By Michael Graczyk
Associated Press
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Phone scam run out of Philly prison
HOUSTON — Gov. Rick Perry ordered Texas prisons locked down Monday and searched for contraband after death-row inmates made thousands of calls on a smuggled cell phone.
An inmate’s mother was arrested Monday at Austin’s airport and accused of buying minutes for the phone, and authorities said more arrests were expected. Perry’s office said the cell phone was smuggled into the prison by a bribed corrections officer.
Authorities learned about the phone after inmate Richard Tabler called a prominent state senator and told him he knew the names of the legislator’s daughters and where they lived, said John Moriarty, the prison system’s inspector general.
Tabler shared the phone with nine inmates on his cell block, and prison officials said about 2,800 calls were made on it over the last 30 days.
Tabler, 29, is on death row for killing two men on Thanksgiving weekend 2004, and he has been charged with killing two teenage girls. All four had ties to a strip club in Killeen.
Earlier this month, Tabler told a judge he wanted to end appeals and volunteer for execution. A phone call to his trial attorney was not returned Monday. Prison officials said the inmates involved in the cell phone use will face criminal charges or disciplinary actions.
Tabler’s 60-year-old mother, Lorraine, was being held Monday on a felony charge of providing a prohibited item to an inmate and was waiting for her bond to be set, said Moriarty.
Perry’s office blamed an unidentified corrections officer for taking a bribe to get the phone to Tabler. Further information on the officer was not disclosed.
The governor ordered any contraband from inmates, staff and visitors be seized and said violators would be prosecuted. Texas has 111 prisons holding some 155,000 inmates.
“Let there be no doubt about how seriously we take this security breach,” Perry said.
Authorities said Richard Tabler made several calls to state Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, between Oct. 7 and 19. Tabler told the Houston Democrat he knew the names and ages of the lawmaker’s two daughters and where they lived.
Investigators determined the phone was bought in Waco in September 2007 and that Lorraine Tabler had been buying time for the phone. They also determined that the phone also received incoming calls.
It was not immediately known whether Lorraine Tabler had an attorney. Messages left at a phone number for her in Blackshear, Ga., were not immediately returned.
Illegal cell phone use is a continuing problem in prisons where the phones are considered a security breach and of particular value to gang members, prison officials say.
Moriarty said his investigators are looking into 700 cases across the state prison system, including one where an X-ray was used to reveal a phone and charger hidden inside the prisoner’s body.