(CNN) — They used to do the guarding at Florida prisons. Now they’re the ones behind bars.
Two Florida corrections officers and one former officer trainee have been charged in a plot to kill a former inmate who was getting out of prison, the Florida Attorney General’s office said Thursday.
An FBI informant met the men — Thomas Jordan Driver, 25; David Elliot Moran, 47; and Charles Thomas Newcomb, 42 — after infiltrating a branch of the KKK: the Traditional American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, CNN affiliate WJXT reported.
Driver told the informant that he had gotten into a fight with the inmate and that he and Moran wanted him “six feet under,” according to court documents.
To convince the suspects that the deed had been done, the FBI staged a fake homicide scene with the former inmate and took pictures to show them that he had been killed.
“When the FBI staged this crime scene and these photographs were shown to each of these men, they were happy about it,” said Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox.
The three men are now facing up to 30 years in jail if convicted on one count each of conspiracy to commit murder.
“We will not tolerate nor will we ever remain silent over the violence of hatred embedded in prejudice in this country,” Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
