2 more inmates released accidentally from Delco jail

The privately run George W. Hill Correctional Facility has been struggling this summer with what you might call a prisoner-retention problem.

Delaware County authorities discovered this month that two inmates had been mistakenly released from the prison due to clerical errors. Neither has been heard from since.

It's the fifth time that this has happened in recent months, according to a county official.

The prison, operated by New Jersey-based Community Education Centers for $43 million a year, made headlines in June when accused killer Taaqi Brown walked out because of a records snafu. Brown, 22, of Germantown, turned himself in the next day, and the CEC clerk who let him out was fired.

Now, the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force is searching for David Wilson, 19, of Chester, who was convicted in July of a firearms offense, but was released from the prison Aug. 4, two weeks before he was to be sentenced.

Federal authorities also are looking for Ateia Polk, 32, of Philadelphia, who is on the lam after the prison released her last month prior to her trial on robbery, assault and related offenses. Polk is accused of stealing jewelry from an Upper Darby beauty parlor and threatening to stab the owner with a hairpin.

"We're not pointing the finger at anybody," said prison Superintendent John Reilly Jr., who oversees CEC's performance on the county's behalf. "This is an in-house problem that needs to be resolved here."

Reilly said that Polk was released because a prison employee misinterpreted a judge's order. The clerk apparently thought that "no bail" meant that Polk could leave without posting bail.

"She just made a colossal mistake," Reilly said.

In Wilson's case, the prison never received a fax from the county's Office of Judicial Support stating that his bail had been revoked. But Reilly said that a prison employee should have double-checked that he was cleared for discharge.

"You need to do a more thorough search," he said. "The bottom line is, you are responsible when you open the back door."

Reilly said that the prison's records department has been having trouble handling the thousands of documents it receives every week. He described it as a systemic problem that CEC is working to correct.

"They don't have a process in place to accurately accept all these documents," Reilly said. "They just come flying in. There's a real breakdown in their process at that point."

In some cases, such as Polk's, overwhelmed employees are simply misreading the paperwork.

"It's a longstanding problem with the records department being able to process the volume," Reilly said.

CEC took over the operation of the county prison last year after the GEO Group abandoned its contract due to "financial underperformance and frequent litigation." Located in Thornton, it is the only privately run county prison in the state.

CEC spokesman Christopher Greeder declined to elaborate on the discharged inmates, other than to say that "the matter is under review and the company is working closely with the county."

"This is the first crisis of the CEC era, and we're going to see how good they are," Reilly said. "They'll have to get through it."