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Sunday, April 22, 2007
Courts - Prisoner wrongly freed from Kentucky state facility based on a faxed, forged "court order"
"Prisoner wrongly freed from state facility" is the headline in the Lexington Herald-Leader of an AP story from this weekend. Some quotes:
HICKMAN, Ky. -- Officials released a prisoner from a state facility after receiving a phony fax that ordered the man be freed.Pretty concerning. When you read further, however, you wonder how this on earth the officials could have fallen for this (making it even more concerning):
He was released from that facility on April 6, and the mistake wasn't caught for nearly two weeks. * * *"It appears that the inmate arranged for someone to fax a forged court order to the Kentucky Correctional & Psychiatric Center," Major said.
The fake court order contained grammatical errors and it was not typed on letterhead. It falsely claims that the Kentucky Supreme Court "demanded" Rouse to be released.
Police are still investigating who faxed it.
Prison officials did not notice that the fax came from a local grocery store because policies in place did not require checking the source of a faxed order, said the LaGrange facility's director, Greg Taylor.
"It's not part of a routine check, but certainly, in hindsight, that would perhaps have caused somebody to ask a question," he said. He added that misspellings on orders are common.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 22, 2007 08:53 PM
Posted to Courts in general