MIAMI — A group of Florida Department of Corrections officers covered up an inmate’s battery in a prison cell in Florida City, according to investigators. Six out of seven were arrested, and four of them had bonded out of jail by Thursday night in Miami-Dade County, records show.
Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Lody Jean issued arrest warrants for the seven on Monday: Lt. Shentrica Clark, Capt. Jochen Anglin, Officer Jordy Calero, Sgt. Travon Norman, Sgt. D’Andre Hill, Sgt. Richard Jackson, and Sgt. Freddie Morgan.
THE ALLEGED CRIMES
Clark, 40, a supervisor assigned to the Dade Correctional Institution’s Transitional Care Unit, ordered correctional officers to escort Christopher Castro, an inmate, to her office at about 9:30 p.m. on April 5, according to the arrest warrants in the case.
Two correctional officers, who are not facing charges, reported they placed Castro in handcuffs and escorted him from a shower area to an area outside of Clark’s office -- where there aren’t surveillance cameras, records show.
The two correctional officers reported they left Castro with Anglin, 32; Calero, 23; Norman, 29; Morgan, 35; Hill, 24; and Jackson, according to records on the cases.
Noon report:
Castro was resisting when Calero, Norman, Jackson, Hill, and Morgan picked him up, threw him into the cell, and then kicked and punched him several times in his face, head, back, and arms, as he remained in handcuffs, according to the arrest warrants.
“Several witnesses observed that the victim had significant facial bruising, bleeding, and scratches,” the FDOC detective who investigated the case wrote in a request for an arrest warrant, records show.
On April 6, after the change of shift, Clark’s colleague saw Castro’s injuries and the blood on his shirt and ordered her subordinates to photograph him and escort him from the cell to the medical unit before concluding that Clark’s hand-off report was “egregiously false,” according to the warrant.
Suspecting there was a coverup, the FDOC detective who investigated the case reported someone “attempted to clean blood from the holding cell, so he asked the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office crime scene unit to collect DNA for analysis, records show. Investigators later reported Clark had ”ordered an inmate to clean the cell soon after" the beating, records show.
A spokesperson for the FDOC released a statement on Thursday afternoon saying, “All of these staff members were dismissed as quickly as administratively possible.”
ARRESTS AND CASES
Miami-Dade court records show prosecutors filed the cases against Clark, Anglin, Calero, Norman, Hill, and Morgan on Monday.
In Clark’s case, court records show the State Attorney’s Office was the arresting agency on Wednesday, and a judge set her bond on Thursday at $5,500.
Clark faced two charges: Tampering with physical evidence, a third-degree felony, and failure to report known or suspected unlawful abuse by a state corrections department employee on an inmate, a first-degree misdemeanor.
In Anglin’s case, court records show the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office was the arresting agency on Wednesday, and a judge set his bond on Thursday at $2,000.
Anglin faced two charges: Perjury not in an official proceeding, a first-degree misdemeanor, and failure to report known or suspected unlawful abuse by a state corrections department employee on an inmate.
Calero, Norman, Hill, and Morgan each faced three charges: Perjury not in an official proceeding, failure to report known or suspected unlawful abuse by a state corrections department employee on an inmate, and use of force or battery on a detainee, a first-degree misdemeanor.
In the cases of Calero, Norman, and Hill, the M-DSO was the arresting agency on Wednesday, and a judge set their bond on Thursday at $3,000 each. In the case of Morgan, court records show the M-DSO was the arresting agency on Thursday, and a judge had yet to set his bond.
Court records on Thursday night showed Clark, Anglin, Norman, Calero and Hill had bonded out of the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. Inmate records show Jackson posted bond but remained in custody as of Friday afternoon at TGKCC.
Miami-Dade County Circuit Judges Richard Hersch, Julie Harris Nelson, and Marcus Bach Armas were presiding over the six cases.
There weren’t any records on the court or inmate databases for Jackson, who had an arrest warrant on three charges: Perjury not in an official proceeding, failure to report known or suspected unlawful abuse by a state corrections department employee on an inmate, and use of force or battery on a detainee.
Jackson posted bond but remained jailed at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Friday afternoon.
VICTIM’S RECORD
Records show Castro, the victim in the cases, had been in prison from 2012 to 2014 and from 2016 to 2018 when the FDOC took custody of him again on Dec. 27, 2023.
Castro has 11 convictions in Hillsborough County. The offenses include an armed robbery in 2011, an armed home invasion in 2015, and battery on a law enforcement officer in 2019 and 2021.
The FDOC transferred Castro to the Wakulla Correctional Institution Annex at Crawfordville, Fla., where his visitation status was suspended. His release date as of Thursday night was June 26, 2032.
Local 10 News reporter Walter Murphy and Assignment Editor Mariana Ortiz contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
