A cache of records recently obtained by The Tributary paints a vivid portrait of Sidney Jones, who was at once a petty thief, burglar, gunman, and liar, as well as a longtime paid police informant whose controlled buys gave cops probable cause for arrests.
Category: Criminal Justice
Posted inFlorida
Duval judge denies new trial for Death Row inmate scheduled for execution
If put to death, Michael Bell will be the eighth person executed by the state this year.
Posted inFlorida
Witnesses say their lies put a man on Death Row. Then they took it back
On June 16, Henry Edwards signed a detailed affidavit acknowledging that he gave false testimony in a 1995 capital murder case as a favor to a Jacksonville detective – false testimony that put a man on Death Row. On Monday, after prosecutors and a judge told Edwards that recanting his past testimony could lead to criminal charges, he took it all back.
Posted inFlorida
Witnesses in Duval Death Row case say they were coached by detective to lie
The legal team representing Michael Bell submitted handwritten affidavits from both witnesses, each saying he was coached to give false testimony by Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Detective William Bolena.
Posted inJail Conditions
Autopsy into controversial jail death complete, but findings a mystery
That report’s findings about what ultimately caused Faggart’s controversial death will prove consequential, so the report’s completion is a significant step.
Posted inFlorida
Sergeant suspended after Duval jail death broke use of force policy before
The sergeant who was among nine guards suspended by Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters after a Duval County inmate was allegedly brutalized to death in April was reprimanded in 2021 after he pepper sprayed a restrained inmate at close range.
Posted inFlorida
Death Row attorneys fight state for records in case highlighted by The Tributary
Lawyers for Kenneth Hartley, a Jacksonville Death Row inmate convicted of murder more than 30 years ago on the word of a known liar and three jailhouse snitches, are fighting to pry loose records they hope will undo the case, which was the subject of a recent investigation by The Tributary called ‘Cold-Blooded.’
Posted inFlorida
Medical records in controversial jail death contradict JSO account
Doctors at UF Health who evaluated a broken, bruised and unresponsive Charles Faggart after he’d arrived from the Duval County jail on April 7 concluded he did not have fentanyl in his system or suffer a seizure, contradicting key details released by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office about the controversial in-custody death. Doctors also removed a barb from a stun gun in his back – JSO has not previously disclosed that Faggart was stunned – and noted multiple fractures on his face and ribs, bruises throughout his body, and serious damage to his kidneys and liver.
Posted inFlorida
JSO jailers said she had no visible injuries. Photos say otherwise
Allison Fierro’s face was unmarked when she was booked into the Duval County jail on a DUI. When she bonded out three days later, her eyes were a frightful black-and-blue mask, the result of a violent “straight-arm-bar” takedown by two officers who decided the 108-pound, 55-year-old woman pleading for her anxiety meds was being “uncooperative.”
Posted inFlorida
Officer suspended in recent Duval jail death was previously reprimanded
One of the nine Duval County jail officers suspended earlier this month in connection with the death of 31-year-old Charles Faggart was reprimanded last year in an unrelated internal affairs investigation centered around the death of a different inmate, according to documents obtained by The Tributary.