By Kathleen Cullinan
Naples Daily News
LEE COUNTY, Fla. — A Lee County corrections officer has been fired on improper conduct charges, weeks after her relationship with a jail inmate was outed with the discovery of more than a dozen smuggled love letters.
Officer Kathryn Smith was fired Thursday after she admitted to internal affairs investigators she’d fallen for the inmate, Stacy Pool, and hoped to continue their relationship once Pool got out of jail, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. The pair once stole a kiss in a break room at the Core Facility on Ortiz Avenue, according to a sheriff’s report.
Neither Smith nor Pool, who was jailed from early March to early June on burglary and theft charges, could be reached Monday.
Both women described the relationship as consensual.
“Smith advised she was surprised and embarrassed by her feelings for Inmate Pool,” an internal affairs investigator wrote in the report. “She knew her relationship with Pool was inappropriate but could not seem to help herself.”
Authorities found charges of improper and unlawful conduct against Smith were substantiated about a month after the officer’s roommate, also a Sheriff’s Office employee, came forward with copies of some 30 pages of sexually explicit letters found in Smith’s bedroom.
The roommate told investigators she was worried Pool might stay at their home upon her release from jail.
When investigators confronted Smith, the report says she pulled another letter from the pocket of her uniform saying Pool had slipped it to her earlier that day.
“According to Smith, Pool would give her the notes while she was at work and she would save them and bring them home,” the investigator wrote. “Smith also admitted she gave her personal cell phone number to Pool hoping she would call but she never did.”
The women reportedly referred to each other with nicknames, including “Angel Eyes” and “Baby Girl.” Smith was supervising Pool on a cleaning job in the Core Facility break room the day they kissed, the report says.
Records show Pool posted bond and left jail on June 5, four days after investigators learned of the relationship. She refused at first to acknowledge a relationship with Smith, but later told investigators she was in love with the officer.
Smith was let go on July 5, records show. Pool is next due in court July 30.
Two sheriff’s deputies and a dispatcher were fired this spring amid allegations they improperly carried on sexual relationships while on duty.
Copyright 2007 Naples Daily News