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Former prison official turns himself in on fight charge

TALLAHASSEE - A former state prison administrator turned himself in Wednesday on a felony battery charge for his role in a fight at a softball banquet in April.

Allen Clark, 40, a regional director overseeing 13 North Florida prisons for the Department of Corrections who resigned in August, surrendered to Tallahassee police at midafternoon, police spokesman John Newland said.

Two other prison employees were arrested Tuesday for their alleged roles in the brawl.

Col. Richard Allen Frye, 36, who was once part of a security detail assigned to former President Bush, and Maj. James Bowen, 32, worked at Apalachee Correctional Institution in Sneads, west of Tallahassee.

All three men were present at a softball banquet on April 1 at the Florida National Guard Armory in Tallahassee when a fight broke out involving several people, including three men charged with assault on James O'Bryan, a former corrections officer.

Another corrections employee, Bradley Tunnell, was placed on paid leave last month along with Frye and Bowen.

Tunnell, the son of Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Guy Tunnell, was not involved in the fight, according to witnesses. But he drove a truck up to the armory afterward and allegedly used profane language and threatened a corrections officer, investigators said.

Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday he was "disappointed" with the arrests but said the softball fight was an old incident. He has consistently supported Secretary James Crosby during the rash of troubling incidents.

"It's the same incident repeated for the third time," Bush said.

[Last modified November 10, 2005, 01:20:16]