3 workers at DOC face dismissal
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051029/LOCAL/51029004/1078/editorials http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articleOctober 29. 2005 6:01AM
TALLAHASSEE - Three Department of Corrections employees, including the son of the state's top law enforcement officer, have been placed on paid leave and face dismissal for undisclosed charges.
DOC Secretary James Crosby said Friday he could not discuss why the three employees were placed on paid leave this week since the department was still investigating.
All three were involved in a fight at a Tallahassee softball banquet in April that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated.
And all three have ties to Allen Clark, the former DOC Region I director who abruptly quit his $94,000 position in August in the midst of ongoing FDLE and Federal Bureau of Investigation scrutiny into myriad activities within the prison system.
The three men on paid leave are:
Bradley Tunnell, 30, a correctional services administrator at DOC Region I offices in Sneads. He's the son of FDLE Commissioner Guy Tunnell, the man overseeing the sprawling investigation of the DOC. Bradley Tunnell was hired by the department in February 2004 and is paid $41,440 in his position.
Apalachee Correctional Institution Col. Richard Frye, 36. He was hired in March 1993 and worked with Clark at New River Correctional Institution before joining Clark in Sneads last year. He is paid $53,222,
ACI Major James Bowen, 32, who is paid $43,848 in his position. He was hired by the department in April 1992 and also moved to Sneads with Clark and Frye.
Each man received a letter dated Oct. 27 from Region I director Al Solomon that said, in part: ''you are being placed on administrative leave pending investigation of charges which could result in your dismissal."
DOC officials directly notified Guy Tunnell of the action regarding his son on Thursday. Crosby said Friday that he had not spoken directly to Guy Tunnell, and Crosby added that he didn't anticipate Bradley Tunnell's family ties to affect the ongoing FDLE investigations.
FDLE spokeswoman Kristen Perezluha said Guy Tunnell declined to comment on the situation since the investigations are ongoing.
Earlier this year, FDLE investigators interviewed a man who was beaten by Frye, Clark and Bowen at a softball banquet in Tallahassee on April 1.
The man, James Edward O'Bryan, had accidentally slipped in a pool of beer and vomit, knocking down a female acquaintance of Clark's. Clark, Frye and Bowen then beat the man until he left, the investigation found.
Once outside, those helping O'Bryan said a man they identified as Bradley Tunnell verbally threatened them.
Asked if this week's suspensions were related to the banquet melee, Crosby said he could not comment on an ongoing investigation. He added that the department had only received the information from that FDLE investigation within the past few weeks.
But FDLE closed the investigation on April 22, meaning all of the information was available to the public at that time.
Bradley Tunnell worked at the Region I office in Sneads where Clark was director until Clark's abrupt resignation in August. Clark was a close friend of Crosby's, who oversaw Clark's rise from a $14,000 corrections officer post in 1988 to one of the agency's highest positions. The FBI and FDLE are investigating Clark's association with former DOC workers charged in a steroids ring, and are also investigating Clark's use of funds generated through employee clubs and recycling programs.
Frye and Bowen were members of a Florida State Prison softball team in 2002 that was coached by Clark. The team's behavior brought numerous complaints from other law enforcement agencies and earned the FSP team, named "The Big House," a two-year suspension from the Florida Law Enforcement Games.
FDLE investigators seized vehicles owned by Frye in September. The seizure came as part of an investigation into allegations that illegal work was done by inmates for prison staff. And Frye was mentioned in another FDLE investigation this year that resulted in the arrest of a former minor league baseball player, Mark Guerra. Investigators said Frye had hired Guerra to play in a softball tournament and pressured ACI staff to pay Guerra even though he allegedly did not perform his duties as a librarian at the prison.
Guerra was arrested on charges of theft for accepting the pay for a job he allegedly did not do. Frye has not been charged.
Frye's criminal history is limited to a misdemeanor case in 2000. According to Union County court records, in August 2000 Frye agreed to sell a used, doublewide mobile home to a Raiford man for $27,250. After the man finished paying for the home in April 2001, he became concerned because Frye did not provide him with a title for it. Frye did not have the title, the records show, because he still owed a finance company $20,000 for the mobile home.
The case was dismissed in August 2001 after Frye made restitution. The victim in the case said this week that he did not want to talk about the deal, but was ''very satisfied'' with how it ended.
A month after the DOC hired Bowen, he was named as the defendant in a Bradford County misdemeanor battery case. Court files show that Bowen identified himself as a corrections officer at the North Florida Reception Center when the incident happened on May 22, 1992, outside a home near Starke.
At least one witness told investigators that Bowen hit a 17-year-old male ''without provocation.'' The case was dropped a few months later when a key witness failed to appear to be deposed in the case.
Bowen had another brush with the law 10 years later. According to court records, Bowen was a sergeant at Florida State Prison when a sworn complaint alleging domestic violence was filed against him by the Starke Police Department on Sept. 3, 2002.
In that case, a woman claimed Bowen threw her to the ground and punched her in the head. The case was dismissed due to insufficient evidence.
Joe Follick is a reporter in the Sun Tallahassee Bureau. Karen Voyles is a reporter for The Gainesville Sun.
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