A six-month law enforcement operation at the Orange County Jail dubbed “Operation Killing Time” has swept up three dozen people on racketeering and drug charges, including two corrections officers and an attorney.
The Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, a multi-agency Central Florida task force, said in a release Friday that the charges resulted from a six-month investigation that began in the spring, when inmates at the jail were observed to apparently be on drugs.
Twenty-two of those charged were inmates at the time of the alleged offenses. The bureau says the attorney who was charged had brought drugs into the jail while acting as an inmate’s lawyer. The attorney was not identified by name.
Louis Quinones, chief of the Orange County Corrections Department, condemned the alleged involvement of the two corrections officers, both women, who have been relieved of duty without pay while the MBI continues its investigation.
“Such misconduct is not in line with the more than 1,600 men and women performing honorably within the agency,” he said in the release.
Among the charges brought in the case are racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering, trafficking in synthetic cannabinoids, conspiracy to traffic in synthetic cannabinoids and introduction of contraband into a county detention facility.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Orange County Sheriff’s Office and the corrections department also participated in the investigation. The defendants will be prosecuted by the Florida Office of Statewide Prosecution.
The MBI requested that anyone with knowledge of the alleged crimes reach out to the bureau.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
