Inmates Using Phones for Mischief, Aide Says

Inmates at the Orange County Jail have used court-ordered telephones to make bomb threats to police and to have other prisoners released by impersonating prison officials, a jail supervisor testified Wednesday.

Sheriff’s Sgt. J.D. Green, a nine-year staff veteran at the main men’s jail in Santa Ana, told a federal judge that inmates “have been released early” from custody after judges received telephone calls from prisoners claiming to be an official with the state Department of Corrections.

Green also mentioned an extortion call made to the Fullerton Police Department that demanded “millions of dollars . . . or the place would blow up.” He said the call was made from a direct-dial telephone installed in the jail’s rooftop exercise area as part of a 1978 order issued by U.S. District Judge William Gray of Los Angeles.

After listening to Green, Gray noted wryly, “Never underestimate the ingenuity of inmates at the Orange County Jail.”

Green testified at a hearing to decide whether the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which operates the jail, should be found in contempt of Gray’s order, which gave inmates a variety of upgraded conditions, including the installation of 16 pay telephones for inmate use.

The order stemmed from a 1978 class-action suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of present and future prisoners at the jail.

Green said the direct-dial telephones--which the ACLU now wants restored--were replaced with collect-only or credit card phones after inmates figured out how to make unauthorized long-distance calls.

“Our phone bills were monumental,” Green told the judge.

Green then said the improper use of the telephones went beyond long-distance charges and bomb threats to police.

“Judges were being called and the caller would say he was from the Department of Corrections and requesting the release of an inmate. People have been released from jail early,” Green said.

Neither Green nor Deputy County Counsel Edward Duran would elaborate outside court on when and how many inmates were released or whether any were recaptured.

More recently, Green said, inmates figured out how to use the credit-card phones to improperly get access to long-distance services such as AT&T; and Sprint.

“They’ve been calling all over the world,” he said.