Local officials quickly authorized about $4 million in emergency funds to fix several problems identified at the Osceola County Jail Wednesday morning, hours after a second inmate escaped the facility in less than a month.

Carlos Rosa’s escape Tuesday night prompted Osceola County commissioners to call the emergency meeting Wednesday to demand an explanation from Jail Chief Greg Futch. Though Rosa was recaptured shortly after noon Wednesday, while the commission still discussed the issue, commissioners still expressed many concerns with the department.

After Rosa had been recaptured, Futch disclosed how investigators explained his escape. While other inmates in the trustees program were coming in from the recreational yard Tuesday night, Rosa hid under the building. Officers did a literal head count rather than verifying the number on the inmates’ wristbands, as was done before they were allowed into the recreational yard.

When his disappearance went unnoticed in the 8 p.m. head count, Rosa climbed a short fence onto the roof of the jail. The fence at the back of jail property ran along the roof, but not significantly higher than it, allowing Rosa to circumvent the razor wire along its top as he hopped over it, Futch said. The razor wire, designed to discourage an easy climb over the fence, was facing the wrong way, Futch told the commissioners.

Former corrections officer arrested

Meanwhile, the investigation into the escape and recapture of Michael Rigby, the gang leader facing attempted murder charges among others, continued as of press time Friday. On Thursday, a former Osceola County Corrections officer, who resigned earlier this week, was arrested for assisting Rigby in his escape. Milton Caraballo, Jr. was offered $40,000 to help Rigby, eventually giving him a metal binder that Rigby used to carve away the cement holding the toilet and sink fixture to the wall, according the Sheriff’s Office reports. Rigby was able to climb behind the fixture after he had removed it and escape through roll-up maintenance doors in the wall.

Leading up to the escape, Caraballo told detectives he spoke mostly to Rigby’s cellmate, David Saunders, about the plans. Saunders said he would pay Caraballo $40,000 for his help. Caraballo never received any money.

He has been booked into Osceola County Jail without bond.

Caraballo was one of the 12 officers listed in violation of policy for not thoroughly searching Rigby’s cell in the two weeks while he and his cellmate were planning and working on the escape. However, he told detectives that he and the two others, who should have conducted a search of Rigby’s cell on Feb. 18, the day before his escape, met after Rigby’s escape and agreed that the search did take place, though they hadn’t conducted it.

In total, 21 officers were initially found in violation of policy leading up to Rigby’s escape. That number has since increased to 26 employees and of those, Futch said he would recommend at least half be terminated. However, the final disciplinary action report hasn’t been released, delayed by the county attorney’s review of the jail’s investigation, Futch said.

Caraballo is the only employee who was put on paid administrative leave since the first jail break. He resigned with a hand-written note a short time later.

Securing the jail

The nearly $4 million in emergency funds would pay for a couple of dozen upgrades to the jail, many involving enhancements to the fencing along the perimeter of the jail, adding rows or razor wire, replacing 175 feet of wire mesh with mesh that can’t be climbed, replacing vehicle gates with a permanent fence as well as all padlocks and rusty locking mechanisms and installing concrete slabs to secure the razor fencing.

In total, the Corrections Department released a list of 24 changes to be made, almost all named as deficiencies that allowed Rigby to escape — everything from installing more lights on property to changing the maintenance roll-up doors for upgraded security doors. The biggest expense listed was an alert system with cameras to be installed on the perimeter fence, costing $1.65 million.

The report said the jail has already staffed the guard tower full time, implemented a monthly perimeter lighting inspection and replaced security screws. High-risk inmates will be moved elsewhere in the jail and several other logistical changes will be made to the setup of inmate monitoring within the building.

Futch also told commissioners that the department would look into the costs of temporary towers that would be placed on the other three sides of the jail property. The commission expedited the procurement process of an X-ray machine for the front entrance, to screen for contraband coming into the jail, as well as additional surveillance cameras. The purchase of both was already in the works

After deciding that jail employees should be subjected to random drug testing, commissioners authorized an outside audit of the jail, funded through a state grant in a process Futch already had initiated after Rigby’s escape.

Additionally, the Sheriff’s Office met with the Corrections Department and agreed to post deputies around the perimeter of the jail from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. “until the Sheriff determines corrections officials can adequately provide security to ensure the safety of the community,” a statement from the agency read.

Florida Rep. Darren Soto, D-Orlando, reassured Buenaventura Lakes residents Thursday night that the Florida House of Representatives’ public safety and domestic security policy committee was looking into the situation in Osceola County as well.

The commission also discussed apparent problems with the trustee program, of which Rosa was a participant. Trustees are supposed to be inmates with minimum charges given supervised jobs within the county. Those jobs include ones at the Osceola County Animal Control, which suffered major staff cuts and for which the board compensated with the volunteered inmates.

“I think maybe we did cut too deep into Animal Control,” Commission Chairman Fred Hawkins said.

The board agreed to reconsider the issue at an upcoming meeting.

The jail administration

Futch blamed “jail culture,” including a lackadaisical attitude of employees that has gone unchecked long before he took the reigns of the department back in August 2008. A more meticulous attention to procedures, including more thorough head counts and searches of Rigby’s cell, might have prevented Rigby’s or Rosa’s escape.

He’s attempted to fix the negative culture, he told the News-Gazette, but the recent events – the two escapes only the most recent among many other misfortunes for the department since Futch took over – have undermined that attempt.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t say that it hasn’t had the effect that we desired,” he said, maintaining that the impending terminations would emphasize the administration’s intolerance for employees cutting corners. “I think, if this doesn’t get their attention, nothing will.”

When he first took over as chief at the jail, he prioritized fixing the understaffing issue, rather than the structural deficiencies of the facility, specifically because of the $4 million price tag, Futch said. The department’s budget was cut 20 percent during the last budget cycle. Despite that, the board of commissioners offered Futch the staffing he requested in three phases. The first 62 have already been hired, with another 30 due by April 1 and more coming in October.

Hawkins told Futch that the fact that the structural issues at the jail hadn’t come to the attention of the board until after the escapes “angered” him.

“That is the thing that upset me most today,” he said during Wednesday’s meeting.

With the jail’s problems over the last several months come questions as to its administrative setup. The jail became its own department under direct supervision of the board, taking it from the Sheriff’s Office’s authority in the 1990s.

Hansell told the News-Gazette he wasn’t worried that the commission would assign the jail to his agency, at least in the short term.

“It’s not fiscally time yet,” he said.

Despite the fact that the commissioners did not immediately call for his resignation this week, several saying they were not in the business of “pointing fingers,” Futch’s job still could be on the line. The chief himself said he wasn’t sure of his job security before appearing before the commission.

“I was prepared for anything to happen,” Futch said afterward, explaining that he was pleased with the show of support the commission had given his department.

Hawkins said after the meeting he was glad the commission didn’t make a “knee-jerk reaction” to the problems at the jail, explaining that he agreed with Commissioner Ken Smith’s earlier declaration that the ultimate responsibility fell on the shoulders of the elected officials themselves. He said the commissioners were “still in shock” from the news of the second jail break, but he still didn’t think Futch’s position was guaranteed.

“I think it would be tough for him politically to survive this,” he said.

Hawkins said he especially didn’t appreciate the way Futch had thrown the county attorney’s office “under the bus” in blaming it for the delay in disciplinary action of jail employees. Futch, later in the meeting, said he hadn’t meant for his explanation of the report’s delay to seem that way.