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In November, Balkwill, Maj. Tim Carney and Information Technology director Jeffrey Feathers each signed paperwork that indicated the laptop — a key piece of evidence in a lawsuit over a lucrative jail contract — was “obsolete,” worth only $10 and had to be scrapped.

Three months before 11,000 files were deleted from former Sheriff Bill Balkwill’s laptop, the sheriff and two top administrators signed a document saying the computer had been sent off for recycling, according to court documents made public Friday.

But the laptop was never sent to the recycling yard and Carney went to Balkwill’s home to retrieve it on Feb. 4 — the same day that someone used a common Internet program to erase 11,000 files.

The revelation that Balkwill’s work laptop was supposed to be recycled came amid a criminal investigation at the Sheriff’s Office, where detectives are trying to find out who deleted the files.

The laptop is central to the lawsuit that Prison Health Services filed against rival company Armor Correctional Health Services after Balkwill awarded Armor the contract to treat jail prisoners.

The suit claims that Balkwill gave Armor the contract because of his cozy relationship with them.

The Sheriff’s Office is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Balkwill has acknowledged that he corresponded with Armor and PHS is hoping to learn more about that correspondence by examining Balkwill’s laptop.

Attorneys for the Sheriff’s Office went to court Friday to keep documents related to the case secret, but a lawyer for Prison Health Services said they were routine public records — and that it was unusual for an agency “investigating itself” to withhold such documents from scrutiny.

“The difficulty we’re faced with, again, is that we don’t have an outside agency doing the investigation,” said Thomas Shults, the PHS attorney.

Judge Charles E. Williams had ordered the agency to turn over the records by 5 p.m. — including a list of who handled the laptop on the day it was scrubbed.

Sheriff Tom Knight has said that Balkwill asked him to hang on to the laptop when he left office Jan. 6 so he could save pictures from his time at the FBI Academy.

At the time, lawyers negotiated to examine the computer because attorneys wanted to know if Balkwill communicated with executives from Armor before he awarded the company a $9 million contract in 2007.

PHS says Balkwill ignored other bids and lawyers want to know if Armor offered him a job or other perks to land the deal.

The lawsuit has already revealed that Armor treated Balkwill to $1,500 in meals and perks between 2006 and 2007, including a fishing expedition to Lake Okeechobee with former Armor chief executive Doyle Moore.

When PHS filed the lawsuit in September 2007, they asked those involved not to tamper with relevant information — such as e-mails, memos or other documents.

Knight has said that he told Carney, who has since retired, to go to Balkwill’s home on Feb. 4 to retrieve the laptop. Court documents show that when Carney returned, at least three other Sheriff’s Office employees handled the laptop.

They were: Feathers, the IT director who also signed off on the laptop’s disposal; assistant IT director William Forrest; and IT tech David Sanders.

Five days later, the laptop was given to lawyers from Prison Health Services.

This month, a computer forensic expert found that someone erased 11,000 files with a basic Internet download program called “C Cleaner.”

But the examiner also says that someone used a more complicated “masking” program to conceal the use of the “C Cleaner.”

Masking “C Cleaner” would have been difficult for a computer novice, said a Washington, D.C.-based computer expert.

“That’s not something a layman could do,” said Steve Moshlak, a forensic computer investigator who has testified in hundreds of civil and criminal cases.

Meanwhile, someone also plugged in three devices to the laptop on the day it was scrubbed: a thumb drive, an external disk drive and a printer. The external drive was discovered at Balkwill’s home, according to Sheriff’s Office attorney Morgan Bentley, who turned it over in court this week.

But the thumb drive and printer have not been found.

Those devices were used by Balkwill while he ran the agency, Bentley said in court.

“Balkwill told us that he returned it to someone at the Sheriff’s Office,” Bentley said Friday. “But we haven’t gotten that back yet, either.”

Balkwill has repeatedly declined to talk about the matter and did not return a phone call Friday.
Knight wrote: “In order to keep our integrity and ethical values intact — and maintain the public’s trust in our ability to uphold and enforce our nation’s laws — we must first be able to police ourselves and, simply, do what is right.”

Knight also refused to comment, saying that he did not want to impede the criminal investigation. He has said that any findings would be turned over the State Attorney’s Office for review.
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Knight sent an e-mail to staffers this week asking them not to speak with the news media, the public or one another about the case.

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