Officials with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office collectively billed 14 inmates for more than $16,000 for their incarceration last year, according to a Colorado grand jury.
Despite the revelation, the report said that the grand jury did not find enough evidence to indict Lake County sheriff Rodney Fenske or others for wrongdoing. Instead of issuing indictments, the group released a report under a state law that permits typically secret grand jury findings to be made public if the case involves government misconduct.
The report found that officials in the sheriff’s office didn’t understand a law that permits jails to pursue compensation from certain inmates and misapplied it, according to the Colorado Sun.
“Inmates are a vulnerable population and need to be well protected by those to whom their care is entrusted,” the report reads. “Because of that vulnerability, extreme caution must be exercised to protect their property, including funds held on their jail accounts, as well as their health and safety.”
The grand jury found that the inmates were wrongfully charged varying amounts, with the two most heavily charged inmates billed at $6,120 and $4,560, respectively. The 14 inmates were billed for $16,368 in total, $2,202 of which has since been collected by the department.
The officials involved are no longer working with the sheriff’s office and the Lake County’s new sheriff, Amy Reyes, closed the jail this year.
