Marion Correctional Institution faulted for letting inmates pirate movies, software

MARION — Inmates at a Marion prison had thousands of pirated movies and videos on computers at the prison, according to the Ohio Inspector General's office.

The Inspector General released a report Tuesday on the contraband found at the Marion Correctional Institution.

The investigation stemmed from an earlier probe in 2015 that found inmates were secretly building computers, concealing them in the prison's ceiling, connecting them to the prison's network and committing crimes with them.

In 2016, while state officials were overseeing corrective measures at the prison after its network was breached, officials became aware of a hard drive hidden at the prison, according to the report.

In 2016, an inmate showed investigators where to find the hard drive and other contraband, including razor blades, hidden in a printer that had been in a metal shop at the prison, according to the report.

Ultimately, investigators found that the hard drive contained pirated software and downloads, which "inmates should not have been able to either access or download," according to the report.

Investigators also found that prison staff didn't go through the proper channels when purchasing computers for the prison, finding that staff did not follow state policy, according to the report. 

One of the inmates interviewed for the report, David Dean, said he found the personal information of computers' previous owners still on some of the devices, the report says.

Investigators also concluded that the prison allowed employees to bring movie rentals into the prison, which inmates then pirated. The report says that inmates in the work program Prison News Network would download the movies onto computers they used through the work program and then screen them for other inmates.

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The report is not the first one produced by the Inspector General finding violations at the prison. In April 2017, the Inspector General's office released a report exposing prison employees' failure to report suspected illegal activity and failure to properly supervise inmates in 2015, allowing inmates to secretly build computers from parts and then hide them in the prison's ceiling.

That investigation found an inmate was using the computers to steal the identity of another inmate. The computers also were used to illegally create security clearance passes for inmates to gain access to restricted areas and download hacking tools that could be used in network attacks, according to the report.

Another report was published later last year that found a former state official and contractor for Marion Correctional Institution had improperly used her state email account, phone and computers to advance her personal business interests with the prison, that report says.

svolpenhei@gannett.com

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