565 inmates in the annex, which is designed to hold 456 people. During a tour of the annex on Tuesday, bunks could be seen overflowing into dayrooms. A female inmate said they were "way over" capacity in her dorm.  During an interview last week, Smith said he had looked on in horror as a group of inmates beat to death 18-yearold Chad Littles in a cell at the annex Oct. 6.  Littles’ mother is suing CCA, claiming the jail didn’t do enough to protect her son.  If steps have been taken to thwart violence, Smith and Allen said they couldn’t tell. Both said they had been beaten so severely in the last year that they required hospitalization.  Allen said he has been beaten on five separate occasions. He blamed the guards.  "(A female guard) walked into the pod I just got put in and said, ‘Hey, there’s a guy in here for raping somebody,’" Allen said.  The beatings soon followed, Allen said.  In November 2002, Allen said, he was beaten so severely he required staples in his head. On another occasion, Allen said, he was beaten until he had a seizure.  Following that incident, Allen said he was put in the isolation ward for mental patients. For safety reasons, inmates are let out of their cells one at a time to use the dayroom. But on one occasion, he said, guards let an inmate who had already made violent threats into the dayroom with him. Allen said he was beaten again.  "Rochefort did confirm a story by one inmate who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. He said inmates at the Bay County Jail were able to tie pieces of bed sheets together and lower a pillowcase to the ground from the sixth floor in order to smuggle in contraband.

February 26, 2004 News Herald
One Bay County Jail inmate received 10 years in prison and another received five years after pleading no contest to charges stemming from the beating and stomping death of another inmate.   Jeremiah Samuel Hinsey, 22, received 10 years for manslaughter and Carlos King, 32, five years for aggravated assault in the 2002 death of Chad Littles, 18, at the jail's annex outside Panama City.  Circuit Judge Don T. Sirmons gave each credit for 505 days time served Tuesday as he sentenced them in accord with plea agreements. They join two other inmates already sentenced for participating in the killing. Two more are awaiting trial.  Investigators said Littles, who died from a head injury, was killed because other inmates mistakenly believed he was an informant.  Malachi Najair, 26, was sentenced in August to 12 years after pleading no contest to felony battery and unrelated charges. Ronald Lawson, 26, was sentenced in October to five years for felony battery.  Larry K. Burks, 20, and Nicholas Hulsey, 22, are set for pretrial hearings March 10 on second-degree murder charges.  A lawsuit by Littles' mother is pending against Corrections Corporation of America Inc., the private company that runs the jail for the county.  

October 14, 2003 News Herald
Circuit Judge Don T. Sirmons followed the agreed upon sentence in Ronald Lawson’s plea deal Monday and gave him five years in prison for his role in the beating death of a Bay County Jail inmate last year. Lawson, who was originally charged with second degree murder in the death of Chad Littles, 18, pleaded no contest to felony battery several months ago.

October 8, 2003 News Herald
Bay County commissioners said Tuesday they’re not ready to decide whether to solicit bids for operation of the Bay County Jail and annex.  At the conclusion of a 3½ hour workshop, the commission tabled the issue for two months.  They hope that will provide time to determine whether a new county position will help them address the persistent problem of rising jail populations and the associated costs.  Commissioners approved the new staff position in the current year’s budget, which began Oct. 1. The yet-to-be-hired employee will provide heightened oversight of the county’s contract with Corrections Corporation of America, the private company that has operated the jail since 1986.  "At this point, I’m not prepared to give a formal notice to CCA that we’re going to do a (request for proposals)," Ropa said. "What I’m looking for is more investigation into what exactly we should ask for in an RFP or what we should ask of our current vendors."  The county’s contract with CCA does not expire until the end of September 2006. But the county can terminate the contract in the mean time by providing the company 90 days’ notice. If the county wanted to solicit proposals for next fiscal year, it would have to provide such notice in June.  County staff had suggested that if the commission wanted to solicit proposals, it should go ahead and provide CCA notice. That would give the staff plenty of time to prepare a request for proposals.  But Commissioner Cornel Brock said he thinks the commission should test the new con    tract oversight position to see what difference it makes.  Commissioners first broached the subject of soliciting proposals from other private jail-management companies when they were reviewing their budget for the current year. With one month still uncalculated, the jail contract exceeded its $10 million budget by more than $1 million.  The bill has been running about  $1 million a month.  Commissioners budgeted $12.6 million for this year.  That took into account an increase in the per diem, per-inmate rate charged by CCA. The rate this year will be $43.16.  

July 25, 2003 News Herald Bay County commissioners said Thursday they want to take a fresh look at their options for operation of the county jail.  Reacting to a suggestion by Commissioner Mike Ropa, they agreed to put the issue on the agenda for their Aug. 19 meeting.  At that time, they will discuss giving Corrections Corporation of America — which runs the main jail and annex — notice that they intend to solicit bids from other private jail-management companies. Some commissioners suggested they’d like to expand the discussion to include the possibility of the county’s reassuming responsibility for jail operations.  Ropa said cost is the primary reason he wants to put the contract out for bid.  Budget Officer Mary Dayton told commissioners she expects payments to CCA to exceed the budgeted amount by more than $2 million. The county budgeted roughly $9.9 million for the year, and so far has paid $9.2 million with three months left to pay. Monthly bills have been running about $1 million, Dayton said.  Commissioner John Newberry said he generally questions private jail operation, and suggested that incarceration "really ought to be a government function." 

July 15, 2003 News Herald
A union that represents law enforcement and correctional officers said Monday that it had filed ethics complaints against three former Bay County commissioners, a former county manager, a former county attorney and the county’s chief of emergency services.  The Florida Police Benevolent Association said its complaints stemmed from a February 2000 trip the officials took to Tennessee to visit a jail operated by Corrections Corporation of America, which also operates Bay County’s jail and annex.  Ken Kopczynski, PBA’s legislative assistant, said the union has documentation that CCA paid for the trip, including airfare, hotel rooms and meals.  At the time, CCA and the county were negotiating the renewal of the contract for Bay County jail operations.  "It is very questionable since they were in the middle of contract negotiations (with CCA,)" Kopczynski said.  Kopczynski said PBA began looking into Atkinson after she began chairing the privatization commission last year. As part of that research, he said, "we came across this trip."  

July 8, 2003 News Herald
The third of six men charged in the death of a Bay County Jail inmate pleaded no contest to manslaughter Monday and faces 10 years in prison.  Jeremiah Samuel Hinsey, 21, was one of six men charged in the death of Chad Littles, 18, who died Oct. 6 at the jail annex on Nehi Road. Investigators said six inmates beat Littles to death when they thought he was an informant for the guards.  Hinsey, Carlos King, 31, Ronald Lawson, 25, Nicholas Hulsey, 21, Malachi Najair, 25, and Larry K. Burks, 19, were charged.  King and Lawson entered pleas in their cases last month.  King pleaded no contest Monday to aggravated assault. He was accused of barring Littles’ escape from a group of inmates who had attacked him. It was while Littles was facing King, investigators said, an inmate swept Littles’ legs out from under him. Littles was kicked and beaten while he was down.  He died from a head injury.  Lawson was one of those accused of kicking Littles. He pleaded no contest to felony battery.  Both men will be sentenced to five years in prison, according to court records, after all six cases have been disposed of.  Hinsey tentatively was scheduled for sentencing Sept. 22. He agreed to testify against the remaining co-defendants if called by the state.  Prosecutor Ashley Adams said additional depositions in this case are scheduled for August, which could move all the cases closer to completion.  Najair’s attorney said in court last month that he is considering a plea offer as well.  No contest means the men don’t admit their guilt, only that the state could prove they did the crime.  Littles’ mother sued Corrections Corporation of America Inc., the jail’s corporate owner, claiming the jail didn’t do enough to protect her son. The morning of Oct 6, guards conducted a routine security inspection in Littles’ cell pod, which was completed five minutes later.  Two minutes after officers left the minimum-security pod, an inmate came to the front of the pod and told the guards that an inmate was down, according to jail officials. 
 
June 11, 2003 News Herald
Malachi Najair might be the next Bay County Jail inmate to enter a plea in the beating death of Chad Littles Najair, 25, is charged, along with three other inmates, with second degree murder. He’s accused of participating in a beating Oct. 6 in the jail annex on Nehi Road that killed the 18-year-old Littles.  On the morning of Oct. 6 guards conducted a routine security inspection in Littles’ cell pod, according to Corrections Corporation of America, the jail’s corporate owner. The CCA said the inspection was completed five minutes later.  Littles’ mother, Frances Hughes, sued CCA, claiming it failed to provide the proper number of guards or monitoring equipment for the cell block, or train the guards properly.

June 10, 2003 News Herald
Two men entered pleas Monday to their involvement in the death of a Bay County Jail inmate in October. Carlos King, 31, and Ronald Lawson, 25, both face five years in prison after pleading no contest to lesser charges than the second-degree murder they were facing.  Chad Littles, 18, died Oct. 6 while being held at the Bay County Jail Annex on Nehi Road. Investigators said six inmates beat Littles to death when they thought he was an informant for the guards.  Littles’ mother, Frances Hughes, and a representative from the attorney’s office handling her lawsuit against the jail’s corporate owner, Corrections Corporation of America, were in the audience to see King and Lawson change their pleas.  Hughes said in her lawsuit that CCA failed to provide the proper number of guards or monitoring equipment for the cell block, or train the guards properly.  

April 18, 2003 News Herald
The Bay County jail’s 2002-03 budget allocation is almost two-thirds spent, halfway through the fiscal year, due to an exorbitant number of inmates. "If this trend continues, Bay County’s current (Corrections Corporation of America) budget of $9,990,780 will need to be increased," Rogers wrote in a letter recently to the Bay County Emergency Services Department, which is responsible for monitoring the county’s contract with CCA. 

April 3, 2003 News Herald
Corrections Corporation of America has pledged to work with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to address discrepancies in computerized arrest information for inmates at the Bay County Jail.  In January, the FDLE reviewed CCA’s computerized arrest records against 288 booking reports. FDLE found a "high percentage" of discrepancies, ranging from incorrect or misspelled names to incorrect charges.  A number of the discrepancies occurred because arresting officers failed to enter proper Florida Statute numbers to identify criminal charges.  

December 17, 2002 News Herald
A man who used his little brother's name to avoid being booked into the Bay County Jail Sunday remained at large Monday after escaping out an unguarded back door at the Bay County Jail.  

December 6, 2002 News Herald
Correctional officers at the Bay County Jail released the wrong woman Tuesday when a female inmate assumed the identity of a sleeping woman who was in the same holding cell for detoxification.  While the intoxicated woman was sleeping in the cell, Robbie Levingston, 29, answered for her, signed for her belongings and walked out of the jail, said Bay County Sheriff's Lt. J. D. Nolin.  Chief Michael Thompkins, of the CCA, said an incident like this has never happened in his 14 years at the Bay County Jail and new procedures are in place so it never happens again.  

October 9, 2002 News Herald
Office of Emergency Services has intiated its own investigation this week into the death of a Bay County Jail annex inmate.  Sheriff's investigators said the Chad Littles, 18, was beaten to death Sunday by six other inmates at the annex on Nehi Road.  Bob Majka, chief emergency services, said his office oversees the contract between the county and Corrections Corporation of America, the operators of the Bay County jail and its annex.  He said Tuesday that a member of his staff was looking in to the death of Littles to ensure that jail staff performed in accordance with the jail's policies, and that those policies were in agreement with the contract.  Majka said his office has become more involved in monitoring activities at the jail since inmate Justin Sturgis, 20, died Feb, 15 after an apparent drug overdose at the main jail.  Both facilities are operated by CCA.  A grand jury handed down a presentment in the Sturgis case that was critical of how the situation was handled.  Steven Owen, CCA spokesperson, said Tuesday that jail personnel weren't responsible in any way for Littles death.  When Bay County contracted with CCA back in the mid-1980s, it became the first county in the country to turn its jail over to a private company.  Owen said there were cameras installed in the pod, but they didn't work.  They'd been installed 15 years earlier to monitor a specific remodeling project and hadn't been in operation since.  

October 8, 2002 News Herald
A county judge Monday said there was "no chance" he would allow six men accused of a jailhouse slaying to post bond.  They are accused of beating to death fellow Bay County Jail inmate Chad Littles, 18, on Sunday.  

October 7, 2002 News Herald
Six inmates at the Bay County Correctional Facility Annex on Nehi Road were charged Sunday with the beating death overnight of Chad Littles, 18, of Panama City.   Littles was serving time for failure to pay a fine –possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana, resisting an officer without violence/violation of probation on an original charge of burglary of a structure. Bay County Sheriff Guy Tunnell said James DeRossutt, also known as Nicholas Hulsey, 19, of Alabama; Malachi Najair, 25, of Callaway; Carlos D. King, 30, of Panama City; Larry Burks, 19, of Panama City; Jeremiah S. Hinsey, 18, of Evansville, Ind.; and Ronald Lawson, 24, of Fort Walton Beach assaulted Littles.   They are now in the main Bay County Jail and will make first appearances on the open charge of murder today.   Tunnell said Littles was killed after an altercation in the B dorm of the minimum security annex, where about 80 inmates are housed. The fight began after a routine shakedown yielded an instrument for applying tattoos.   Tunnell said most of the inmates felt Littles had told Corrections Corporation of America guards about the tattooing tool. But Capt. Ralph Dyer of the Bay County Sheriff’s Office said that was not the case.  "The sad thing is that Littles was not an informant," he said. "He was called back into his cell to unlock his locker, which guards could not open. The other inmates thought he was a snitch and that he had told guards about the tattooing tool."   After guards let the inmates back into their cell pod, at least four of the defendants allegedly confronted Littles at the rear of the dorm and began to beat him.   Littles was able to get away temporarily and was trying to summon guards when King blocked his way and, according to witnesses, enticed the same inmates to "finish him.  At that time, according to Tunnell, DeRossutt came up behind Littles and pulled his feet out from under him, causing his head to strike the concrete floor with full force, knocking him unconscious.  Witnessses said Najair, Burks, Hinsey and Lawson then began to kick or hit Littles while he was lying on the floor. Guards arrived and summoned the on-duty nurse for CCA. The nurse then called EMS to transport Littles to Bay Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. 

August 19, 2002 News Herald
While grand jurors found no criminal liability in the death of a Bay County Jail inmate, their presentment found there were "serious deficiencies" on the part of jail personnel "which led, or contributed to the death of Justin Sturgis."  CCA representatives said Sturgis caused his own death.  However, the medical protocols the jail had in place were inadequate and weren't followed anyway, according to the presentment.  "Correctional personnel failed to demonstrate adequate health training in responding to the level of distress evidenced by Justin Sturgis," the jury's presentment stated.  In addition, policies that require a "system of structured inquiry and observation" to an inmate's medical condition were not adhered to.  "That structure was sorely lacking in the Sturgis case."  Jurors singled out jail nurse William Schwarz Jr. and recommended that a copy of the presentment be sent as a report of his performance to the Florida Department of Health's Division of Medical Quality Assurance.  "William Schwarz was deficient in the performance of his duties as the facility's sole health care professional," the presentment said.  "Such deficiencies may have contributed to the death of Justin Sturgis."  The report did not address inmate's allegations that jail personnel tainted Sturgis.  Grand jurors also recommended that the Bay County Commission look into the matter to see if it merits termination of the county's contract with CCA.  

August 13, 2002 News Herald
Attorney Wes Pittman said Monday he was angered by comments made by Corrections Corporation of America officials after a grand jury released its findings into the death of a Bay County Jail Inmate. Grand Jurors issued a presentment containing views, criticisms and suggestions Thursday after investigating the death of Justin Sturgis, 20, who died the morning of Feb. 15 after an apparent drug overdose at the jail, a CCA facility.  “It is a very solid finding of fault on the part of the grand jury as to the ludicrous nature of health care, or lack of health care, in the Bay County Jail,” said Pittman, who represents the Sturgis family  While grand jurors found no criminal liability in Sturgis’ death, there were “serious deficiencies” on the part of personnel “ which led, or contributed to the death.”  Sturgis apparently swallowed 10 to 12 Ecstasy pills during a traffic stop, just before he was arrested for DUI.  He started suffering some degree of distress about 3 a.m., according to the presentment, but wasn’t taken to the hospital until three hours later. He died of malignant hyperthermia, a rare reaction to the drug.  His body temperature was 108 degrees when he was admitted to the emergency room, said a Bay Medical Center doctor.  CCA representatives said Thursday that Sturgis caused his own death by swallowing the drugs to avoid prosecution and not telling the jail nurse what he had done.  “When Mr. Sturgis failed to give the nurse adequate information concerning the quantity and nature of the drug, he effectively removed any possibility of survival,” said Louise Green, CCA vice president of communications.  Pittman, who returned to work Monday after being on vacation in Canada last week, said those comments did nothing to head off a lawsuit he plans to file late this week against CCA.  “It was almost laughable, the comments that the two CCA defense lawyers made following the publication of the presentment,” he said.  “In effect, CCA has issued a death sentence to any kid who takes drugs.  That’s hardly a commendable attitude for contract persons charged with the protection of individuals within their custody and who are unable to take care of themselves.  “Even someone who has subjected himself to an overdose of drugs must be cared for.  There’s no excuse in denying someone reasonable medical care.”  Pittman said he’s been in contact with several people who have been denied medical care at the jail.  He said the lawsuit he intends to file might include plaintiffs other than the Sturgis family.  “It’s more than a weekly event that I’m receiving letters and telephone calls from people who have been deprived of medication that’s been prescribed to them,” Pittman said.  “They have been totally ignored just as Justin Sturgis was.”  CCA attorney Deeno Kitchen said last week that over the last 30 months, jail personnel have taken 480 inmates to area hospitals with 81 being admitted.  “If we err at all, we err on the safe side every time,” he said.  “We take them and let the doctors make the call.  In this instance we followed what we understood the instructions to be.”  Kitchen said Monday that the threat of a lawsuit wouldn’t stop the jail from adopting changes grand jurors recommended.  He said the rules of evidence would prohibit Pittman from using any improvements the jail made as proof of negligence.  “We want to do the right thing,” Kitchen said.  “If we’re going to improve it, we will improve it.”  He said the jail provided a lawyer, Emily Dowdy, for inmates to go to with complaints. Dowdy said that a “very small percentage” of the numerous letters she receives daily from inmates are about medical care.  She said the media coverage of Sturgis’ death, and the grand jury’s investigation, sparked an increase in the number of medical complaints she receives.  “Both medical offices (at the jail and annex) are real good about following up on things when I call them,” Dowdy said  She said she contacts medical personnel about the inmate’s complaints.  She then writes back to the inmates asking that they contact her if their situation doesn’t improve.  “Some do” write back, Dowdy said.  “The majority don’t.”  Pittman said the more he looks into the situation at the jail the more he uncovers.  

August 8, 2002 News Herald
While grand jurors found no criminal liability in the death of a Bay County Jail inmate, their presentment found there were "serious deficiencies" on the part of jail personal "which led, or contributed to the death of Justin Sturgis" said CCA attorney Deeno Kitchen.  However, the medical protocols the jail had in place were inadequate and weren't followed anyway, according to the presentment.  "Correctional personnel failed to demonstrate adequate health training in responding to the level of distress evidenced by Justin Sturgis," the jury's presentment stated.  In addition, policies that require a "system of structured inquiry and observation" to an inmate's medical condition were not adhered to.  "That structure was sorely lacking in the Sturgis case."  The grand jury was empanelled in July to review a Bay County Sheriff's Office investigation into the incident and interviewed 18 witnesses, including jail and medical personnel.  The jury issued a presentment on July 17.  Named parties were given a chance to review the findings, and the presentment was made public Thursday.  Jurors singled out jail nurse William Schwarz Jr. and recommended that a copy of the presentment be sent as a report of his performance to the Florida Department of Health's Division of Medical Quality Assurance.  "William Schwarz was deficient in the performance of his duties as the facility's sole health care professional," the presentment said.  "Such deficiencies may have contributed to the death of Justin Sturgis."  A specific problem jurors cited was apparent miscommunication between Schwarz and emergency room Dr. George Tracy.     Tracy testified that he told Schwarz to take Sturgis' vital signs and call him back.  Schwarz said Tracy told him to call back in two hours.  That prevented Tracy from getting Sturgis' information in an timely manner, jurors wrote.  Harry Harper, Schwarz's attorney, said his client was the only nurse on duty that night in a jail that held more than 300 people.  The report did not address inmates' allegations the jail personnel taunted Sturgis.  The presentment recommended numerous changes in jail policy and procedures.  He said cameras had been installed in the holding cells to monitor inmate activities.  Kitchen, however, couldn't say if those cameras would record- the the presentment suggested- as well as monitor.  Kitchen said the jail also would try to set aside a specific area for distressed inmates where medical personnel could more easily monitor their condition.  The presentment was critical of the fact that jail guards, instead of nurses, had to keep track of Sturgis' symptoms.  Green said the jail was audited recently and found in compliance with the provisions of the Florida Model Jail Standards and American Correctional Association Standards.  Grand jurors also recommended that the Bay County Commission look into the matter to see if it merits termination of the county's contract with CCA.  

July 12, 2002 News Herald
Grand jurors are expected to decide today whether criminal charges will be brought against Corrections Corporation of America officials in the death of an inmate in February.   Justin Sturgis, 20, died the morning of Feb. 15 after an apparent drug overdose at the Bay County Jail, a CCA facility.  Inmates at the facility at the time of Sturgis’ death told The News Herald that guards taunted and laughed at Sturgis while he was in distress, and didn’t call for an ambulance until it was too late to prevent his death.   Sturgis’ family members filed notice about two weeks after his death that they intended to sue CCA.  

July 18, 2002 News Herald
Grand jurors found Wednesday that no one was criminally responsible for a Bay County Jail inmate’s death, but have issued a presentment, meaning they have something to say about the matter.  Justin Sturgis, 20, died the morning of Feb. 15 after an apparent drug overdose at the Bay County Jail, a Corrections Corporation of America facility.   Attorney Wes Pittman, who expects to represent Sturgis’ family in a lawsuit against CCA and possibly Bay Medical Center, said the presentment will help his case. He said the family didn’t feel like it needed an indictment to justify how serious the situation was.   "Considering the hideous facts of this case, it was enough that the State Attorney’s Office would take this to the grand jury," Pittman said. "There were some very serious, bad things, in (the prosecutor’s) opinion, happening within the Bay County Jail."  

July 13, 2002 News Herald
Grand jurors started their second day of investigation Friday into the death of a Bay County Jail inmate with testimony from the emergency room doctor who treated him.  Bay Medical Center Dr. George Tracy was the first witness Friday.  Tracy told The News Herald after the incident that he told a jail nurse to monitor Sturgis' condition carefully and call him back, but the nurse didn't call him until two hours later.

February 27, 2002 News Herald
The parents of Justin Sturgis have filed a notice that they intend to sue the Bay County Jail and perhaps Bay Medical Center for failing to properly care for Sturgis when he became fatally ill in a jail holding cell on Feb. 15. Doctors believe that Sturgis, 21, died of malignant hyperthermia, a rare reaction to the street drug Ecstasy. The medical examiner will determine a cause of death when toxicology tests are completed. Investigators believe Sturgis swallowed 10 tablets of Ecstasy during a traffic stop on U.S. 98 to prevent police from discovering the drugs. Inmates who were jailed with Sturgis told The News Herald that jail officials denied Sturgis medical assistance for two hours. The officials did not call for an ambulance until after the jail nurse announced that Sturgis' heart had stopped, the inmates said.  Inmates also alleged that correctional officers laughed and mocked Sturgis even as he was experiencing seizures. Attorney Wes Pittman said he will file suit against Corrections Corporation of America on behalf of the Sturgis family. CCA is the private company contracted by Bay County to manage the jail. "These parents do not want anyone else to suffer the grief they are experiencing right now," Pittman said. "Their motivation is to try and prevent this from happening to someone else. "If the allegations made by other prisoners are correct, we are certainly looking at CCA for violations of certain civil rights afforded to inmates as well as being extraordinarily negligent."  "We do not see the county as the culprit," Pittman said. "It (the suit) is going to be against CCA and possibly the hospital.  Bay County Commission Chairman Cornel Brock said the commission is anxiously awaiting the results of investigations into the incident that the Bay County Sheriff's Office and CCA are conducting. "The county is very much concerned," Brock said. "We don't take it lightly. An inmate who becomes seriously ill while they are incarcerated ultimately is the responsibility of the county. 

February 24, 2002 News Herald
Justin Sturgis' gruesome death under jailers' watch was a discomforting public intrusion, especially because, in some ways, it's as if it happened somewhere else.  Accountability for public institutions, and thus self-government itself, remains an unfinished portrait.  Sturgis' death wasn't mentioned at Tuesday's County Commission meeting, as surely it would have been had he died while taking part in a local high school football practice. Sturgis was in the custody of a private company, Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America. When the company has something to say, a CCA spokesman told reporter Todd Twilley, people will hear what people need to hear. A defense attorney who beats a regular path to the jail told Twilley, "It's been fairly well known for a long time that there's a problem down there."   Fairly well-known by whom?   Perhaps it is good the public doesn't know a lot that is going on within public institutions, even privately managed ones like the jail. Just as perhaps, it is bad. With citizen oversight, maybe public officials - the ones who should be accountable - would know what is going on.   Panama City police, who brought Sturgis to jail on a drunk-driving charge, apparently were unaware he had swallowed a potentially fatal number of Ecstasy tablets to avoid additional charges involving drugs.   At the jail, though, the whole line of command and custody - admissions personnel, medical personnel, guards - should have known his convulsions weren't just jailhouse malingering. The experts on such things, other inmates, knew.   Just keep an eye on him, a doctor at Bay Medical Center told the jail nurse by phone.   The only sign of criminal wrongdoing that a Sheriff's Office investigator has turned up in the case didn't involve jail staff, however, the investigator told Twilley. It involved the plastic bag found in Sturgis' stomach during autopsy. We have no reason to think otherwise. Still, we believe criminal wrongdoing is too narrow a focus of an examination of what happened to Sturgis.   Panama City police; the Sheriff's Office, which has jurisdiction over the jail; Bay Medical Center; and no matter the contracting, the Bay County Jail; all are public institutions. They are operated by public employees but not under public oversight.   The long-term value of grand jury oversight or charter-based citizen oversight is not to point the finger at who didn't do what he was supposed to, but to empower and enable citizens to know how things are supposed to work, and whether they do or not - here, and now. 

February 21, 2002 News Herald
A man who worked at the Bay County Jail as a nurse said Wednesday that he quit last year because he felt pressure from correctional officers not to do his job and feared that an inmate eventually would die.   "And it happened," Jerry Militich told The News Herald.   "I knew it was going to happen, and I couldn't handle it. So I left. When I saw the paper, I had to call."   Militich was referring to a story about the death of 20-year-old Justin Sturgis early Friday.   The specific pressure he said he felt was to avoid sending sick inmates to the hospital. Corrections Corporation of America, which runs the jail under contract with Bay County, must pay to transport prisoners to the hospital and pay for the medication that inmates receive.  Militich said he worked for CCA for about a year during 2000 and 2001. He said Wednesday that some of the medical practices at the jail while he was there upset him.   Militich said correctional officers and supervisors at the jail often leaned on him not to send inmates to the hospital. In addition, he said, some inmates did not receive medication that had been prescribed them.   Many inmates have complained to their attorneys and The News Herald about inadequate medical care at the jail.   Militich said that having to send inmates to the hospital was considered a problem at the jail.   "I was pressured not to send people to the hospital," he said.   "There is a lot of pressure because of a manpower shortage when you say, 'I want this guy to go to the hospital,' and they have to pull one or two (correctional officers) from somewhere else" to go to the hospital with the inmate.   Militich said that sometimes inmates went days without the medication they needed - or worse, never got it.   "They would put (inmates) on something else other than the medication they were prescribed because of the cost," he said.   Sometimes the other medication was a generic brand, but sometimes not, he said.   Militich's description of the practices at CCA are comparable to complaints inmates have made.   Inmates who were in the jail's basement Friday morning said they tried to alert officers to get Sturgis to the hospital, but the guards mocked Sturgis and let other inmates see his shaky condition.   An inmate who asked not to be identified said he was surrendering himself at the jail when he saw Sturgis convulsing at 3:30 a.m. It was two hours later when paramedics arrived, the inmate said.   Militich said he resigned in mid-2001 because he did not feel that he got the backing he should have had to do his job. He said he never saw an inmate who didn't get medical attention because he treated them if they needed it.   Militich said that while he worked for CCA, some nurses at the jail were qualified, while others "needed help."   "I told one nurse before I left that she needed to get to a hospital and learn some assessment skills," he said. "That's pretty strong language to tell a nurse."   Militich recalled guards mocking inmates for their medical condition.   He said one time correctional officers announced loudly that an inmate was faking a medical condition. Militich said that after he had the inmate sent to the hospital, doctors revealed that he had suffered a seizure.   During a similar incident, Militich said, he felt such pressure from correctional officers that he yelled out to them: "Well, hell, there's no reason for me to be down here. You are all apparently qualified to assess this person medically. Why do you need me?" "That was frustrating, because obviously they weren't qualified," Militich said. 

February 19, 2002 News Herald
Allegations that Bay County Jail guards mocked an ill DUI suspect - who later went into convulsions and died Friday morning - come as no surprise to local defense attorneys and a former correctional officer who worked at the jail for three years.   Inmates have said that guards did little to help 20-year-old Justin Sturgis, who reportedly told one correctional officer he had taken 10 Ecstasy pills. No one called for an ambulance until he went into cardiac arrest.   Criminal defense attorneys, meanwhile, said some of their clients have complained for years about the way some Corrections Corporation of America employees have treated them. CCA contracts with the county to run the jail.   And an inmate who was in the jail at the same time that Justin Sturgis was showing signs of distress told The News Herald on Monday that guards were treating Sturgis like a "freak show" - parading other inmates by Sturgis to watch his behavior.   According to inmate witnesses and an investigator with the Bay County Sheriff's Office, Sturgis showed seizure-like symptoms a short time after being taken to the jail. He began shaking and told a correctional officer he had taken pills before being arrested.   A nurse at the jail called Bay Medical Center's emergency room about Sturgis. Based on what the nurse said, a doctor advised that the nurse monitor Sturgis for a couple of hours.   Inmates who said they were in the jail's holding area at the time said Sturgis' condition deteriorated, and guards did nothing until he went into cardiac arrest.   Sturgis was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead around 7 a.m.   Dr. George Tracy, who treated Sturgis, said it's his belief that Sturgis suffered a rare reaction to Ecstasy.   A plastic bag, presumably containing drugs, was found in his stomach at the autopsy. The medical examiner will issue a final cause of death when toxicology reports are completed.   Tommy Sims Jr. said he worked for the jail for three years in the late 1990s. Sims, who said he was fired because of allegations that he had sexually harassed women inmates, said he felt he had to come forward about conditions at the jail when he read about Sturgis' death.   "Sure I've got faults, but the information I'm telling you about what goes on at that jail, you can put me on a polygraph and I'll pass it," he said.   He said that while he was working at the jail, inmates in need of medical attention were often ignored and that supervisors helped smooth over what he considered to be poor judgment on the part of guards.  Sims said he wonders whether guards looked in on Sturgis when he was supposed to be under a medical watch.   He said the practice in such situations when he was at the jail was to simply post a note on the holding cell that the person inside was under medical watch.   "You are supposed to look at the inmate and sign off,"   Sims said of his experience as a jail employee. "The only problem is they don't do anything but sign off. They don't look inside."   Inmates have reported that they tried to alert guards that Sturgis was in trouble and needed medical attention. An anonymous source, who is represented by criminal defense attorney Bob Pell, said he was at the jail during Sturgis' plight. He said Sturgis was either being made fun of or being ignored throughout the morning.   "A lot of times these inmates are hollering out for different reasons," Sims said. "But it's almost like they've stereotyped it to be a troublemaker and so they yell out, 'Shut up!' or kick the cell door or threaten to mace them."   Sims said that while he worked at CCA he violated some of the company's policies, but that so did most other officers.   Sims said correctional officers are sometimes fired when a problem occurs, but the problem isn't fixed. "If (CCA) figures they can tell the public, 'We got rid of so-and-so,' then the public thinks everything is all right," he said.   Louis Green, the head of marketing for CCA in Nashville, Tenn., said it is the company's policy not to comment on statements that ex-employees give to news organizations. She also said that CCA could give out no information on the investigation into Sturgis' death.   Pell said that he has heard complaints from his clients about their treatment at CCA for years.   "It's been fairly well known for a long time that there's a problem down there," he said. "There are several officers down there that are very responsible. In fact, some of the information I've gotten is from concerned officers who have seen people they feel should've gotten better medical attention than they received."   Assistant public defender Kelly McIntosh said inmates' voices often go unheard, but that it could be hard to separate legitimate requests for medical attention from false ones.   McIntosh also said it is usually hard to prove if someone was denied proper medical attention.   "If I was a civil lawyer and trying to prove it, it's hard to prove because (correctional officers) are going to bind together and it's their word against someone in there who is convicted," she said.   "Who's a jury going to believe?"    McIntosh said she believes video cameras should be installed in the jail to give inmates a credible witness.   "It's a Catch-22," she said. "Who's going to believe them - and it's a damn shame, it really is. But we hear it enough that I believe something is going on. But how do you prove it until something like this happens?"   Attorney Waylon Graham said he was at the jail to surrender a client on Friday morning and saw CCA personnel and paramedics trying to revive Sturgis. He could tell the situation was bleak, he said.   "I've had clients that have had some trouble dealing with CCA's bureaucracy and them getting their medication," Graham said. "My experience with that is not some evil intent on the part of CCA - it's just dealing with the bureaucracy."   Correction officers were talking about and showing off Sturgis' plight to arriving prisoners, a 24-year-old man who wished to remain anonymous told The News Herald on Monday. His version backed up those given by others who said they were present when Sturgis went into convulsions.   "(The officer) was telling me I had to see this messed-up kid here tonight. He said he ate like 10 Ecstasy pills at one time," said the man, who is no longer in custody. He was wary of giving his name because of his pending criminal case.   The man said he was being booked when the guard offered to show him Sturgis.   "It was the worst I've ever seen anybody on that drug before. He was all over," the man said. "I told (the guard) if he ate that many, you need to take him to the hospital and he was like, 'Oh, he's just a drug addict.'   "People were just looking in there like he was a freak show. About an hour or an hour and a half later, no one was looking at that room anymore and a CO (corrections officer) came over and looked in and (Sturgis) was about dead.   "The only time people checked on him were when they were getting checked into the jail. They were showing him off."

February 18, 2002 AP
Sheriff's deputies are investigating allegations that staffers at the privately run Bay County Jail failed to get medical attention quickly enough for an inmate who later died.   Justin Sturgis, 20, who had been charged with driving under the influence, died Friday from a rare reaction to a street drug, believed to be Ecstasy, Dr. George Tracy said.   The doctor treated him at Bay Medical Center where he died five hours after being booked into the jail. An official cause of death will be made by the district medical examiner's office following toxicology tests.   Sheriff's investigator Ken Smiley said his initial investigation of the death indicated no criminal wrongdoing.   The jail is operated by the Corrections Corporation of America of Nashville, Tenn. Spokeswoman Louise Green said the company would comment only after it completes its investigation.   Tracy said a jail nurse had called the hospital when Sturgis became sick.   The doctor said he told her to keep monitoring the inmate but that it was unnecessary to immediately bring him to the emergency room based on her description of his condition.   Other prisoners alleged that guards mocked the moaning Sturgis for two hours before finally calling an ambulance.   Jessie Powner, who was in a holding cell, said Sturgis was banging himself against a wall, kicking and biting his lip while other inmates yelled for guards to get a doctor.   "When we looked in the window, he was having uncontrolled convulsions,"   Powner told The News Herald of Panama City for Monday editions. "The guard was laughing and said he was going to be all right."   Sturgis' uncle, Dave Junker, said he was told his nephew had asked for help three times.   "We're very concerned if there was some neglect in the time he could have went to the emergency room," Junker said.   Smiley said the remains of a plastic bag were found in Sturgis' stomach during an autopsy. That indicates he probably swallowed a drug to avoid having police find it in his possession when they pulled over his car. 

July 10, 2001News Herald
A man accused of escaping from jail officials last month to avoid prison could have received a harsher sentence Monday, but will still be behind bars until he's almost 50.  According to police, Collier walked out of the Bay County Courthouse law library and escaped from two jail guards.  Investigators said he asked the guards if he could use the restroom and they allowed him to go unescorted.  The guards, both Corrections Corporation of America employees, have been released by the company.  

June 09, 2001News Herald
A man with an extensive criminal history, and facing another 30 years in prison, walked out of the Bay County Courthouse on Thursday with a little help from some friends.  Tracy Lashawn Collier, 35, was recaptured near a relative's house in Callaway Thursday evening.  He'd escaped from Bay County Jail guards about 3:30 p.m. while visiting the law library on the third floor of the courthouse.  Collier has a criminal record that includes rape, escape, battery, resisting officers, possessing cocaine, passing worthless checks, grand theft auto and obstructing justice by disguise.  While at the law library, he asked the guards if he could use the restroom and was allowed to go in alone, the Bay County Sheriff's Office said.  When he didn't return after a period of time, the guards checked on him and discovered he was gone.  

April 21, 2001Naples Daily News
An inmate awaiting trial on domestic violence, document forgery and attempted escape charges hanged himself in his cell at the privately operated Bay County Jail.  Sheriff's deputies said John Alvin Leggett, 38, used a bed sheet for a noose.  His body was discovered Wednesday during a bed check.  The jail is operated by Corrections Corporation of America, of Nashville, Tenn., under a contract with the county.  The sheriff's office is investigating the death. 

Bradford County Jail
Starke, Florida
TransCor
February 4, 2008 Jacksonville Times-Union
A privately contracted corrections officer is in jail after Bradford County deputies charged him Friday with having sex with two inmates he was transporting. Shaun McFadden, 26, was arrested at the Days Inn in Starke after one of the women escaped from a motel room where she'd been taken and called police, Bradford County Sheriff Bob Milner said. Both women went to the motel willingly, but one became fearful and fled, Milner said. McFadden is charged with two counts of having sex with an inmate in custody. He is being held on $100,000 bail. Police didn't disclose the women's names. The incident began after McFadden, an armed officer who works for the national corrections transport chain Transcor, took four prisoners to the Bradford County jail. Milner said such prisoners come from different locations and spend time in the jail until being transported to their final destination. The jail is paid a fee to house the prisoners. McFadden returned a short time later and told authorities he needed to take the two women to a local hospital for physicals so they could be cleared for further transport. McFadden and the women, who were handcuffed and shackled, then left. A police report said the women and McFadden had planned the move. The women told police they intended to drink and smoke with McFadden, while one also planned to escape. The women told police McFadden had consensual sex with them at the motel on U.S. 301. One of the women said she became fearful that McFadden might harm her and fled while he was in the shower. When police arrived, they found McFadden and the other woman still in the room. The women were neither restrained nor injured when police found them. One was to be taken to Brevard County, while the other was headed for Atlanta. Milner didn't know what the women were being held for, but they weren't charged in the Bradford incident.

Broward County, Florida
Wackenhut (Group 4)
November 13, 2008 Miami Herald
The Wackenhut Corp. overbilled Broward County thousands of dollars for airport security guards, and collected hefty payments for unauthorized overtime work by library guards, according to a county auditor's report. But those irregularities could be just the tip of the county's problems with the Palm Beach Gardens-based security company. County Auditor Evan Lukic also found poor spending controls at nine county agencies that paid Wackenhut $5.8 million last year. The County Commission will discuss the report Thursday, as Lukic vowed a more in-depth look at the billings. 'If we'd found little chance of risk we'd say, `Case closed,' '' he said. ``This has opened the door to look some more.'' A spokesman for Wackenhut downplayed the auditor's findings, noting that the amount in question totals less than one percent of the money the company was paid last year. ''We are pleased and proud of not only our long-term relationship with Broward County, but also of the high degree of safety and security we provide to the residents,'' Bruce Rubin said. Rubin said Wackenhut has worked closely with the county ``to ensure compliance and improve processes.'' County Administrator Bertha Henry reviewed the report and told commissioners she agreed with its findings, and had begun implementing fixes. Broward launched its audit last spring following reports in The Miami Herald about problems in a Miami-Dade contract involving the company. There, the county reported that Wackenhut overbilled as much as $6 million over three years for phantom security guards at county transit stations. Miami-Dade auditor Cathy Jackson said the company relied on inaccurate and falsified records to try and cover up the billing. ACCUSATIONS DENIED -- Wackenhut denied the accusations and supplied the county with paperwork seeking to refute them. Miami-Dade has not yet responded, and the company continues to supply guards for Metrorail under a contract that runs through November 2009. Broward signed a three-year security contract, including two one-year renewal options, with Wackenhut in June 2005. In the first three years, the firm was paid $14.9 million. Lukic's audit found that most county agencies doing business with Wackenhut failed to review and validate daily entries on security logs that documented hours worked by guards. Also, they didn't compare the hours Wackenhut billed with the hours reported on the security logs. Likewise, little checking was done to ensure that some highly qualified guards Wackenhut billed the county for actually carried those special qualifications. AVIATION DEPARTMENT -- The one department that did check: Broward County Aviation, where officials said Wackenhut overbilled nearly $19,000. Those overcharges were recovered last year, the audit said. In contrast, the report said, the library division paid Wackenhut overtime for 14 branch guards even though OT wasn't properly pre-authorized or substantiated by payroll records. In one week alone in September 2007, the auditor found 233 hours of unauthorized overtime costing $1,655.

November 11, 2008 South Florida Business Journal
Broward County auditors are raising red flags over how county agencies kept tabs on nearly $6 million in billings by Wackenhut Corp. for security services last year. In a report to be presented to county commissioners on Wednesday, county auditors noted several problems with the way Wackenhut invoices have been processed. Specifically, the report noted that county personnel were not reviewing and validating daily entries on security logs that document hours worked by guards. The audit also found that there was no evidence that hours billed were hours actually worked. County Auditor Evan A. Lukic said the decision to review the county’s oversight of Wackenhut grew out of news reports earlier this year that alleged the Palm Beach Gardens-based security company was overbilling Miami-Dade County for services that were not performed. “We were concerned about the allegations we heard and whether we were possibly experiencing the same thing here,” he said. “We wanted to look at it from how are we controlling the contract and administering it.” At this point in the auditing process, Lukic said, there was no evidence Wackenhut engaged in any wrongdoing. However, based on the audit’s findings Lukic said his department will take a closer look at payments to “make sure that guards who we are paying for are present.” In June 2005, Broward County entered into a three-year agreement with Wackenhut to provide security services. Payments for fiscal years 2005, 2006 and 2007 totaled more than $14.8 million. In fiscal 2007, Broward County’s Aviation Department topped the list with $2.1 million in security services billings by Wackenhut. The county’s facilities maintenance division paid out $1.66 million to Wackenhut, and the county’s library division was billed nearly $633,000. The report found that during a one-week period, the libraries division paid 233 hours of overtime for security guards and found no evidence that Wackenhut provided the required written notification and payroll documentation to substantiate the overtime payments. When queried by the South Florida Business Journal about the auditor's findings, Wackenhut issued the following statement: "We've worked closely with facilities management through the audit department to insure compliance and to improve our processes." Questions also have been raised about matching guard qualifications to pay rates. In some instances, the audit raised concerns about guards with lesser qualifications billing at a higher rate, resulting in overcharges. In an Aug. 22 letter, Broward’s director of the facilities maintenance division advised Wackenhut President Drew Levine that he would now require the company to provide documentation that links guards’ qualifications with their job classifications. In the meantime, Lukic is asking the Broward County Commission to direct the county administrator to come up with procedures to ensure that billings are validated, that the guards’ qualifications match their job descriptions and that overtime charges are substantiated. In May, a Miami-Dade County audit found that Wackenhut overbilled the county by as much as $6 million over three years for services it did not provide to Miami-Dade Transit, and then falsified records to cover up the over charges. In its response to that audit, which Wackenhut published on its Web site, the company said it has cooperated with the county’s investigation, but “continues to question the audit methodology.” Wackenhut said a lawsuit by a former guard, who accused the company of padding its bills, has caused the increased scrutiny. “It is Wackenhut’s belief that county entities … have been placed under undue pressure and influence by unsubstantiated allegations in this ongoing disputed litigation,” it stated. Miami-Dade continues to review Wackenhut’s response to determine what actions should be taken, county spokeswoman Suzy Trutie said.

Broward County Detention Center
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Armor Correctional Health Services (formerly run by Wexford Health Services and PHS)
December 1, 2008 Sun-Sentinel
The Broward Sheriff's Office and its prison healthcare contractor have resolved two federal lawsuits brought by former inmates who said they were denied HIV drugs during their incarceration. An attorney for Richard Hardwick, 53, and Kevin Sauve, 38, would not disclose the terms of the settlement Monday, saying his clients were bound by a confidentiality agreement. Notices of the settlement were filed last week in federal court. Hardwick and Sauve, both HIV-positive, spent time in Broward jails in 2007. The men accused the Sheriff's Office and Armor Correctional Health Services of showing "callous indifference" by refusing for months to give them antiretroviral drugs. Defense attorneys responded in court filings that it would have been irresponsible to start the men on medication without assurance they would stick with the treatment once released. Both Hardwick and Sauve had drug abuse and mental health problems that made them bad candidates for the drugs, the attorneys said. Hardwick and Sauve reached settlement agreements directly with Armor Correctional and will dismiss their claims against the Sheriff's Office, said Jim Leljedal, an agency spokesman. Yeleny Suarez, a spokeswoman for Armor Correctional, would not discuss the terms of the deal. The firm works "tirelessly to meet the often extensive and complicated health needs of incarcerated persons," Suarez said. Settlement agreements must be approved by the presiding judge in each case.

November 27, 2007 South Florida Sun-Sentinel
During the three months he spent in a Broward County jail, Kevin Sauve made request after request for HIV medication. Not one was granted, according to a lawsuit recently filed in Fort Lauderdale federal court. In one of his more desperate written appeals, Sauve, 36, described piercing ear pain, night sweats and rapid weight loss. In another, the Fort Lauderdale college admissions officer asked to be tested for pneumonia, a potentially fatal condition for patients with HIV/AIDS. "I was freaking out," Sauve recalled. "I really thought I was left in there to die." Ultimately, the Broward judge presiding over Sauve's criminal case, involving charges of illegally selling pain pills, took the extraordinary step of ordering his release so he could seek medical treatment from his own physician. Sauve's federal lawsuit is one of two recent actions accusing the Broward Sheriff's Office and prison health-care contractor Armor Correctional Health Services of delaying the treatment of HIV-positive inmates. While such complaints are not new, the federal cases advance an effort by area lawyers and HIV advocates to change a system they say puts cost savings above the welfare of seriously ill inmates, whose health could deteriorate quickly without proper treatment. "In this day and age, when we know so much about HIV and how to treat it, this is just unacceptable," said Greg Lauer, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who represents Sauve. Lauer and attorney Dion Cassata filed a similar suit in September on behalf of Richard Hardwick, 52, of Deerfield Beach, and are investigating several additional cases. Officials with Sheriff's Office and Armor rebuff the charges, saying their system for treating inmates with HIV/AIDS works well and is a model for other prison systems. "It's sometimes a difficult process, but obviously very necessary to make sure we have a continuum of care," said Karen Davies, who oversees the Broward jail contract for Armor. To be effective, HIV medication must be taken at precise intervals. Patients who miss even a few doses may become resistant to their drugs and require expensive blood tests to find a new combination. Addressing the issue at a Nov. 15 forum at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, Davies said Armor starts HIV treatment immediately for inmates who know which drugs they're taking. When inmates can't identify their medications, Armor seeks medical records from physicians and pharmacies, she said. "One of the issues we have difficulty with, frankly, is getting information back from community providers," Davies said. But anecdotal reports from attorneys and former inmates tell a more complex story. In the last year and a half, the Broward Public Defender's Office has filed complaints with Armor Correctional on behalf of 30 inmates regarding improper HIV/AIDS treatment, said Shane Gunderson, client services director for the office. On Oct. 30, Gunderson sent the list to the Sheriff's Office. Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein called the issue a grave concern. "The reason this became of paramount importance to us is the very nature of treatment for HIV/AIDS requires that the treatment regimen be tight, be consistent, and be regular," Finkelstein said. "When medications are altered or delayed, it creates the possibility that very bad medical things can happen, even death." For his part, Sauve insists he informed medical personnel of his drug regimen May 1, the day he was arrested on a charge of trafficking oxycodone. "I knew exactly what meds I was on," Sauve said. "I told them what they were. I spelled them. I even pointed to them on the wall." Sauve, who pleaded not guilty to the drug trafficking charge, said jail doctors did not agree with the pills his outside physician prescribed and refused to order them. On July 31, Broward Circuit Judge Cynthia Imperato reduced Sauve's bond from $500,000 to $0 so he could pursue treatment on his own. His T-cell count, a measure of immune strength, had dropped from an already low 169 to 27, Sauve said. Eight days later, Broward Circuit Judge Marc Gold released Hardwick after a hearing revealed he had gone four months without HIV medication. Hardwick, who is charged with driving with a revoked license and multiple counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, informed prison officials he needed HIV medication within two days of his arrest, according to his federal lawsuit. He pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges. Lauer, a former state prosecutor, and Cassata, who specializes in employment law, said they think the Sheriff's Office and Armor systematically deny treatment to HIV-positive inmates as a cost-cutting measure. With many inmates quickly posting bond and leaving the jail system, medical personnel simply wait to order expensive treatment and tests, they said. "The problem is they don't have any way to tell who's going to be a long-term resident," Lauer said. "They have a blanket policy to keep their fingers crossed and hope these people are no longer their problem." Roughly 68,000 inmates pass annually through the Broward jail system, with an estimated 3 percent of the group having contracted HIV/AIDS. The Sheriff's Office has a $20 million annual contract with Armor to provide health-care services. According to Davies, Armor recently hired an HIV/AIDS specialist to work in the Broward jail system. Previously, Broward medical personnel consulted with a Tampa-based specialist. Daniel Losey, an attorney for Armor, defended the company. He declined to speak about specific cases because of patient privacy rights and the pending litigation.

August 21, 2007 South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Some HIV-positive jail inmates in Broward and Palm Beach counties needlessly go for weeks or even months without getting any HIV/AIDS drugs, defense attorneys and advocates said. But jail health officials sharply denied the charge. Because HIV drugs must be taken like clockwork to control the virus, inmates who miss repeated doses face greater risks that the drugs will stop working, raising the chance they could spread a hardier virus in and out of jail, HIV specialists said. The alleged delays also led some inmates to develop full-blown AIDS, attorneys said. Dr. Ron Shansky, who is on the board of the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare, which accredits lockups including Broward and Palm Beach, said jails should take only a few days to put HIV-positive inmates on the drugs they were taking when they were arrested. "Delaying the delivery of ongoing HIV medication is completely unacceptable," Shansky said. "If this is occurring on a regular basis, they need to fix that." The elected sheriffs who run jails in both counties have hired Miami company Armor Correctional Health Services to treat the 120,000 inmates incarcerated each year — 3 percent of whom have HIV/AIDS. The firm collects $38 million a year from those contracts. Armor's medical director insisted inmates get drugs immediately unless there's a good reason: Some have special problems, refused treatment, will not cooperate or must be retested because they previously stopped taking medicine. He accused public defenders of hyping drug delays in order to get clients released from jail, a charge the attorneys denied. "I'm really hurt by this," said Dr. John May, who oversees jail care in eight Florida counties where Armor has contracts. "Our policy is to continue their medications without interruption whenever possible, and we do that. Anyone can always do better but I don't think there's a problem." Spokesmen for the Broward and Palm Beach sheriffs said they have heard few if any complaints about jail health care. They referred further questions to Armor. But inmate advocates contend excessive drug delays in jails have been a persistent problem nationally and locally, often when jails try to trim health costs. Modern drugs can almost wipe out HIV from the body, but studies show the virus begins to grow resistant to drugs if the person does not take 90 to 95 percent of doses on time, or no more than a few missed doses per month. "For people on the cusp [of AIDS], a delay of more than a few days may push them into illness," said Dr. Larry Bush, an HIV specialist in Atlantis in central Palm Beach County. In Broward, public defenders said least 15 HIV inmates lodged complaints this year about drug delays despite requests to jail staff, and said more may be affected. Since July 1, judges have released four who had waited as long as four months, criminal case records showed. "People just fall through the cracks," said Shane Gunderson, client services director for the public defender's office. In Palm Beach County, attorneys and other advocates said they had heard few complaints, but the director of a church-based program aiding newly released inmates said she regularly sees inmates who waited weeks for HIV drugs. Sandra White, director of United Deliverance Community Resource Center, said the delays seemed to be for bona fide reasons. Kevin Sauve, 36, a Fort Lauderdale college admissions officer, said he went more than three months in Broward County jails without HIV drugs after his May 1 arrest for dealing pain pills. The jail, as is policy, would not let him bring his medicine from home, and he said jail doctors did not agree with the pills his physician prescribed, ordering more tests. Jail records show he filed a dozen requests for medications over the months. Eventually, Sauve said he developed fungus, ear infections and fevers while progressing to AIDS. "They just wanted to give me drugs I'm already resistant to. I can't take those," Sauve said, who was released July 27 to be treated outside the jail. "Everybody seemed very confused about what to do." Armor cannot discuss Sauve's case or others because of confidentiality rules, May said. But he insisted that as long as newly jailed inmates can name their drugs and the treatment makes sense, they get pills on the spot. If they can't, the jail calls their doctor or pharmacy to find out, he said. If the inmate has stopped taking drugs, May said the jail must delay to do blood tests before resuming medication. Public defenders cited problem cases: •Richard Hardwick, 52, of Deerfield Beach, waited four months for drugs after being arrested March 26 on illegal drug and driving charges. He now has AIDS. •Kevin L. Davis, 33, of Deerfield Beach, waited a month after being arrested June 7 for repeatedly driving with a revoked license and expired tag. He now has AIDS. •Joann Marie Christian, 41, of Pompano Beach, has been waiting for HIV medications since her arrest on July 3 for a probation violation. The law does not dictate how much health care jails must provide, only that they cannot intentionally neglect a serious illness, said Dr. Ann Spaulding, a corrections health expert at Emory University. George Castrotaro, a Legal Aid attorney in Broward, said he has complained to Armor, the Broward County Health Department and others about the delays and may file suit. Lisa Agate, the Health Department's HIV/AIDS director, said she was shocked by the complaints and plans to raise them Tuesday at a meeting of a Broward County jail health committee. "If it's happening, it needs to be corrected," Agate said.

November 15, 2005 Miami Herald
A year ago, Coconut Creek-based Armor Correctional Health Services was an upstart in the business of providing healthcare for jail inmates. The company had formidable political connections but no track record, no active contracts and not a dollar in sales. But Armor, owned by Miami physician Dr. Jose Armas, has bulked up fast. Today, with behind-the-scenes help from several current and former Florida sheriffs, Armor has signed multiyear contracts with Broward, Brevard and Hillsborough counties worth about $221 million over five years. A fourth contract, with Martin County, is being finalized. County sheriffs do their own hiring and set the rules that competing bidders must follow. In Broward and Brevard, rules were changed in advance of bids in ways that helped Armor qualify for contracts. And in Hillsborough, Armor's bid was millions of dollars higher than three others. It got a boost from a late decision to eliminate price as a consideration. Two sheriffs who bypassed Armor said fellow sheriffs have called them and plugged the company. They identified those sheriffs as Ken Jenne of Broward, Ric Bradshaw of Palm Beach and J.R. ''Jack'' Parker of Brevard. Ex-Hillsborough Sheriff Cal Henderson told The Herald that Armor hired him as a ''consultant'' shortly after he left office in January. His duties, he said, have included lobbying sheriffs in at least six counties -- Marion, Collier, Sarasota, Manatee, Leon and Lee -- where healthcare contracts were pending or anticipated. Florida law generally allows public officials to lobby agencies other than their own. But behind-the-scenes lobbying by sheriffs raises ethical questions, a University of Miami ethicist said. ''The use of surreptitious lobbying that is unknown to the public and unregulated by the public seems to be both unwise and arguably wrong,'' said Anthony Alfieri, director of UM's Center for Ethics and Public Service. Three sheriff's offices changed bid specifications for prison healthcare service contracts in ways that helped Armor win. o In Broward, BSO opened the door for Armor during the bid process by dropping its requirement that companies have experience providing healthcare to inmates. Armor had no experience, and was just three months old, when Jenne awarded the company its first $127 million contract in October 2004 to provide healthcare services to Broward's 5,000 inmates during the next five years. And Armor is owned by Armas, who, through his companies and associates, has been a major contributor to Jenne's reelection campaign. o In Brevard, Armor won a five-year, $19.9 million contract from Sheriff Parker in May, after Parker's office slightly altered the wording in bid specifications about corporate experience. The changes allowed fledgling Armor to qualify by giving it credit for the experience of individual executives. o In Hillsborough, Armor snagged a three-year, $65 million contract following a decision late in the process to eliminate price as a consideration in picking a winner. Three competitors submitted bids that were millions of dollars less than Armor's. The county's detention chief acknowledged in an interview that the decision was ''unusual,'' but it is not illegal. Two Florida sheriffs who chose not to hire Armor, St. Lucie's Ken Mascara and Lee's Mike Scott, said other sheriffs attempted to influence them to hire Armor.

March 22, 2005 Broward Daily Business Review
Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne privately encouraged the St. Lucie County sheriff to award the county's jail health care contract to a new Miami company that also bid for the Broward jail health care contract and was headed by a major Jenne campaign contributor. Armor Correctional Health Services Inc. had yet to perform work for anyone when Jenne pitched the company to St. Lucie Sheriff Ken J. Mascara last year in a personal telephone conversation. Armor CHS owner Dr. Jose Armas, an entrepreneurial Miami internist - along with his companies, his partner, and his employees - had pumped thousands of dollars into Jenne's re-election campaign. In an interview, Mascara said Jenne recommended Armas' company to him. Mascara said Jenne phoned him and praised Armor Correctional Health Services, then known as Correctional Health Services, saying, " 'Listen, you have a bid contract going on for inmate health services.' I said yes, and he said, 'We just retained a company that we feel is going to do a good job.' He said he knew the guy running it, and asked if I would entertain their bid." Jenne acknowledged talking up the company to Mascara. "We were talking," he said in an interview. "I brought it up. I don't know if that's a conversation. I told him our people were very satisfied with them." The two sheriffs said the phone conversation took place sometime after Oct. 29, the date when the BSO awarded a $127 million, five-year contract to Armor to provide health care to detainees at Broward's five jail facilities. By that time, Armor CHS had been eliminated for more than a month as a qualified bidder for the St. Lucie jail contract. But John deGroot, executive assistant to BSO's inspector general, provided Broward prosecutors with written notes of his Nov. 28 meeting with the St. Lucie County detention director. According to the notes, that official, Maj. Patrick Tighe, told deGroot that Jenne made the recommendation to Mascara in August - before the BSO designated a winning proposal and before Armor submitted its bid in St. Lucie. DeGroot's notes also said that Tighe told him that Aventura-based lobbyist Ron Book, a Jenne political ally, "visited our purchasing guy several times trying to talk him into going with [Armor]." DeGroot, citing orders from a BSO superior, declined to comment. Book could not be reached for comment. But a St. Lucie sheriff's spokesman confirmed that Book lobbied for Armor in a conversation with the department's chief financial officer. Armor CHS did not get the St. Lucie jail contract. A selection committee that included Tighe promptly tossed out its bid when it was submitted on Sept. 24 because Armor failed to provide audited financial statements and failed to meet minimum experience requirements, according to St. Lucie sheriff's spokesman Mark Weinberg. Jenne's support for Armor CHS could prove problematic for the embattled sheriff, whose office has been embroiled in a scandal over its alleged manipulation of crime statistics to make the BSO look more effective at fighting crime than it really was. Broward State Attorney Michael Satz's office is investigating that matter. So far, two BSO deputies have been arrested and charged, and more are under suspicion. Jenne is widely considered Broward's most powerful elected official. The disclosure of his private lobbying for a company owned by a major campaign contributor raises questions about the appropriate use of political office and possible favors for political allies. If it turns out that Jenne recommended Armor CHS to Sheriff Mascara while BSO was still evaluating proposals, it would raise questions about the fairness and impartiality of the bid process in Broward. Dr. Armas and his Coral Gables attorney, Brent D. Klein, incorporated the Armor CHS on July 19, 2004. Three days later, the Broward Sheriff's Office issued RFP No. 439002, soliciting bidders for the job of providing health care to 5,000 prisoners housed at the county's five detention facilities. The ink was hardly dry on the BSO's jail health care request for proposal when the sheriff's office recalled it six days later. On Aug. 10, BSO issued a new RFP that sought bids to provide the same services. But as the Miami Herald reported, RFP No. 439003 included some significant changes that opened the door for Armor CHS. For example, BSO's requirement that bidders have experience "in an institutional or correctional setting of equal magnitude and complexity" was broadened to allow for experience in medical facilities only. No longer, then, were bidding companies required to have experience delivering health care services to inmates. The selection committee consisted of Broward detention chief Col. James Wimberly, detention Lt. Col Rick Frey and John Curry, the sheriff's executive director of administration. Wimberly said Jenne legal adviser Kimberly A. Kisslan also participated. In an interview, Wimberly said Jenne was not involved. Wimberly also said that he took the unusual step of recalling the inmate health care RFP for alteration "simply because we wanted to expand the pool of applicants." He said the changes were made to recognize that a company's leadership could be more experienced than a company itself. He said it was "an oversight" that those changes weren't made before the initial bid went out. Armor CHS submitted its $127 million proposal to BSO on Sept. 16 along with three other bidders. Neither Armor CHS nor Dr. Armas, the company's president and chairman, had any experience providing health care to inmates. To remedy that, Armas sought out instant experience by hiring managers who'd worked at a troubled industry giant, Brentwood, Tenn.-based Prison Health Services. That included Armor CHS's current chief executive, Doyle H. Moore, who founded Prison Health Services. In its proposal to BSO, Armor also cited its affiliation with Miami-based Medical Care Consortium Inc., Dr. Armas' outpatient health care services firm. While all this was happening, Armas, his companies and employees were contributing to Jenne's re-election campaign multiple maximum contributions of $500 each. Between June 29 and Aug. 5, they gave at least $9,500 - including $1,500 returned by the campaign as illegal, excessive contributions. Armas has supported Jenne in earlier races, too. Armas spokeswoman Dana L. Clay said Armas has backed Jenne politically since Jenne was Senate Democratic leader in Tallahassee in the mid-1990s. But Jenne only said he's known Armas "for a couple of years in a business capacity." Armas also retained the sheriff's good friend and unofficial lobbyist, William D. Rubin. State registration records show that Rubin and his Fort Lauderdale firm, the Rubin Group, represent Armas' Sunrise-based South Florida Acute Care LLC. Jenne said in an interview that Rubin sometimes serves as an unpaid lobbyist for his office. A month later, despite lower bids from two other companies including incumbent Wexford Health Services, Armas' company got the nod from the BSO selection committee. "What made CHS stand out was basically that they were looking to give us things Wexford wasn't offering," said Wimberly. "We just had a comfort level with them."

December 10, 2004 Sun-Sentinel
A new health management firm has taken over the care of the 5,200 inmates in Broward County's jail system after a dispute between the Sheriff's Office and the previous contractor over medical costs. Armor Correctional Health Services began work last week under its five-year, $127 million contract even though it did not yet have a license to dispense medicine. Armor replaced Wexford Health Sources, which first pushed for more money and then suggested cutting services despite the opening of a new detention center in the past year. The Sheriff's Office chose Armor over Wexford and two other firms that bid on the contract even though the Armor had only recently been incorporated. The company's chief executive officer is Doyle Moore, who previously founded Prison Health Services -- a longtime player in correctional health care in South Florida. Col. James Wimberly, who runs the jail system for Jenne, said the Sheriff's Office decided to put the contract out for bid after Wexford suggested a 12 percent increase in what it was paid. In the bidding process, Wexford's proposal was $300,000 less than that of Armor but would have cut eight positions from the jail system's medical staff.

December 4, 2004 Miami Herald
Three days after Correctional Health Services was formed, the Broward Sheriff's Office sought bids to provide medical care to 5,000 inmates at the county Jail. Only companies with longstanding experience at large jails or prisons need apply, officials wrote in a request for proposals. But a week later, on July 28, BSO did an about-face on its requirements. The agency announced it was tossing out its request for bids. And when a new request for proposals was issued Aug. 10, one requirement had been dropped: bidders no longer needed to have experience providing healthcare to inmates. The new solicitation left the door open for Correctional Health to bid, and the newly formed company was awarded a $127 million, five-year contract to manage healthcare at the Broward County Jail. Correctional Health Services (CHS) was not the lowest of the four bidders for the lucrative contract. Wexford Health Source, the company that had provided care at the jail for the last three years, submitted a bid that was $300,000 less, records show. The company's first few days at the jail already have been rocky. State pharmacy officials said they had not issued pharmacy licenses when CHS took over management of the jail on Wednesday, and company employees could not dispense medications until Friday, when they obtained a temporary license. Attempts to reach Doyle H. Moore, CHS's chief executive officer, or Jose Armas, CHS president and chairman, were unsuccessful Friday. Acccording to county Supervisor of Elections records, businesses owned by Armas, a doctor, contributed $4,250 to Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne's most recent campaign for reelection. In addition, Armas contributed another $500 as an individual to Jenne's campaign. The company's chief executive officer, Doyle Moore, had run into trouble in Broward before, however. At the 1993 federal tax fraud trial of former Port Everglades Commissioner Walter Browne, Moore -- the founder of a company called Prison Health Services -- testified he funneled money to a Republican power broker and hired lobbyists to sway then-Sheriff Nick Navarro when he became concerned Prison Health was going to lose its contract to provide medical care at the Broward jail. Moore testified with the guarantee his testimony would not be used against him. His attorney at the time said neither Moore nor the company did anything wrong. In 1985, Palm Beach County jail inmate Mario Abraham died after languishing in his cell for five days with a broken neck before Prison Health Services employees treated him. A grand jury at the time called the company's care of the man ``grossly inadequate and incompetent.''

February 16, 2002 AP
A nurse found 56-year-old David A. Taylor unconscious, unresponsive and bleeding in his bed Friday morning, said Jim Leljedal, a spokesman for the Broward Sheriff's Office.  Though the cause of death has not yet been determined, it raised concerns from inmate medical care advocates about the quality of care at Broward's jail.   Wexford Health Sources, the company the sheriff's office contracted with in October to provide health care, has faced allegations of mismanagement and shoddy care in prisons in several states, The Miami Herald reported in Saturday editions.   In Florida, where Wexford provides services to 12 state prisons, the company was faulted for poor medical care that may have contributed to the deaths of two inmates at a Miami correctional facility, The Herald reported.   Wexford also was criticized by mental health advocates and court officials in Broward for failing to provide mentally ill inmates with their medication upon release from the jail.  "When you contract out to a company, that company is just looking to provide services in the cheapest way," said Eric Balaban, a lawyer with the ACLU's National Prison Project, which represents prisoners in civil rights lawsuits. 

Broward Transition Center
Pompano Beach, Florida
GEO Group
March 17, 2009 Sun-Sentinel
A doctor says they need medicine to stop the palpitations, shortness of breath and the cries of drowning shipmates they hear in their nightmares. But in a federal lawsuit that echoes the complaints of immigrants detained across the country, two Brazilian migrants held at the Broward Transitional Center say they're not getting their prescribed medication. "We meet with detainees across Florida in jails and detention centers and the number-one complaint is the lack of medical care," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigration Advocacy Center. Across the country, 90 detainees have died in custody in the past four years. One was the Rev. Joseph Danticat, who died at the Krome Detention Center near Miami in 2004 when officials took away prescribed medication for high blood pressure. In a congressional hearing last week, the special adviser to the Secretary of Homeland Security said the medical care provided to many of those who died didn't appear to meet Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement standards.

March 5, 2009 AP
Two Brazilian migrants have sued U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying they've been denied mental health care for post-traumatic stress disorder in a South Florida detention facility since their boat ran aground last fall. Jaime Miranda and Daniel Padilha were diagnosed with the disorder by a private physician in December but have not been given prescribed medications or treatments while being held at the Broward Transition Center in Pompano Beach, according to lawsuits filed Wednesday in Miami federal court. Their confinement without medical care has aggravated their mental health problems, violates their Fifth Amendment rights and mirrors persecution in Brazil that they sought to escape, the lawsuits state. "It would be inappropriate for ICE to comment on matters pending litigation," spokeswoman Nicole Navas said Thursday. Miranda and Padilha were both aboard a rusty 40-foot boat that ran aground Oct. 31 near Virginia Key, a small island east of downtown Miami. The boat had departed days before from the Dominican Republic, where Miranda and Padilha say traffickers held them for two months against their will, ordered them to work for the boat driver and forced them aboard a vessel that wasn't seaworthy. Both men had arrived in the Dominican Republic after fleeing mistreatment in Brazil; Padilha is gay, and Miranda's father was murdered. At least six people died after the boat hit a sandbar. Miranda and Padilha were among five Brazilians and 22 Dominicans detained by ICE. About 10 others were reported missing, but it was unclear if they drowned or made it ashore and fled. The man who allegedly piloted the boat faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of federal human smuggling charges. Miranda, 27, and Padilha, 24, persistently relive the accident and have nightmares in which the dead passengers ask them for food and water, according to the lawsuits. A doctor hired by their families diagnosed them and prescribed several medications to treat each man's insomnia, depression, anxiety and psychotic episodes. However, an officer at the center told Miranda and Padilha's attorney that the men had not been given the drugs and would need to be moved to another facility to receive treatment, the lawsuits state. Miranda and Padilha are seeking release or transfer to a facility that can provide mental health treatment, in addition to damages for pain and suffering. Each also seeks asylum to escape torture and persecution in Brazil, where they say they would not have access to psychological services if deported. Both men say they are eligible for a special visa granted to victims of certain crimes who cooperate with investigators because they provided U.S. law enforcement with names and details about the trafficking operation that brought them from the Dominican Republic to Florida. "The government has further victimized Miranda and Padilha by keeping them in custody without medical treatment despite repeated requests that they be released to obtain proper medical care and treatment," their Boston-based attorney, Jeff Ross, said Thursday in an e-mail. "The decision to keep Miranda and Padilha detained has been a discretionary decision and they should have been released by the government since they were cooperating witnesses in a federal case in Miami." The lawsuit also names the center's warden and the company that manages its operations, The GEO Group, as defendants. The GEO Group, which provides detention management services at the Broward Transition Center under contract with ICE, does not comment on litigation matters, company spokesman Pablo Paez said Thursday in an e-mail.

Broward Work Release Center
Broward County, Florida
Wackenhut Corrections
August 27, 2002 Miami Herald
U.S. immigration officials on Monday began the transfer of more than 50 female Haitian detainees, who have been living in the Miami-Dade County jail since December, into the privately run, residential work-release facility in Broward.  Many from the group are seeking asylum, INS spokesman Rodney Germain said.  On Monday, at least 15 women were taken by car to the Wackenhut Corp.'s work-release facility in Pompano Beach, Germain said.  INS and Wackenhut worked out a contract recently that gives the government agency 72 beds in the facility.  The transfer was welcome news to attorney Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, who has been fighting for the change.  She says she will keep a close eye on the Broward facility because she says several years ago a group of women alleged they were being sexually abused by the staff.  "I was initially pleased about the move." she said.  "But then it came to my attention that there were allegations of sexual abuse at the facility. 

August 16, 2002 Sun Sentinel
After a battle of more than a year by immigration advocates, dozens of Hatian women seeking political asylum will be transferred from a maximum security jail in Miami-Dade County to a facility with a more residential atmosphere in Broward County, Immigration and Naturalization Service officials said.  This week, officials from the Wackenhut Corrections Corp., which runs the Broward County Work Release Center in Pompano Beach, told INS that 72 beds would be opened for the women in the agency's custody.  Rodney Germain, an INS spokesman, said that would mean most of the women in their custody would be moving to the new facility.  The only ones who would not be transferred, are those charged with felonies.  "It's what everybody has been asking for," Germain said.  "It's a better environment."  "This is clearly a discriminatory policy directed only at Hatians," Little said.  "While the Broward facility is a lot better, we're [still] calling for their immediate release."

August 16, 2002 Miami Herald
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has agreed to move more than two dozen female Hatian asylum seekers held in a Miami-Dade county jail to a less-restrictive facility in Broward County.  The federal agency said Thursday that it would transfer non criminal female immigrant detainees, including the Hatian women, after months of pressure from congressional leaders and human rights watchdogs.  The INS will send 62 women at the end of August to a minimum-security residential center in Pompano Beach, said Rodney Germain, an INS spokesman.  The facility is operated by the Wackenhut Corporation, which will contract 72 beds to the INS for its female detainees.  The Hatian women have been held in Miami-Dade's Turner Guilford Knight correctional center since Dec. 3, when their ship, carrying a total of 187 migrants, grounded off Elliot Key.  The male migrants were taken to Krome immigrant detention center in west Miami-Dade.  The Bush administration changed its detention policy on Hatian refugees in December to discourage a feared mass exodus from the Caribbean nation.  Immigration attorneys sued the government in March, saying the new policy was racially biased.  U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard ruling in favor of the administration's decision in May.  Human rights advocates said the policy treats Hatians differently than asylum seekers from other countries, who are generally freed until their asylum requests are granted or denied.  Earlier this month, the INS sent 21 of the Hatian migrants from the Dec. 3 arrival back to Haiti.

April 18, 2001Sun Sentinel
A Broward Sheriff's detention deputy at the county's work-release center was suspended and a Wackenhut employee from the same facility was arrested after detectives said she went shopping with someone else's debit card.  The deputy gave the card to Gail Forrest, a job-verification specialist at the work-release center in Pompano Beach, because she didn't want to get in trouble.  Forrest, 34, then drove to Linens and things in Lighthouse Point where she bought a comforter for $190.79.  She signed the receipt, and left the store. She also tried buying $211 worth of merchandise at a Boca Raton Wal-Mart. When the card was denied; she left the store.  Forrest, who a Wackenhut spokesperson said had worked at the center since February 2000, was charged with the fraudulent use of a credit card, possession of a lost or stolen credit card and uttering a forged instrument. 

Charlotte County Jail
Punta Gorda, Florida
Prison Health Services
April 11, 2006 NBC2
A former Charlotte County inmate is demanding answers after two nurses at the Charlotte County Jail took drugs out of a bio-hazard trash bin and injected him with the drugs. William Parbus, a diabetic, was given a shot of insulin that could have cost him his life. The nurses have since been fired. Parbus is now out of jail. He was serving 15 days for driving with a suspended license. He may be out of jail, but he's a prisoner to fear. "I don't want to be with my wife. I kind of miss it already. Five months to go," said Parbus. Doctors told him HIV or hepatitis may be lurking in his system, but won't know for certain for six months. The concerns come after Parbus, a diabetic, was injected with outdated insulin from a bio-hazard trash bin while he was an inmate at the Charlotte County Jail. "I was outraged. For what reason could this person do this to me? What reason in the world? She's out of insulin, fine. I'm out of insulin," said Parbus. The two nurses worked for Prison Health Systems, an outside contractor hired by the jail. They said the nurses responsible were immediately fired. PHS officials and jail commanders alerted Parbus that his health could be at risk. "It's not anything we want to tell anybody. We had to be up front with it. Told him what happened and told him what we would do to rectify the situation," said Lieutenant Daniel Kacynski, Jail Support Commander. PHS told Parbus to send them his medical bills and they might pay them. But Parbus says that's not enough. "I think there should be an investigation. They just fired these ladies. Are they licensed nurses? Are they going to get a job at a hospital down the road? Is this going to happen again if they don't feel like going down the road for insulin?" said Parbus. Parbus claims he won't give up until he gets some answers. Until then, his thought will be on his health. Parbus says he is looking for an attorney. He says he wants to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else. PHS commented about potentially paying Parbus' medical bills through a statement they released through jail supervisors. We tried to reach the two nurses who were fired. Sheryl Staples declined to comment. Karen Helmick has not returned our call.

April 5, 2006 Herald Tribune
Two nurses charged with the care of inmates in the county jail were fired for giving an inmate expired medication taken from a biohazard disposal box. Karen Helmick and Sheryl Staples were both registered nurses with Prison Health Services Inc., the agency contracted to care for inmates' medical needs. They were fired March 14. "Unfortunately, it happened," said Linda Antuono, PHS health service administrator. "It was rectified immediately." A PHS doctor checked on the inmate the day after the incident, explained the risk factors to him and ordered testing for HIV and hepatitis, according to the incident report Antuono filed with the Sheriff's Office. According to the report, another nurse saw Helmick break open a sharps container -- a box used to dispose of glass medicine vials and used needles -- and remove a vial of expired drugs. Helmick gave Staples the medicine to administer to the inmate. Staples told authorities that the nurses had run out of the medication the inmate needed. The nurses should have called an outside pharmacy to order backup medication, the report states. "Sheryl stated to me that she did not want to cross Karen," Antuono wrote in the report. Karen Helmick said that she knew she was in a supervisory position, which made her responsible for retrieving backup drugs from the pharmacy, the report states. She told Antuono that "she just did not feel like driving and getting it," according to the report.

January 5, 2005 Sarasota Herald Tribune
A cook at the county jail was arrested Monday after she admitted having sex with an inmate in a kitchen closet, sheriff's detectives said. Victoria Ann Lopo, 46, a private employee on contract with the Sheriff's Office, said she had sex with 41-year-old Sylvester Bernard Camon two weeks ago. The arrest is the latest in a string of misconduct investigations at the jail, where several other employees have admitted to inappropriate relationships with inmates.

November 22, 2004 AP
A Charlotte County Jail inmate and his nurse girlfriend on Monday denied charges she smuggled drugs into the facility for him. Ruth E. Brodis, a nurse at the jail, was arrested Thursday and charged with introducing contraband into a correctional facility, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison if convicted. Brodis was working for Prison Health Services, a contractor which provides medical services to the county. But Brodis said she suffers from fibromyalgia and the pills found by detectives were hers and not intended for her fiancee, Tyler Schwartzkopf, who is currently in jail on a second-degree felony charge of grand theft.

November 20, 2004 Herald Tribune
A private health care nurse at the county jail smuggled prescription drugs to an inmate she planned to marry, according to the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office. The nurse, Ruth Ellen Brodis, was arrested Thursday at the jail when she arrived for her shift, sheriff's Detective Martha Faul said. The Deep Creek resident is charged with introduction of contraband, a felony. Brodis works for Prison Health Services, a Tennessee-based company that provides health care to inmates in hundreds of jails, prisons and juvenile facilities across the country.

Citrus County Detention Center
Lecanto, Florida
CCA
June 16, 2008 ABC Action News
An Inverness attorney plans to sue the company the runs Citrus county's jail, claiming employees are treating inmates like human toilets. Attorney Greg Jones has called a news conference today to announce his suit against "Corrections Corporation of America and their employees regarding the urination and defecation in the food of a former inmate at the Citrus County Detention Facility located in Lecanto, Florida." The jail is not run by the Citrus County sheriff, but by a private company. The attorney did not return phone calls to ABCActionNews.com requesting information on whether this is an isolated incident or whether other inmates may be involved.

March 6, 2008 Bay News 9
A former guard is to blame after inmate James Coursey was allowed to walk out of the Citrus County Detention Facility, according to corrections officials. "Violation of policy and procedure," said Corrections Corporation of America spokesperson Julia Swart. "She knew the policy; she knew the procedure." Corrections Corporation of America is the private company that runs the Citrus County Detention Facility. They fired the guard because of mistakes the company said she made. According to CCA the guard allowed Coursey outside into a garbage port, and then allowed Coursey past the sally port gate to remove pallets. That's when Coursey made his move down the road. Swart said policy only allows sentenced misdemeanor inmates outside the fence. "Less risk with someone who is sentenced doing a minimal amount of jail time," Swart said. But the mistake by one guard cost the corrections company thousands. CCA has cut a check for $58,144.92 to cover the costs of the escape. Among the highlights, nearly $48,000 to the Citrus County Sheriff's Office for personnel and equipment costs and a little over $100 for food from the Homosassa Auxillary. CCA is also going to pay for the medical bills of Michael Mokszycki's, who was attacked by Coursey. "He was like a wild man," Mokszycki said. "Those eyes were a nightmare." As for Coursey, he's still awaiting trial in the Citrus County Detention Facility. A new camera has been installed near the sally port and the gates are in the middle of being retro-fitted so they can only be opened from a control room. Coursey had been in jail on grand theft and burglary charges.

January 14, 2008 St Petersburg Times
An escaped Citrus County prisoner attacked a homeowner with a hammer Sunday morning and continued to elude a 100-member search team after nightfall. James Coursey, 49, was being held on burglary and theft charges when he escaped from the Citrus County Detention Facility about 3:30 p.m. Friday. Throughout the weekend, Citrus County sheriff's deputies searched a 2-mile wide area near Leisure Acres, a subdivision near the jail complex off of County Road 491. They found no trace of Coursey. A homeowner identified only as a Leisure Acres resident found Coursey in his shed at 10:40 a.m. Sunday. Startled, Coursey grabbed a hammer and hit the man on the head before fleeing. The man suffered minor wounds and was not hospitalized. Citrus County sheriff's spokeswoman Heather Yates said Coursey fled southward on foot, still armed with the hammer. More than 100 officers were called in to help with the search. They included members of Citrus County sheriff's aviation unit aboard helicopters, K-9 deputies, bloodhounds from the Florida Department of Corrections and personnel from the Florida Highway Patrol and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Citrus County Detention Facility spokeswoman Julia Swart said Coursey, jailed on charges of grand theft and burglary of an unoccupied dwelling, was in the Trusty Program and was assigned to work indoors and outdoors at the 760-bed facility. Yates said that the search was pared back as darkness approached, but authorities would continue looking throughout the night. "We want to find this guy and put the community at ease," Yates said.

January 12, 2008 AP
Authorities searched Saturday for an inmate who escaped from a detention facility in Citrus County. James Coursey, 49, fled the Citrus County Detention Facility on foot Friday afternoon, sheriff's officials said. After the escape, schools in the Lecanto area were locked down and deputies stopped cars on roads to search for Coursey, with no success, officials said. Deputies continued their search Saturday for Coursey, who was arrested in February on a warrant for grand theft. While jailed, Coursey was charged with unarmed burglary of unoccupied structures. By Saturday evening, the intensive ground search had been scaled down. "We searched grid by grid and he was not there," Citrus County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Heather Yates said of the 2-mile radius around the prison. Some officers will continue searching, but the focus will now be on talking to Coursey's family members and following leads that come in to the sheriff's office, Yates said.

July 21, 2007 Citrus Chronicle
Maria Puzino didn’t expect country club conditions during a recent two-week stay in the Citrus County Detention Facility. But the 46-year-old Inverness woman didn’t expect the treatment she said she received. Puzino, jailed on charges of violating probation, said corrections workers withheld her anti-depressant medication, openly discussed her medical condition with others and repeatedly harassed her. She said she spent four days on suicide watch because she wasn’t given her medication. During one of those nights, she said, a corrections officer gave her specific instructions as to the best way to kill herself. Puzino detailed the allegations in a letter to the Nashville, Tenn.-based headquarters of Corrections Corp. of America, the company that operates the detention facility for Citrus County. CCA is investigating the complaints, company spokeswoman Julia Swart said. “We take these allegations seriously they are being thoroughly investigated,” Swart said in a statement. “After the investigation is complete the findings will be immediately communicated with our customer.” The “customer,” she said, is the Citrus County government. Swart declined further comment. Charles Poliseno, Citrus County’s director of public safety, said he met with CCA officials Wednesday and concluded that nothing wrong occurred.

June 16, 2007 Ocala Star-Banner
Marion County Sheriff's Office brass say they can continue to staff and operate the county jail more cheaply than a contracted private firm. At the request of the County Commission, department officials recently checked with nearby Hernando and Citrus counties. They both contract with a national firm, Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, to run their jails. In a letter to County Commission Chairman Stan McClain, sheriff's Maj. Paul Laxton said that, at the rate CCA charges Citrus County, the cost to run the Marion jail would go from about $25.2 million to $38.3 million. Laxton wrote that the figure did not reflect the cost for off-site medical expenses for inmates. The county commissions in Hernando and Citrus counties pay for that as an additional cost, while the Marion Sheriff's Office includes it in the budget. That cost was $1.356 million in 2005-06, Laxton wrote. "We are the lowest cost-per-day jail in any of the counties I know of in Central Florida," Sheriff Ed Dean said. McClain said there is not a push on the County Commission to privatize the jail. He said commissioners asked for the cost comparison during a recent planning discussion as they looked for ways to trim the county budget as property tax reform loomed. "We had heard other counties were privatizing, but we didn't know what their cost was," he said. McClain said that, as far as he is concerned, the cost comparison ended that discussion.

January 11, 2007 Citrus County Chronicle
A civil rights law firm will take over a federal lawsuit accusing guards at the Citrus County Detention Facility of contaminating former inmates’ food with human waste. Inverness attorneys Bill Grant and Bo Samargya had been representing five former inmates in the lawsuit, filed March 10, 2006, in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. However, Grant said Wednesday he will hand the case over to a law firm that specializes in civil rights lawsuits. He said the “depth” of the case has forced him to get another firm involved. Grant did not name the law firm, which he said has offices in Tampa and Orlando, and that he planned to hand the case over soon. “It’s a document-intensive and time-intensive situation,” he said, adding his law firm is handling a murder trial in Pennsylvania in March, another one in February, a “major” civil trial in the summer and other cases. “It’s often so busy here that to do that one right, we’d have to shut down and do nothing but that case for a month.” The nine-count lawsuit accuses corrections officers at the county jail in Lecanto of urinating and defecating into the food and drink of inmates. Former inmates Javon Walker, Jeffrey Young, Gregory Platt, Larry Robbins and Matthew Pavlisin were named as plaintiffs in the initial lawsuit. The inmates accuse former guards of violating their civil rights, including accusations of torture and cruel punishment. In 2004, all were housed at one point in the jail’s segregation unit, a wing that houses inmates considered to be a safety risk. Corrections Corporation of America, the private Tennessee-based company that operates the jail, is also named in the lawsuit. It’s accused of negligent hiring and supervision, with Grant previously saying the corporation didn’t properly investigate the accusations. Two guards and a supervisor were fired before the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Citrus County Sheriff’s Office started an investigation March 21. Before the investigation began, former guard Kevin Hessler admitted to urinating in an inmate’s juice jug, according to documents. The FDLE investigation is still ongoing with interviews of witnesses taking place, spokeswoman Trena Reddick said earlier this week.

December 30, 2006 St Petersburg Times
How did a jail trusty manage to slip away from a work detail this week, elude a manhunt and get all the way to the east coast? He called his girlfriend. She drove over and picked him up. They headed out of town. That’s what Santana Schiedenhelm told investigators after they got caught Thursday. Her boyfriend wasn’t talking. The escape method, which authorities reported Friday, was one of the last mysteries left about this case. Jose Felix Malagon-Cervantes, 25, faces a charge of escaping while in transport or working on roads, a second-degree felony. An inmate at the Citrus County jail, Malagon-Cervantes worked as a trusty at the Kensington Fire Station just off State Road 44 and west of Inverness. Trusties are nonviolent, misdemeanor offenders who are permitted to work outside the jail, earning as many as 10 days off a sentence each month. Corrections Corporation of America, a private company that runs the jail, decides which inmates are considered trustworthy enough to work outside its gates.

December 29, 2006 St Petersburg Times
Authorities captured the escaped Citrus County inmate at 5 p.m. Thursday, more than 100 miles from the Kensington Fire Station where he walked off a work detail the day before. Jose Felix Malagon-Cervantes, 25, faces a charge of escaping while in transport or working on roads, a second-degree felony. He was found in Holly Hill, north of Daytona Beach. Also arrested was his 20-year-old girlfriend, Santana Schiedenhelm, who was charged on an unrelated count of filing false information to law enforcement.

December 28, 2006 St Petersburg Times
A Citrus County inmate trusted to work outside the barbed wire walls of the jail remained on the lam Wednesday night after he walked off a job at a fire station earlier in the day. Authorities launched an aggressive manhunt for Jose Felix Malagon-Cervantes, 25, in the nearby Withlacoochee State Forest using helicopters, all-terrain vehicles and canine units but called it off at 6 p.m. as darkness fell. The search will not resume today because the inmate is not considered dangerous, said sheriff's spokeswoman Gail Tierney. He will likely face an escape charge if he turns up. Malagon-Cervantes was labeled a trusty, a designation awarded to nonviolent offenders who are permitted to work outside the jail. Trusties can earn up to 10 days off a sentence each month. Malagon-Cervantes was arrested in August for violating his drug offender probation. His arrest record includes charges of drug possession and larceny, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. He was last seen working at the Kensington Fire Station in central Citrus County when he told his supervisor, a fire-rescue maintenance official, that he wasn't feeling well. The official, who is trained in inmate supervision, allowed him to lay down in one of the service vehicles, said Patty Jefferson, assistant fire chief. When the unnamed official went to check on him "a short time later," Malagon-Cervantes was gone, Jefferson said.

July 23, 2006 St Petersburg Times
He's been the warden of the Citrus County Detention Facility for five years, and now Carlos Melendez is getting a promotion. Corrections Corporation of America, the private company that runs the jail, is promoting Melendez to a managing director position on the business management team. It's not clear where he'll work once the promotion goes through, but it won't be in Citrus County. Officials say it's unknown when a replacement will be found. Until then, Melendez remains in charge of the jail. The process for finding Melendez's replacement will begin with CCA, officials said. According to Charles Poliseno, the director of the county's public safety department, after the company picks a candidate, local officials - possibly Poliseno or Assistant County Administrator Tom Dick - will interview that person and present a recommendation to the County Commission. Commissioners will make the final call, Poliseno said. CCA spokesman Steve Owen said the company is gathering and evaluating candidates. "We generally don't want to put a strict time line on this because we want to ensure we're making the best decisions possible," Owen said. Melendez has presided over the jail since March 2001. Earlier this year, inmates said guards had been putting human waste in their food, and several CCA employees were fired. Melendez previously has said that the inmates never complained of health problems and that the only evidence came from one of the terminated guard's statements.

April 16, 2006 St Petersburg Times
In 2003, county commissioners voted unanimously for an $11-million expansion of the Hernando County Jail. But before they cast their votes, Commissioner Robert Schenck had one question about the cost: "I was wondering if before we moved ahead you could do a cost analysis of what it would cost for (Corrections Corporation of America) to build that and then subsequently lease it back to the county and what it would cost us on our bond payments with interest and see how close we are with the numbers," Schenck inquired. The county's purchasing director, Jim Gantt, said that wasn't an option. CCA doesn't pay for expansions; it only pays to build new facilities, he explained. And besides, having CCA finance the expansion would be more expensive because private companies cannot borrow as cheaply as government, Gantt said. Citrus County had different ideas. Last fall, the Citrus County Commission voted to let CCA pay for the entire expansion of its jail. The county will not pay a cent as long as it continues its day-to-day operational contract with CCA for the next 20 years. "We found that it actually saves us from having to go out and borrow the money and have to construct the facility ourselves," Citrus Commissioner Vicki Phillips said. Fellow Commissioner Joyce Valentino said the benefit was obvious: "We don't have to use the taxpayers' tax dollars." How could neighboring counties get such different deals? According to Gantt, CCA never offered to pay for Hernando's expansion. CCA spokesman Steven Owen could not explain why, except to say that CCA doesn't take a "cookie cutter approach" to writing contracts. "Why we didn't offer that instead of this really isn't relevant," he said. The last time Hernando's contract came up for renewal, at an April 11, 2000, commission meeting, Commissioner Bobbi Mills said she preferred to renegotiate rather than rebid, as did Commissioner Pat Novy. They both said that significant research had been done to convince them that there was no reason to put the contract out to bid - that they could tell how CCA stacked up to its competitors without bidding. Commissioner Chris Kingsley also voted in favor of renegotiation rather than rebidding. "I can't remember the exact reason why," Kingsley said recently. "I would agree that on most circumstances, you would go out for bid just like we did for waste hauling. I guess maybe we assumed at the time that the competitors couldn't have beaten the services we had." Only three commissioners voted on the contract extension. Commissioners Nancy Robinson and Paul Sullivan were asked by the county attorney to recuse themselves because Robinson's daughter and Sullivan's wife were working at the Hernando jail. More than half of the officers at the Hernando jail are uncertified, working on "temporary employment authorization" status, which allows them to serve as guards while they go to school for the state certification. Hernando warden Don Stewart, who took over in February, said he planned to increase the number of certified officers at the jail. He said the high percentage of uncertified officers was a result of the hiring binge needed to keep up with the jail's recent expansion. However, records show that as far back as March 2000, 41 percent of the jail's guards were uncertified. Stewart said that he was proud of his staff and that the distinction between certified and uncertified officers wasn't important. "Are we in violation of any state statutes?" he asked. But a recent inquiry by the State Attorney's Office found that the large number of uncertified officers was "without question a contributing factor to the problems experienced by the (Hernando) jail." Retired Hernando Sheriff Thomas Mylander, who ran the jail before CCA took it over in the late 1980s, also criticized the heavy reliance on uncertified officers. "That's totally unacceptable," he said. "The county is paying for a service the individuals said they could run correctly for that amount. . . . I've never heard of any place that had half their employees uncertified."

April 4, 2006 Citrus County Chronicle
A recent lawsuit filed by four former Citrus County Correctional Facility inmates alleging prisoner abuse has placed Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which operates the facility, in the public spotlight. The lawsuit contends that at least two corrections officers urinated and defecated in inmates food and drink several times in late 2004. While CCA has acknowledged that one corrections officer admitted to spiking inmate juice with human urine on two occasions, it rebukes the claim of systemic torture and abuse by the plaintiffs lawyers as pure fabrication and without merit. Whether the claim of systemic torture and abuse being investigated by the FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement proves to have merit or not, the mere admission that bodily waste was placed in the juice of inmates resurrects nagging questions about contracting out jail oversight to a for-profit company. The privatization of corrections wrongly entrusts that responsibility to the financial expectations of investors. With government ultimately responsible for both the inmates and the publics welfare, corrections operations must be publicly open and accountable. While privatized government services are subject to Florida's open-records laws, there's a greater tendency for private companies to distance themselves from public accountability. In the short term, county government needs to provide more aggressive oversight of CCA. Accordingly, it may want to consider the example of Hernando County, which last week appointed a former law enforcement officer to monitor CCA's operation of its correctional facility full time. In the long term, county government should seriously weigh its core responsibility for corrections against any promised privatization savings. For when it comes to the corrections bottom line, privatization is socially and ethically unacceptable.

March 24, 2006 St Petersburg Times
County Commissioner Vicki Phillips said she has "lost trust" in County Administrator Richard Wesch over his handling of the allegations of abuse at the Citrus County jail. "When you lose trust in your administrator and you lose the confidence in the administrator that he's providing you with all the complete information that you need on issues, I can't do my job and serve the people of Citrus County," she said in an interview Thursday afternoon. "So something has to change." Phillips' remarks came after she sent a memo to Wesch asking who in county government had been notified of the firing of two corrections officers and a supervisor at the facility after allegations surfaced that guards had urinated in inmates' drinks. Phillips said county commissioners were not notified of the allegations until a federal lawsuit was filed by two local lawyers on behalf of four men who say they suffered medical problems because of the contamination. Two other commissioners, Joyce Valentino and Chairman Gary Bartell, have also expressed concern at Wesch's handling of the matter. Wesch did not return a message left on his cell phone Thursday afternoon. In the March 10 lawsuit, Javon Walker, Jeffrey Young, Larry Robbins and Greg Platt alleged that at least two corrections officers urinated and defecated in their food and drink several times in late 2004. Three former employees at the Citrus jail - corrections officers Kevin Hessler and Alexander Diaz, as well as a supervisor, Charles Mulligan - were fired in connection with the drink accusations. On March 20, Wesch responded to Phillips' questions in a memo. He told her that the private corrections company that runs the jail, the Corrections Corporation of America, had notified the county's contract monitor of the allegations. No further action was taken by the county, Wesch wrote, because "there was no reason for us to suspect that this was more than an alleged, unsubstantiated isolated report." That's not a good enough answer, Phillips said. In the memo, Wesch did not say whether he knew about the allegations. Phillips wants to know if he knew. She wants to know if he told any of the other commissioners and, if not, why.

March 23, 2006 St Petersburg Times
The president and chief executive of the private company that runs the Citrus County jail has accused a local law firm of using media coverage to push for a larger lawsuit settlement. In a March 16 letter to County Administrator Richard Wesch, Corrections Corporation of America CEO John D. Ferguson said it was "not appropriate" to defend itself through news conferences and media statements. He accused Inverness lawyers Bill Grant and Bo Samargya of using the news media to pressure the company, calling the lawyers' actions "overt efforts to influence a larger settlement outcome or award through media coverage." Grant called the statement "asinine." "(CCA's) all over the place," he said. "I just like sitting around watching them squirm. I can't believe it." The news of the latest barb between CCA and the lawyers came on the day Grant announced a fifth plaintiff in a federal suit against the company. Matthew Pavlisin, who was a teen when he was held at the facility on charges of armed burglary and theft, was abused at the jail, Grant said. March 10, Grant and Samargya filed a federal suit against CCA, claiming that four inmates had been forced to drink liquid contaminated with human urine and eat food that contained fecal matter. Javon Walker, Jeffrey Young, Larry Robbins and Greg Platt claim that at least two corrections officers urinated and defecated in their food and drink several times at the jail in 2004. Grant plans to file an amended complaint, naming Pavlisin and others, in coming weeks. "(CCA) can cast whatever aspersions they want," Grant said. "The outcome of this is going to be decided in a federal courthouse." Grant will also file a wrongful termination suit on behalf of Charles Mulligan, a supervisor at the facility fired in connection with the drink accusations, he said. Two former employees at the Citrus jail, correctional officers Kevin Hessler and Alexander Diaz, were also fired because of the accusations. Since the lawsuit was filed, both sides have talked with news reporters about the allegations. Grant says the company knew about the contamination and failed to do anything, including providing medical testing, for the inmates. CCA representatives have questioned Grant's motives, suggesting he's demanding large amounts of money from the company. In the letter to Wesch, CCA also called the claims of torture and abuse "pure fabrication." Grant said he doesn't buy it. "I guess p---ing and p---ing in someone's food is not abuse or torture. ... We've been saying the same thing over time. We're not the ones scrambling about like a cockroach when the light comes on," he said.

March 22, 2006 St Petersburg Times
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement will lead an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing at the Citrus County jail. Sheriff's spokeswoman Gail Tierney said the Citrus County Sheriff's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation will also assist as needed. The decision to start an investigation came after officials from the Sheriff's Office, the FDLE, the FBI and the State Attorney's Office discussed allegations of inmate abuse Tuesday afternoon. Sheriff Jeff Dawsy asked for the FDLE's assistance "to avoid any conflict of interest," Tierney said, because the Sheriff's Office has such close ties with the jail. Once the investigation is completed, Tierney said, authorities will submit findings to the State Attorney's Office for review. "We will absolutely be cooperating fully with that investigation," said Steve Owen, a spokesman for Corrections Corporation of America, the private contractor that runs the jail. He declined to comment further on the allegations or the investigation. Earlier this month four inmates filed a federal lawsuit against CCA. Javon Walker, Jeffrey Young, Larry Robbins and Greg Platt alleged that at least two corrections officers urinated and defecated in their food and drink several times in late 2004. Three former jail employees - corrections officers Kevin Hessler and Alexander Diaz as well as a supervisor, Charles Mulligan - were fired in connection with the drink accusations. In a meeting with reporters last week, a company spokesman said that if any incident occurred, it was not indicative of a larger problem at the facility. Attorney Bill Grant, who is representing the inmates, said Tuesday that he was excited to learn of the FDLE investigation. "The taxpayers of Citrus County are finally going to find out what happened at their local county jail," he said. "CCA's been doing nothing but doublespeak. Well, the doublespeak is over."

March 21, 2006 St Petersburg Times
County commissioners said they weren't notified when allegations of inmate abuse at the Citrus County jail surfaced in 2004. Now they want to know why. "I definitely would have liked to have known about it, only because I'm responsible back to the citizens," County Commission Chairman Gary Bartell said. "When the issue did come up, I would have liked to have known there was an ongoing investigation." Bartell was not the only commissioner concerned about why the board wasn't notified of the allegations. In a memo Wednesday to County Administrator Richard Wesch, Commissioner Vicki Phillips requested answers to the who, how and when of the situation. "If the county was notified in December 2004, why was this information not relayed to me and the other commissioners?" Phillips said. "Or was it relayed to other commissioners?" The commissioners' concerns came more than a week after four inmates filed a federal lawsuit against Corrections Corporation of America, a private contractor that runs the county jail. Javon Walker, Jeffrey Young, Larry Robbins and Greg Platt alleged that at least two corrections officers urinated and defecated in their food and drink several times in late 2004. Three former employees at the Citrus jail - corrections officers Kevin Hessler and Alexander Diaz as well as a supervisor, Charles Mulligan - were fired in connection with the drink accusations. A company spokesman met with reporters and county officials last week, saying that if any incident occurred, it was not indicative of a larger problem at the facility. Representatives from the FBI, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the State Attorney's Office and the Citrus County Sheriff's Office were set to meet this afternoon at the sheriff's headquarters in Inverness, said sheriff's spokeswoman Gail Tierney. Tierney said the officials will meet to determine whether to investigate and which agency would handle it. Corrections Corporation of America has said that it told the county about the allegations. On Monday, spokesman Steve Owen said the company told public safety director Charles Poliseno about the accusations. Poliseno didn't return a message left at his office, but county spokeswoman Jessica Lambert confirmed that Poliseno was notified of the alleged incident in December 2004. "He was notified an incident had occurred, an investigation was taking place and personnel action would be taken," she said. The county is searching for documents from that time to see how and when that notification took place. Poliseno remembered speaking with someone from the jail about the allegations, Lambert said, but he wasn't sure if he ever had anything in writing. Typically, if a public safety director has information for the commissioners, it first goes through the county administrator, Lambert said. The county administrator did not return a message left at his office, but an office representative said Wesch planned to release a memo on the subject today. Whatever happened in 2004, Bartell said he wished that he would have known about the accusations before the lawsuit was filed. When accusations of problems at the Hernando County Jail - which is also run by Corrections Corporation of America - came to light recently, Bartell sent a memo to Wesch, trying to ensure that the Citrus jail didn't have any problems. The memo was passed on to the company, Bartell said. "CCA wrote a letter back assuring there were no problems out here at the Citrus County facility," he said. Bartell said he was later told that the commissioners weren't notified because county staffers thought the problem was resolved. "I really don't know all the circumstances yet, but it's very obvious that it wasn't over," Bartell said. "I know they're strictly allegations, but it's obvious that there's a problem that spread wider than just those guards and the inmates ... the proper way to have handled it was to have notified us."

March 14, 2006 Bay News 9
The controversy surrounds if the commission was aware of the abuse at the facility. The operators of the CCA detention facility accused of abuse and torture are promising to fight the charges, even as the list of victims grows and the county demands answers. For the first time, the Citrus County Commission has learned about a federal civil lawsuit as attorney Bill Grant shared information with Bay News 9 and our partner, the Citrus County Chronicle. "Over a year ago we came to learn that several inmates were being abused and tortured by being forced to consume bodily waste of another," Grant told the commission Tuesday. "They couldn't go and say 'No, I want something else to eat' or 'No, I want something else to drink.' They were housed in a segregation unit, isolated by the very men and women that tortured them." The question being posed is: were Citrus County commissioners aware? Grant said he has evidence pointing to a possible coverup, that when three guards linked to the alleged abuse were fired in December of 2004, the county wasn't told why they were being fired. "We are making a formal request of the commission to investigate CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), either by staff or by independent investigation, and to conduct a hearing into this matter," Grant said. A spokesperson for the county commission said they were notified by CCA that guards were being fired. But they are unsure if a reason was given. Grant talked about the expanding suit. During a press conference that followed the commission meeting, Grant said the suit is growing. "We will be adding multiple plaintiffs or multiple victims to our lawsuit, who are boys under the age of 18," he said. Grant said the problems at the Citrus County Detention Facility are ongoing. The county commission agreed during its meeting to investigate the matter further.

March 11, 2006 Citrus Chronicle
Four former inmates of the Citrus County Detention facility in Lecanto are suing the private company that runs the facility and two former corrections officers, saying their food was tampered with. In a nine-count federal lawsuit filed Friday afternoon, the inmates say they were forced to eat food that contained bodily waste from at least two guards at the jail. The lawsuit claims the inmates' civil rights were violated, including accusations of torture, by being forced to eat the tainted food. "They couldn't go and say, 'I want something else to eat, I want something else to drink.' They couldn't go use the telephone, they can't scream for help," said Bill Grant, the attorney who filed the lawsuit. "Because their assailants were the same ones charged for their protection, and they violated that in the most obscene and disgusting way." The complaint was electronically filed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa. At their Inverness office, Grant and his partner, Bo Samargya, said there will likely be more victims named in the case, and they are seeking punitive damages. "They had been getting very sick," Grant said of inmates eating the food. The lawsuit accuses former corrections officers Kevin Hessler and Alexander Diaz of urinating and defecating in food and drink given to Javon Walker, Jeffrey Young, Larry Robbins and Greg Platt, all former inmates housed in the jail's segregation unit. The unit — separate from other inmates — is for those considered a safety risk to themselves or staff. The lawsuit says the incidents occurred on several occasions between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2004. The complaint accuses the former guards of cruel punishment, torture and battery. Corrections Corporation of America, the jail's operator, is also named in the lawsuit and is charged with negligent hiring. The lawsuit says CCA was aware of the accusations but allowed the guards to continue working in the segregation unit. The lawsuit centers on a Feb. 16, 2005, telephone hearing between a former jail employee and the Office of Employment Appeals in Tallahassee. Charles Mulligan, a former supervisor at the facility, was fired Dec 3, 2004, for a "violation of company policies and procedures," according to a termination notice. At the hearing, Carlos Melendez, the jail's warden, said Mulligan was fired after a subordinate told him he put human waste in an inmate's juice jug, and that Mulligan didn't report it. Melendez testified Mulligan and the subordinate, who he identified as Hessler, were fired. He also said he learned Diaz acknowledged doing the same thing, though he denied it when confronted by Melendez. Grant, who was at the hearing representing Mulligan, asked if Melendez notified law enforcement or asked to have the incidents investigated. "No we have not," Melendez replied, according to a hearing transcript. Meanwhile, Grant is asking for an investigation into the jail, and points at other incidents in surrounding counties at CCA-operated jails, including suicides. Samargya said charges should be filed in this case. "These are crimes," he said. "If the inmate would have done something like this to the (Corrections Officer), he would have been arrested. A report would have been made." Several agencies, including the FBI, U.S. Attorney and State Attorney's office, were notified, Grant said. He believes the inmates deserve "a battery of tests," because they could have been exposed to disease. Grant said many had complained their food had a bad taste and odor, and they suffered vomiting, stomach cramps and nausea. The lawsuit says the inmates suffered "injury, pain and emotional distress." Grant also said at least one inmate has been "fairly sick" since. He said he and Samargya will not agree to any settlement in the case, and want the lawsuit to be heard by a jury. Along with using Mulligan as a witness in the case, Grant also expects other guards to be named later in the lawsuit, some who, he says, still work at the jail. "Let's start an investigation, and let's get these people out, that are doing this, out of jail," he said. "Or put them back in it, only this time, in orange."

September 20, 2005 Citrus Times
Citrus County commissioners this week were too quick to jump on the "build it and we'll fill it" bandwagon at the county jail. The board agreed to double the size of the jail in Lecanto and passed on the chance to explore several relevant issues. Their focus on Tuesday seemed to be only on the bottom-line question of who will pay for the construction. With the company that operates the jail under county contract, Corrections Corporation of America, agreeing to pay for the renovations and expansion, the commissioners quickly moved on. The agency reported in June that Citrus County experienced a 5.6 percent drop in its overall crime rate and 7.5 percent reduction in the violent crime rate in 2004. This mirrored a statewide trend that has seen serious crime in Florida fall for 13 consecutive years. The crime rate in Florida, in fact, is at its lowest in 34 years. However, the commissioners should have asked for some explanation for why Citrus needs to double the size of its jail if crime is falling. Part of that answer may be in the arrangement that the county has with CCA. Citrus taxpayers give CCA $52.64 to house an inmate for one day, a figure that will rise under the newly approved 10-year contract to $54.74. The extra space in the jail is used to house federal prisoners for the U.S. Marshals Service at a higher rate. Having extra room for these expensive inmates translates into more money for the for-profit company. While it is true that CCA will pick up the costs of the $18.5-million jail expansion and renovation, there will be indirect costs to the local taxpayers beyond the additional $2 a day they will pay to house each inmate. Traffic to the facility will increase, for example, leading to more strain on already congested roadways. Judicial and law enforcement costs will rise as well. The most troubling oversight, however, was the lack of any discussion about alternatives to incarceration.

October 29, 2004 St Petersburg Times
A former Citrus County jail inmate has filed suit against the Corrections Corporation of America - the private company that runs the jail - and a jail-contracted doctor, claiming the doctor and company were negligent in caring for him. Martin T. Cahill, 42, names Dr. C. Billiston Clarke and the Corrections Corporation of America, known as CCA, as defendants in a medical malpractice suit, according to court documents. Cahill alleges that Clarke, a doctor who works under contract with CCA, didn't give Cahill proper care when Cahill suffered severe heart problems. While in jail from Oct. 10, 2002, to March 4, 2003, Cahill suffered several medical problems, including cardiac failure that required emergency medical treatment, according to the suit. Cahill was admitted to the emergency room at Citrus Memorial Hospital on March 4, 2003. He was hooked to a ventilator. The next day he was formally released from jail. Cahill then was transported to an Ocala hospital, where he rang up a medical bill of $152,973. This is not the first suit filed in regard to Cahill's health problems while in jail. On June 27, 2003, Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala filed suit against Citrus County and CCA regarding Cahill's medical bills. The suit alleged the county deliberately released Cahill from jail so it could avoid paying for Cahill's medical expenses. Under state law, the county government is required to pay medical expenses for inmates if the inmate, the inmate's family or an insurance provider cannot afford to pay. The Tampa law firm handling the suit for the county said the hospital failed to show Cahill was an inmate when he was admitted to the hospital. CCA said no agreement existed between CCA and the hospital to pay Cahill's bills. That suit has not been resolved.

December 15, 2003 St Petersburg Times
Claudette Mills understands. There are laws and regulations, all well-intentioned, that are designed to keep a person's health information private.  But that understanding didn't provide much comfort this past weekend, when she and her family were worried about her mother.  Miss Mills, 30, of Hernando, received a telephone call Saturday afternoon from an inmate at the Citrus County jail. The caller, who was the cellmate of Miss Mills' mother, had disturbing news: Your mother has fallen ill.  Linda Butts, 53, apparently was having health problems related to her kidneys and liver; she had experienced such troubles in the past. Butts is serving an 11-month sentence for violating the requirements of a probation term she was serving for a drunken driving case.  Miss Mills said she called the jail and didn't get much information, only that her mother was receiving medical attention on the premises.  Then she received another call Sunday evening from her mother's cellmate. This time the news was even worse: Your mother is being taken to Citrus Memorial Hospital.  Miss Mills said she called the jail, which confirmed that her mother was being taken to the hospital. It didn't provide any other information.  Miss Mills went to the hospital, but the guard assigned to her mother's room wouldn't allow a visit.  On Monday, jail officials allowed a one-hour visit. And on Wednesday, after her condition improved, Butts was taken back to the jail.  "All weekend we went through hell ... wondering what was wrong with her," Miss Mills said during a telephone interview Thursday. Worrying along with her was her fiance, Richie Smith, and her two sons, ages 7 and 9.  Julia Swart is a spokeswoman for Corrections Corporation of America, the private company that operates the jail on the county's behalf. She said jail policy is to contact an inmate's relative in such cases only if the medical problem is life-threatening, or if such contact is requested by medical professionals or the hospital.

August 29, 2003 St Petersburg Times
The story was supposed to go like this: James Utsey, charged in the December 2000 fatal shooting of his mother, was to be tried in a Hernando County courtroom beginning Aug. 18. The trial was expected to last a week.  If a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder, prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. If not, he could have been a free man.  Things didn't go quite that smoothly.  Plans snagged somewhere along Utsey's transfer from the Citrus County jail to the jail in Hernando County.  His prescribed psychotropic medication didn't make the journey, meaning he didn't take the pills for about four days.  The trial was postponed. Circuit Judge Ric A. Howard was mad.  Now, presumably to make amends for the delay, the private company that runs the county's jail has agreed to cover the county's tab for the remainder of Utsey's stay at the facility.  In a brief memo dated Aug. 20, jail warden Carlos Melendez informed Public Safety director Charles Poliseno that Corrections Corporation of America will cover the county's bill for Utsey from Aug. 19 until whenever the trial begins.

August 18, 2003 St Petersburg Times
Citrus County has asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed against it by an Ocala hospital regarding the medical bill of a former jail inmate.  The suit alleges that the county deliberately released the inmate, Martin Cahill, from jail to avoid paying for the services he would receive at Munroe Regional Medical Center.  In March, Cahill was in the Citrus County jail awaiting disposition of a criminal case. He faced charges of making false 911 calls, resisting arrest and threatening police officers and firefighters.  Court records show a judge released Cahill from custody on March 5 at the request of the State Attorney's Office and his attorney, Roy Stevenson, an assistant public defender. That was one day after he was taken from the jail to Citrus Memorial Hospital, but one day before he would be taken from Citrus Memorial to Munroe for more extensive care.  Cahill's bill at Munroe: $152,973.  State law says county government must pay for inmates' medical care if, as is usually the case, the inmate cannot afford to do so. But Patrick Burson, a Tampa attorney representing the county in this case, argued in an Aug. 4 motion that Munroe Regional has failed to show that Cahill was an inmate when he was admitted March 6.  Munroe "does not have standing to pursue unpaid medical bills incurred by Martin Cahill," wrote Burson, an attorney with the law firm Fowler, White, Boggs and Banker.  Corrections Corporation of America, the private company that operates the jail, is also being sued by Munroe Regional and filed its own motion to dismiss on July 24. That motion argues that no agreement existed between CCA and the hospital to pay Cahill's medical bills.

August 4, 2003 St Petersburg Times
An inmate close to death is released just before he racks up an expensive hospital bill. The hospital sues for payment.  Hundreds of inmates come in and out of the Citrus County jail each year. Some are awaiting trial. Others are serving sentences.  Every now and then an inmate will become so seriously ill that he requires medical care beyond what the jail staff can provide. The law says county government must pay for the care if, as is usually the case, the inmate cannot afford to do so.  This practice is at the heart of a lawsuit that an Ocala hospital filed against Citrus County this summer.  The county says it isn't liable for a $150,000 plus medical bill that Martin Cahill accrued because Cahill was released from custody one day before entering the Ocala hospital.  That hospital, Munroe Regional Medical Center, says Citrus swiftly arranged for Cahill's release to avoid being stuck with the big bill.  The case, which remains pending in Marion County Circuit Court, already is shedding light on an otherwise little-noticed part of county government.  Corrections Corporation of America, the private company that operates the jail on the county's behalf, provides basic medical care for inmates. For example, the jail clinic dispenses medications for diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis and other chronic illnesses.  Inmates are taken out of the jail for major surgeries. The bills go to the county unless the inmate has assets or insurance to cover the care.  Cahill's bill is the largest the county has faced for inmate medical expenses, according to county records. The county typically budgets $25,000 per year to cover medical care that inmates require outside the jail, and it has access to $206,000 in a reserve account to make up for expenses beyond the $25,000.  Most of the bills have been less than $25,000, one of the reasons why the county has elected not to purchase insurance to cover inmate medical expenses.  County officials estimate it would cost $1.12-million to insure jail inmates.  "We've paid less than $25,000 in the past several years for inmate medical expense," said Cathy Taylor, the county's budget director. "To take out an excess of $1-million insurance policy wouldn't seem prudent."  The county says the hospital must look elsewhere for payment on Cahill's bill because Cahill wasn't an inmate at the time he entered Munroe.  Court records show law officers arrested Cahill in October on charges of making false 911 calls, resisting arrest and threatening police officers and firefighters.  With the criminal case still pending, Cahill remained at the jail until March 4, when he was sent to Citrus Memorial Hospital for treatment of a serious heart condition.  Citrus Memorial officials determined they couldn't treat him, so he was sent to Munroe on March 6.  At issue in the lawsuit is what happened on the middle day, March 5.  That afternoon, a judge released Cahill on his own recognizance. Cahill's lawyer and a prosecutor agreed to the arrangement.  Cahill went on to spend a little more than three weeks at Munroe and rack up a $152,973 medical bill.  Assistant County Attorney Michele Slingerland said she was informed about Cahill's case by Public Safety Director Charles Poliseno. Poliseno, who oversees the contract between the county and CCA, calls Slingerland when legal issues arise with inmates.  Slingerland notified Cahill's lawyer, who then formally asked the judge to release Cahill from custody.  Munroe has accused the County Attorney's Office of purposefully pressuring the Public Defender's Office to arrange Cahill's release to avoid paying the bill. It says the chain of events serves as evidence of a deliberate - and illegal - effort by the county to dodge its responsibility.  Slingerland said she had different motivation.  "The guy was supposed to die," said Slingerland. "That's why I felt the need to tell his attorney. I thought he should know before his client died."  She has maintained that she called Roy Stevenson, Cahill's attorney, as a courtesy.  Even if Cahill was dying, the county was legally obligated to guard him, Slingerland said. And the security comes at a price: The county has to pay a CCA security guard $13.50 per hour and $20.50 per hour if overtime is required, according to the county's contract with CCA.

July 9, 2003 St Petersburg Times
An attorney representing an Ocala hospital has accused Citrus County of borderline fraud for its refusal to pay the medical bills of a former jail inmate who was too poor to pay them himself.  Martin T. Cahill, a 41-year-old Beverly Hills man, racked up $152,973 in hospital bills after he was transported to Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala from Citrus Memorial Hospital on March 6.  Two days earlier, he had been admitted to Citrus Memorial after falling gravely ill with a heart condition while in the Citrus County Jail.  Citrus Memorial officials determined they weren't capable of treating him and sent him to Munroe Regional, where he remained for three weeks.  But as of March 5, the day before he was sent to Munroe Regional, Cahill was no longer an inmate at the Citrus jail, having been released from custody that afternoon, court records show.  The events of that day are the crux of a lawsuit filed by Munroe Regional against Citrus County and Corrections Corporation of America, the private company that operates the jail.  Munroe Regional attorney Robert Seymour has accused the county attorney's office of pressuring the public defender's office to get Cahill released from jail the day after he was admitted to Citrus Memorial. He alleges the county arranged Cahill's release to avoid being stuck with his bills.  "This is an obvious attempt to skirt the county's legal duty to provide Mr. Cahill with medical treatment, and borders on fraudulent action," Seymour wrote in a May 20 letter to the county and Corrections Corporation of America.  Cahill was arrested in October on charges of making excessive 911 calls and threatening police officers and firefighters after they responded to a car accident.  Cahill's car was on fire, and authorities said he threatened to kill any firefighters or police officers who attempted to put out the fire. He also threatened to kill himself and his mother. Seymour goes on to detail an unusual scenario during which Cahill went from being an inmate held without bail to a man released on his own recognizance.  He cites a March 5 telephone message left by assistant county attorney Michele Slingerland for Roy Stevenson, a public defender who was appointed to represent Cahill after his arrest in October.  Slingerland, according to Seymour's letter, told a receptionist at the public defender's office that Cahill had been hospitalized and "asked that they attempt to get Mr. Cahill released on his own recognizance."  On Monday, Slingerland vigorously denied making that request of Stevenson, an attorney she has known since her days as a prosecutor in State Attorney Brad King's office. She said she had called Stevenson as a courtesy, informing him that his client had been hospitalized the night before.  Cahill had been taken to Citrus Memorial's emergency room, where doctors hooked him to a ventilator and predicted he would live only another week.  Stevenson brought up the idea of having Cahill released in a followup phone conversation, Slingerland said. She said she warned him that the county wouldn't be responsible for Cahill's bills if he was no longer an inmate.  Florida law requires counties to pay for the hospital care of an inmate if the inmate, family members or an insurance provider cannot pay the bills.

July 7, 2003
Martin Cahill racked up a $152,973 hospital bill, and it seems nobody wants to pick up the tab.  In October, the 41-year-old Cahill was arrested on charges of making false 911 calls, resisting arrest and threatening police officers and firefighters, court records showed.  The public servants were trying to put out a fire that had engulfed Cahill's car, but Cahill threatened to shoot them. He later threatened to kill himself.  The Beverly Hills man was being held at the Citrus County jail March 4, awaiting disposition of those charges, when he became seriously ill. According to a court record, Cahill was taken to Citrus Memorial Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a heart condition.  Citrus Memorial determined it wasn't equipped to treat Cahill, and so on March 6, he was transferred to Munroe Regional Medical Center in Marion County, where he stayed for a little more than three weeks.  What happened on the intervening day has given rise to a lawsuit against the county and the private company that runs the jail. The county was served with the suit earlier this week.  Munroe Regional submitted a $152,973 hospital bill to Corrections Corporation of America, the private company that operates the jail on the county's behalf. According to the hospital, CCA replied it wasn't responsible for the charges because Cahill was no longer an inmate: He was formally discharged from the jail at 5:40 p.m. March 5.  Munroe filed suit June 27 against the company and Citrus County.  Munroe Regional alleges Citrus County and CCA have a legal duty to pay for Cahill's treatment because at the time Cahill was "an indigent person being held prisoner," according to the suit.  Munroe Regional is requesting a judge to order payment of the hospital bill, plus attorney's fees.  Munroe is being represented by the Savage, Krim, Simons, Jones & Babiarz law firm of Ocala. Robert Seymour, an attorney with the firm, said Thursday night: "The lawsuit speaks for itself."  The suit will be presented as an informational item at Tuesday's County Commission meeting, County Attorney Robert Battista said Thursday.  The county has until July 22 to reply to the suit.  (St. Petersburg Times)

May 15, 2003 St Petersburg Times
County officials are formalizing their interest in housing more immigrant detainees at the county jail by sending a letter to the federal government this week. A deal could possibly be worked out during the next few months.  The agency is offering the county a $9.3-million construction loan to build a 256-bed annex to the jail. The county would pay back the loan by charging the federal government a daily rate for each bed a detainee occupies.  The jail has been home to immigrant detainees since 1995, when it began accepting refugees from the Krome Detention Center near Miami. More recently, these detainees have come from a detention facility in Bradenton.  What is new is the proposed financial arrangement with the federal government, which would allow the county to use federal dollars to expand one of its own facilities. Once the loan is paid off, the annex would become the county's property, providing much-needed space for the county's growing inmate population.  The county would continue to generate revenue from the detainees' presence. Already, the county earns $6 each day per inmate, while Corrections Corporation of America pockets a daily fee of $41 per inmate from the federal government.

April 30, 2003 St Petersburg Times
A Citrus County jail officer, acting on bad counsel from a training officer at the jail, lost the state certification he needed to be employed as a law enforcement officers, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement official.  The training officer has been replaced by 

August 22, 2002 St Petersburg Times
The Sheriff's Office and jail authorities are interviewing people to find out what happened to Antonio Lewis Franklin.  The man who dies suddenly at the Citrus County jail Tuesday had his first recorded run-in with the law at age 17, around the time he dropped out of Citrus High School.  An autopsy was being performed Wednesday to determine a cause of death for Franklin, who was rushed to Citrus Memorial Hospital Tuesday after an inmate reported him unconscious.  The 31-year-old Inverness resident was pronounced dead at 4:10 p.m.  Jail warden Carlos Melendez said he is also conducting an internal investigation action to determine whether his staff followed proper procedures.  Melendez said Franklin, like all inmates, was examined by the jail's nurse after he was admitted.  The nurse checked his heart rate and blood pressure and found nothing abnormal, he said.