John Moriarty, inspector general of the Texas prison system, also provided details of where phones and components were hidden - in heels of shoes, in plastic bottles flushed down toilets and other tough-to-find places.
Moriarty said that death-row inmate Richard Tabler lied to an Austin television reporter when he said he named a guard who helped him smuggle a cell phone into his cell.
In a story that aired Wednesday, Tabler said he named the guard in exchange for having charges dropped against his mother and sister. Both were arrested in October and charged with purchasing minutes on a cell phone Tabler was using.
In the interview Tabler accused investigators of not trying to arrest officers who may have been involved in smuggling cell phones into prison. Instead, he accused investigators of moving officers off the unit as punishment.
“Mr. Tabler just doesn’t know how to tell the truth,” Moriarty said.
Investigators believe that trusties and not death-row guards are responsible for bringing cell phones into the most secure parts of the unit. Trusties move through the prison serving as porters, garbage men or linen workers.
“We’ve got to provide essential services just like anyplace else where a large number of people are living,” Moriarty said. “We know that the involvement of friends and family of inmates was extensive, and we’re concentrating our efforts there to uncover more information. Prison is a very secretive world.”
In Tabler’s case, Moriarty said, “So far, the investigation shows he borrowed that phone from another inmate. He had no involvement in smuggling through a correctional officer or anyone else.”
In March 2007, Tabler was convicted of capital murder for the shooting deaths of Haitham Frank Zayed and Mohammed Amine Rahmouni. Police believe he also killed two women, Tiffany Dotson and Amanda Benefield. He was never put on trial for killing the women, but prosecutors used a statement from him and other evidence from that case to help secure his death penalty conviction.
Tabler became a lightning rod for the issue of smuggled cell phones in prison within weeks of appearing in Bell County to request that the appeals on his death sentence be removed so that he could be executed sooner.
Moriarty shared new details Thursday about the prison cell phone investigation and how difficult it was to uncover some of the phones.
He said that since October his office has requested more than 1,000 administrative subpoenas for records.
In addition, Moriarty spoke about where authorities found some of the cell phones and cell phone components confiscated during the month-long lockdown of the Polunsky Unit.
Investigators found four SIM cards in the heel of an inmate’s shoe. Moriarty said the inmate had cut slits in the heel where he had inserted the cards vertically.
One phone was found in the mechanism to an inmate’s cell door, another 2 feet up into a cinderblock wall. Authorities found that phone by using high tech scanning equipment in a cell.
One prisoner carved out a portion of the binding of a law book to conceal a phone. Another altered a plastic bottle, put the cell phone inside it, tied a string to the bottle’s neck and flushed it down a toilet. The string was then concealed in the toilet bowl to prevent investigators from finding the phone.
“The average citizen has no idea the ingenuity of these guys,” Moriarty said.
Although the phone Tabler was using has been taken away, he continues to contact government officials.
Judge Martha Trudo of 264th State District Court said she received a letter from Tabler two weeks ago asking for an execution date.
A direct appeal on all death row cases is mandatory, but Tabler has asked that his appeals be stopped, so he can expedite his death.
“Until the appellate court speaks, I don’t set an execution date,” Judge Trudo said. “I forward his letters on to the Court of Criminal Appeals.”
Judge Trudo said Tabler wrote that he would continue to “pester” her until he gets an execution date.
