Rigby was only the first of two jail escapes in the last two months, in addition to contraband – including a pipe, cigarette lighters and homemade alcohol – that was successfully discovered in between jail cells earlier this month. Last summer, a maximum security inmate smuggled a gun and two cell phones into the jail and made an attempt to escape.

Most recently, it was discovered that the jail released an inmate who gave a false name, birth date and social security on $250 bond when he should have, under his real identity, been kept much longer. Freilinger said someone failed to wait for his fingerprint check to come back before allowing the inmate out of the jail.

“The problems that happened at the jail were the result of individual employees not following proper procedure,” Freilinger said. “If somebody doesn’t do their job, you’re only as strong as your weakest link.”

He said he wouldn’t “speculate” as to whether Futch would have been fired had he not resigned this week. Futch leaves with a 14-week severance package, worth $34,776, and the possibility of remaining on county-provided health insurance should he take the severance over a period of time.

Deputy Chief Raul Banasco has taken oversight of the jail until an interim jail chief can be named, ideally within two weeks, Freilinger said. The interim jail chief would come from outside the county, he said.

From there, he would evaluate options from the jail and make a recommendation to the county commission. The possibility of the county sheriff’s office taking oversight of the jail, frequently requested within the community since the Rigby escape, is not off the table as a possibility, Frielinger said.

The jail will undergo an audit from the National Institution of Corrections on April 26, with an outside assessment scheduled for this week. The jail’s accreditation also has been recently reviewed and upheld, Freilinger said.

Freilinger said the many employees in the maximum security housing unit on all four shifts failing to do their jobs led the breakdown in security in Rigby’s escape. He blamed also the “cultural” of the jail, as Futch did. The county manager said that even though he brought in Futch to make big changes, changing the behavior of more than 300 jail employees, who has been struggling with understaffing, overcrowding for quite some time, was difficult.

“I believe that people, in order to cope with those realities, probably cut corners,” Freilinger said. “Leadership can change an organization. Behavior will not change unless people are faced with consequences. I think that’s the component has been hard to address.”

Nonetheless, Futch had been in the process of working with jail captains and lieutenants, setting higher standards for them through performance improvement plans, Freilinger said. Two captains recently asked for a demotion back to their previous positions because they couldn’t meet those standards, he said.

“I was supporting Chief Futch because I felt, one , he needed time to implement the changes he was bringing to this organization and two, that he needed my support to do that,” he said.

Implementing discipline at the jail has been delayed because of the long criminal and internal investigations and subsequent county attorney review of the recommended action, Freilinger said.

“I can assure the public and everyone working at the jail that we will have zero tolerance for failure to perform your job as our policies and procedures state,” Freilinger said. “The days of continuing to put people on performance plans are over. You’re going to do your job or you’re not.”

Aside from Futch, a total of 30 employees took the fall for the Rigby escape. Former Officer Milton Caraballo resigned early this month and was later arrested. In an Osceola County Sheriff’s Office report outlining how the escape occurred, Caraballo is accused of entertaining a $40,000 bribe from Rigby and his cellmate to assist in their escape and providing them with a metal binder clip that they used to start make a hole in the cell’s toilet/sink unit.

Officer Miller Chavous most recently resigned, before notices of termination were passed out Monday. Chavous initially alerted the jail about the escape as he served breakfast the morning of Feb 19 at the beginning of his shift, after the cellmate left behind pointed out Rigby’s disappearance.

All 16 employees who were given notices of termination Monday – a sergeant, six corporals and nine other officers – have been on paid administrative leave since March 19 while county attorneys reviewed the disciplinary recommendations. Given that no one has made an appeal, the terminations went into effect Wednesday.

The majority of the 16 had direct supervision of the housing unit where Rigby lived. In the investigation into the escape, they are accused of failing to find contraband and obvious damage within Rigby’s cell during what should have been 56 thorough searches in the two weeks while the cellmates organized their escape.

Along with the terminations, 12 other jail employees, mostly higher-end supervisors, face disciplinary action.

Lt. Vernon Herrington, the acting watch commander when Rigby’s escape was discovered, was accused of not notifying the Sheriff’s Office of the escape quick enough. Herrington was given a five-day suspension without pay. Four civilians charged with improper record keeping of searches that didn’t actually happen were given three-day suspensions without pay.

Three other lieutenants, who by jail order of command are outranked only by a handful of captains and the deputy chief, will be given oral counseling as consequence for their supervisory role in the Rigby escape. Among those are Lt. Dennis Oliveria, Nathan Brown and Dawn Cutcher.

Three sergeants, who rank just under lieutenant, were given a written warning. Officer Curtis Russell also was given a written reprimand, along with his superiors Sgt. Michael Negron, Joseph Ferrar and Terry Hughes.

Freilinger also took the corrections department’s oversight of the county security department and animal control. Both will not report directly to him.

The investigation into the escape of 39-year-old Carlos Rosa, a minimum security inmate and jail trustee who was apprehended within 18 hours of his March 16 escape, continues, with additional disciplinary action possible in that case. A different set of corrections officers than the ones disciplined in the Rigby case were responsible for overseeing the trustees, inmates who are entrusted with jobs around the jail and within the community because of their minimum security risk.