TAMPA, Florida -- Millions of Americans ride commercial buses each year, yet few are aware thousands of unescorted prisoners do as well.
A 10 News investigation revealed that the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has increasingly turned to commercial buses, like Greyhound, to transfer prisoners across the country unescorted. Meanwhile, neither the passengers onboard nor the driver of the bus typically knows the passenger is serving federal time.
"A long bus trip across the country...is four or five days on a Greyhound," said former prisoner Harry Sherbondy, who once took an unescorted bus ride from Texas to California. "On all these stops, you have more ability to meet people (and) have them give you stuff."
Sherbondy, 59, was convicted of tax fraud, money laundering, and federal security violations before he was sentenced to 100 months in prison. He said unescorted BOP transfers used to take place aboard airplanes, which presented fewer opportunities for a prisoner to escape or receive alcohol or drugs. But budget constraints forced the agency to turn to buses about 10 years ago.
Most commercial bus lines make stops every 50 miles or so.
The BOP said most of their 30,000 annual bus transfers are low-threat prisoners near the end of their sentences. And 99.9 percent show up where and when they are supposed to. Yet, some can't resist the temptation to disappear.
Sherbondy said his concern is the drug and violent offenders who might get away. The BOP indicated it has roughly 100 escapes a year.
That includes Richard Gray, a convicted drug dealer who disappeared somewhere between his scheduled transfer from California to Florida in 2003. It took two years to recapture him.
"Failures are rare," said BOP spokesman Ed Ross. "For many years, the BOP has successfully allowed individuals who are nearing their release date to report to Residential Reentry Centers without staff escort."
Ross adds that these "halfway houses" provide releasing offenders the opportunity to receive assistance in job placement, counseling, and other services to ensure their successful reentry into their communities. Over the last three years, approximately 90,000 inmates nationwide have done so with approximately 2,400 of them originating from the Coleman Federal Corrections Complex in Sumter County, Fla.
The mere possibility of these convicts sitting next to unsuspecting passengers on commercial bus lines was enough for the American Bus Association (ABA) to demand the BOP stop the practice.
"It is unfathomable that your agency would engage in such a practice at all," wrote ABA President and CEO Peter Pantuso in 2009. "But to do so without even informing our bus operator members or their passengers imperils public safety, violates the principle of government transparency, and requires us to demand that such practices crease and desist immediately."
The BOP neither responded to the ABA nor did it change its policy on transporting unescorted prisoners.
There have been no recent reports of prisoner disturbances onboard, but the BOP said there was one case in 2005 of a prisoner helping to disarm a knife-wielding woman who tried to hijack a bus in Minnesota.
Connect with 10 News Investigator Noah Pransky on Facebook at www.facebook.com/noahpransky or Twitter at www.twitter.com/noahpransky. Send your story tips to noah@wtsp.com.
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