Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/oc-jail-recorded-telephone-calls/)
Phone company Global Tel Link (GTL) kept possibly hundreds of other U.S. jails in the dark about phone system problems it knew of since 2015 that caused the illegal recording of attorney-inmate calls in Orange County, according to a 42-page legal motion filed by OC Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders.
A lack of oversight allowed the illegal recording of more than 30,000 phone calls between inmates and their attorneys inside county jails, according to the Orange County Grand Jury.
At least three more OC sheriff officials knew in 2016 and 2017 of illegally recorded telephone calls between jail inmates and their attorneys, in addition to a sheriff investigator’s knowledge in 2015 of such recordings, according to evidence presented Wednesday in Superior Court.
The testimony raised questions about why, when sheriff and DA officials learned of attorney-client recordings in 2015, they apparently did not examine the issue further and potentially stop the systemic recording of hundreds of protected calls.
Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders says Sheriff’s Department personnel and Global Tel Link, the county’s jail phone contractor, knew about improper recordings of attorney-client jail calls but conspired to cover it up. He also points to discrepancies in data turned over by Global Tel Link that suggest far more than 1,079 attorney-client phone calls were improperly recorded.
The vendor, Global Tel-Link, potentially jeopardized criminal cases by improperly recording phone calls between attorneys and their clients.
Global Tel Link, the county contractor that recorded more than 1,000 inmate phone calls specifically designated as “do not record,” did the same thing two years ago in Florida’s Pinellas and Charlotte counties, company executives said Thursday.