ROCKLAND, Maine — A Bryant Pond man accused of forging documents to get out of prison early will spend another 18 months behind bars.
His attorney acknowledged Friday that Joseph Ryan Cox was supposed to be credited with time served at a county jail so he could be released early from the Maine State Prison, but Cox did not wait for the official paperwork to be sent to the prison.
The 29-year-old pleaded guilty Friday in Knox County Superior Court to felony counts of aggravated forgery, escape and tampering with public records.
Cox had been serving time at the Maine State Prison in Warren for a probation violation on a prior felony theft conviction out of Franklin County. He was released from the prison on April 1, 2014, after paperwork was faxed to the prison from the district attorney’s office in Franklin County stating that Cox should receive credit for having served 80 days at the Oxford County Jail.
Soon after his release, however, corrections officials discovered that the paperwork had been forged and included the signature of a nonexistent jail sergeant.
An investigation revealed that Cox had been making telephone calls to his father, who brought the paperwork to the district attorney’s office in Oxford County. An employee at that office who was familiar with the family faxed the documents to the prison.
Joseph Cox was apprehended three days after he was released and charged with the new offenses. He was released on bail but his bail later was revoked at a court hearing in Knox County. The reasons behind the bail revocation could not be obtained Friday.
No one else has been charged in connection with the case.
Defense attorney Eric “Rick” Morse said Friday that his client had earned the credits to be released but that the proper paperwork had not been sent to the prison. Justice Daniel Billings told Cox that if he had only been more patient he would not have to go back to jail.
The 18-month sentence is to be served at the Knox County Jail because the defendant’s father was a witness to a double homicide and the convicted murderer is now being held at the state prison. More information on that case was unavailable Friday.
District Attorney Andrew Robinson — who represents Franklin, Oxford and Androscoggin counties — said in an email to the BDN on Friday that his office cooperated fully with the investigation. He said the employee in his office who sent the documents to the prison was unaware they had been forged. Without elaborating on whether established procedures were followed, Robinson wrote that “the conduct was addressed with the staff person involved.”
Cox has prior theft convictions and was the subject of a short-lived police manhunt in 2011.