|
|
| First Arrest Made in Fla. DOC Probe |
| By The Herald-Tribune |
| Published: 10/10/2005 |
|
A former minor league baseball player is the first arrest in a months long federal and state investigation into the Florida Department of Corrections. Mark Michael Guerra, 33, was arrested last week on charges of grand theft, a third-degree felony. The theft allegedly occurred when Guerra received nearly $1,300 in pay for a job he did not perform. The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the FDLE have been investigating the highest reaches of the Department of Corrections for most of this year. One official, Regional Director Allen Clark, has resigned, and FDLE investigators have indicated they were working with a statewide prosecutor on myriad charges ranging from embezzlement to abuse. This week's arrest centered on a facility which Clark oversaw and where he lived until his resignation. The FDLE arrest warrant said Guerra was hired in April as a librarian at Apalachee Correctional Institution, or ACI, in Sneads, a small town near the Florida-Georgia border. Guerra told investigators he was “hired to play softball” for the ACI team, including their participation in the Florida Department of Corrections Secretary's Tournament in Jacksonville in May. Guerra said he worked for four to six hours a day as a librarian and also ran errands for administrators. He told investigators he resigned from the ACI job after approximately one month due to conflicts with his tree farming business and his duties as a baseball coach at Sneads High School. But investigators interviewed numerous ACI employees, and some said otherwise, including the woman who supervised Guerra's position. She said she had never met Guerra. Additional interviews also found little evidence that Guerra performed the work. The FBI and FDLE have been investigating the corrections department since 2003 when it was discovered that steroids were being distributed among current and former DOC employees in the region surrounding Starke, where many state prisons are located. |
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
Comments:
Login to let us know what you think