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Jail worker forced to leave

A social worker at the Orient Road Jail retired rather than be fired after lending inmates money.

By ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published January 30, 2007

TAMPA - The Sheriff's Office forced a jail social worker to retire after discovering she broke rules by offering home loans to inmates.

Linda Beavers, 59, spent 16 years helping inmates at the Orient Road Jail, but investigators say she crossed a line by befriending two men and lending them money.

After an internal affairs investigation, Beavers retired Jan. 9 rather than be fired, records show.

"I did not become friends with 'criminals,' " she wrote in a statement to the Sheriff's Office. "I was a friend to two persons with an addiction problem that became 'criminals' because of their addiction."

Investigators say Beavers became friends with two inmates, Robert Reeves and Clinton Scales.

Beavers offered to help the men buy a home, by offering them a $1,000 home loan at 4 percent interest, investigators say. She also used her influence to get Reeves into a cooking class at the jail, records show.

She violated Sheriff's Office policy by associating with criminals, being inattentive to her duties, misusing communications facilities and breaking the law, investigators say.

Beavers was arrested in March by Lee County investigators on charges of grand theft, scheme to defraud a financial institution and obtaining a mortgage note by false representation, jail records show. It was not clear Monday whether those charges are related to the internal affairs investigation.

Beavers told deputies that she was just being nice.

"Some folks nickname me Mother Teresa because I try to help people," she told investigators.

Abbie VanSickle can be reached at 226-3373 or vansickle@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 30, 2007, 06:18:02]