By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
TALLAHASSEE — A group of prisoners who helped spring two Orange County killers with faked documents was a “gang” that produced the documents in prison, Florida’s top law enforcement officer told lawmakers Wednesday.
The conspirators then apparently filed the paperwork with the Orange County Clerk of Courts thanks to outside members.
“We have confidential sources within the inmates that are telling us the documents were generated within the walls of the prison, sent out and then sent to the clerk’s office by other people,” said Gerald Bailey, Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner.
His comments came as state court and law enforcement officials Wednesday testified before a second Florida Senate committee this week, offering some new details about the escape and steps taken to shore up Florida’s justice system.
Bailey also told the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations committee that more arrests were coming. Investigators had still not determined exactly how the paperwork shortening the sentences of murderers Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker made it into the official record.
The two were released in late September and early October after fake motions and orders amending their sentences were entered into the system.
The Florida Department of Corrections verified the fake documents with the Orange County Clerk of Courts office, but not the judge whose signature appeared on the order. The two were re-captured in a Panama City-area motel last month while they waited for transportation out of state.
Law enforcement were aware for months that such a scheme could be pulled off and actually had worked in the past with one prisoner.
The tactic then migrated to the Franklin County prison, where “a gang behind the walls ... was teaching this fraudulent activity,” Bailey said. He did not offer any other details.
Courts and clerks statewide have made security changes since the escapes.
Orange-Osceola Chief Circuit Judge Belvin Perry — whose signature was forged on the faked documents — told the panel he had ordered all public drop-off boxes for court orders to be removed and had instituted his own verification process for orders changing the sentences of prisoners.
“The process becomes our enemy,” he said. “And that’s what happened in this case. They knew the process, and they took advantage of the process.”
Florida’s justice system will begin using a “secure e-system” for transmitting court orders beginning in February.
But senators questioned whether that system, already funded by lawmakers and scheduled long before the escapes, was enough.
“How secure is secure? This system up until now was really secure,” asked Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami.
In the meantime, Bailey urged clerks and the Department of Corrections to carry out a process where both sides checked with judges before validating orders shortening sentences.
But Sarasota Court Clerk Karen Rushing said it would be “very difficult” to have human contact for every release order.
“I cannot say that every clerk has agreed to do that,” she told lawmakers.
DOC Secretary Michael Crews said his agency would begin sending letters confirming “emergency release” orders to the judges who signed them. Without confirmation, “they will not be released,” he said.
“I don’t know what legal ground I’m on ... and I’m fine with that,” he said.
Last week, DOC officials told the Orlando Sentinel it was not their job to verify court orders — that job belonged to the clerks of courts. The DOC processed 4,100 such orders last fiscal year.