Fake Fax From Grocery Store Gets Inmate Out Of Jail

A fuzzy fax with an official-looking sheriff’s letterhead proved to be a get-out-of-jail-free card for Richard Foster.

Somebody faxed a bogus letter to the Richland County jail stating Georgia authorities have “no criminal interest” in Foster, who had been wanted on assault and weapons charges. Jailers let him go.

Now Foster is nowhere to be found.

The letterhead was fake, and the letter had been sent June 19 from a public fax machine at a Kroger grocery store in Augusta, Ga.

Maj. Ronaldo Myers, assistant director of the jail, said that given the usual poor quality of faxes, the jail supervisor on duty did not suspect anything was wrong.

After Foster left, Myers said, “We saw the Kroger across the top of the fax and made some calls.”

Foster, 23, of Columbia, had been jailed for driving with a suspended license. Myers said he did not know how long Foster had been there, waiting to see if Augusta wanted him.

It turned out Georgia authorities did want Foster for aggravated assault and possession of a firearm in connection with a shooting at an Augusta nightclub. Foster told a friend to shoot a woman after she refused to dance with him, police said. The woman and two others were shot in the leg in the ensuing gunfire.

Under jail policy, the supervisor should have called Georgia to confirm the release, Myers said. WIS-TV reported that the supervisor was demoted from captain to sergeant.

Last March, a Florida prisoner’s girlfriend got him released by faxing a bogus letter saying he had been pardoned. The man landed back in jail after trying a similar ruse to free his former cellmate.

“Why be surprised? The technology is there and someone was going to think of using it to their advantage sooner or later,” said Ken Kerle, managing editor of American Jails magazine.