Phone Calls for Freedom
Posted: Saturday, July 30, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
Larry Stone, 32, is in trouble for bailing himself out of the Lake County, Florida jail. Incarcerated there since April for “property crimes,” Stone finally came up with the $1250 for his bond and was let out. His new found freedom only lasted one day. When he found out the police were looking for him he voluntarily turned himself in. His bond money was confiscated and he faces additional charges of grand theft and scheming with intent to defraud. He could face additional jail time.
On July 7th, Stone made a local call but no one was home. He noticed that $5.16 had been immediately back credited to his account-twice what the call should have cost. He tried a long distance call and hung up before anyone could answer. $27.70 was credited to his account. Larry had the phone number of Narcotics Anonymous in Ontario, Canada and proceeded to call them and hang up repeatedly. He made 77 unanswered calls over the next three hours and accumulated enough money in his account to bail himself out and to have about fifty bucks spending money left over.
The jail’s IT department soon noticed a blizzard on incomplete calls being made. Officials were notified. Lt. John Herrell, the jail’s spokesperson, said, “When we found out about it we were shocked. We’re really not sure how the word spread, but it was definitely going around and people were jumping on the bandwagon.” 256 inmate accounts were affected. Kevin Tomlinson, 18, was in the process of posting his $1400 bond when the authorities wised up and stopped his release. Four or five other inmates were issued checks for the balances in their accounts when they were transferred to other facilities. The checks were retrieved. Larry Stone is the only one who cashed out his money and is the only one facing charges.
The jail quickly notified Global Tel* Link and the problem was fixed. Investigations found that two servers were mistakenly turned on to manage the telephone transactions rather then the usual one. Dorothy Cukier, executive director of the company said, “Following receipt of notification of the problems [She meant: after being told about it], the system was enhanced [She meant: it was changed], to prevent the duplicative operation of the program [She meant: it happening twice], from ever occurring in the future.”
Herrell said “[The scheme] was clever and I think what helped them is that they could check their balances immediately.” Changes have been made in how the inmate accounts are posted. The jail’s contract with Global Tel* Link expires at the end of August. They are “exploring other options" for telephone service providers.
Larry Stone is back under lock and key and will soon find out just how much his one day of freedom will cost him.
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