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Associated PressThe probation officers say they are being punished too severely over their handling of Troy Victorino, who is accused of organizing the Deltona slayings.
DELTONA - Two probation officers appealed their firings after one of the ex-convicts they supervised was accused of leading the baseball-bat-beating deaths of six people.
Richard Burrow and his supervisor, Paul Hayes, said the punishment for their mishandling of Troy Victorino was too severe. The state Corrections Department contends Victorino's brushes with the law while on probation should have put him behind bars and away from the victims' home.
Victorino is accused of organizing the killings Aug. 6 to get back his belongings after one of the tenants removed his Xbox video game system and clothes from another home where he had been squatting.
A hearing on the appeals was set for Oct. 8 by the state Public Employees Relations Commission, which hears disciplinary disputes involving Florida's civil servants.
Corrections officials said Burrow did not properly file a report Aug. 2 that could have triggered Victorino's detention on an assault charge. Victorino visited Burrow in the probation office the day before the killings.
Two higher-level administrators were fired but have no appeal rights.
Victorino and three 18-year-olds were indicted last week in the killings. The grand jury reconvened Friday to drop a charge of abuse of a dead body in the death of Michelle Ann Nathan after medical investigators determined she was alive when her throat was slit.
Investigators initially thought all the victims were dead when they were knifed. The stabbing injuries have been revised to note the stabbing as a contributing cause of death in the murder charge covering Nathan.
The state is seeking the death penalty against Victorino, 27; Michael Salas, 18; Robert Cannon, 18; and Jerone Hunter, 18. They face 14 felony counts each.