NBC2 Investigates: Inmates with cell phones - NBC-2.com WBBH News for Fort Myers, Cape Coral & Naples, Florida

NBC2 Investigates: Inmates with cell phones

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The NBC2 investigators uncovered a crime within Florida's state prisons is impacting your safety and the safety of those who work there. While the state has taken steps to combat the issue of inmates with cell phones, they could do more.

Even after four years, Ted Check remembers every detail the day he almost lost his life.

"He came in, and turned me around, and took a knife, put it to my throat," Check said.

He said Port Orange resident Timothy Paskievitch held him while stealing his wallet.

Once in prison, Check thought his attacker would have restricted contact with the outside world, but earlier this year, guards found Paskievitch talking on a cell phone in his prison cell.

He's not the only one.

An NBC2 Investigation found Florida's Department of Corrections has seen a 486 percent increase of inmates with phones since 2008.

From hiding them in VHS tapes, flip flops, and toothpaste bottles, inmates will do anything to keep phones from being found.

"They would make a phone call, and put a hit on people. I've seen that happen," said David, a former Florida inmate, who doesn't want to us to use his last name.

David spent two years behind bars and had access to a cell phone.

He says prison guards knew about it too.

"The guards brought it in. When the batteries would go dead, they would bring us more batteries for the cell phones," said David.

Kevin Dean is in charge of the state's contraband interdiction unit. His staff relies on two dogs to literally sniff out cell phones at all of the state's prisons.

"They deploy into the institutions on a daily basis, and that's their jobs," Dean said.

Cell phone sniffing dogs aren't the only solution. The NBC2 investigators found technology that can prevent inmates from making and receiving phone calls behind bars. The state knows about it, but is not using it.

It's called managed access technology. Mississippi's state prisons started using it in 2010. If calls come in from a phone not on an approved list, the call is blocked. 

"The technology is deployed, the technology is proven," says Casey Joseph with Tocore Networks, the manufacturer of the technology.

He says since Mississippi started using the system, it has intercepted more than a million unauthorized cell phone transmissions, and prison officials are finding half the number of cell phones as before.

Florida thinks the technology isn't ready.

"The main reason is the fact that it would jam cell phones in areas that we wouldn't want cell phones jammed - outside of the parameters of the institution," said Dean.

"It's meant to be a permanent solution that can evolve with wireless technology, that can provide a consistent blocking of the contraband devices that are inside the facility," said Joseph.

Dean says he has requested money to train two more cell phone sniffing dogs.

NBC2 reviewed about 800 confiscated cell phone reports, and only a handful of those caught were prosecuted. Most were disciplined internally, by putting them in confinement or taking privileges away. Only a few had time added to their sentence.

Cell phones confiscated from Florida prisons
2008: 242
2010: 1420

Managed Access Technology Mississippi prisons
Unauthorized cell phone transmissions: 1,160,883

Monthly confiscated cell phones Mississippi prisons
Before Managed Access Technology: 600
After Managed Access Technology: 250 to 300

By Andy Pierotti - bio | email

  • NBC2 Investigates: Inmates with cell phones
