ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News has confirmed that the state plans to fire the parole officer accused of bungling the monitoring of a convicted killer who is accused of killing again.
Channel 2 has also obtained the internal investigation that alleges the parole officer had chances to fix his mistakes, but never did. Police say it was a violent kidnapping and execution-style shooting that claimed the lives of Jeronta Brown and his pregnant fiancée, Brianna Brooks in August.
Soon after, Andre Gay, a recent parolee, surfaced as a suspect. In an exclusive interview with Channel 2's Kerry Kavanaugh last week, the State Board of Pardons and Parole said Gay's arrest uncovered a major mistake.
"Unfortunately, it was a case where someone didn't do their job," said executive director, Michael Nail. "The state dropped the ball."
Nail said the board required Gay be electronically monitored by AnyTrax, a phone-based voice recognition system.
A 13-page internal investigation alleges that parole officer Othello Vaughn allowed Gay to go largely unsupervised for months.
It says that initially, Vaughn thought Gay was hooked up correctly, but he later learned that his voiceprint was never captured.
To which Vaughn said, "I mean, I might have dropped the ball on that one case."
But the report alleges Vaughn knew almost immediately there was a problem because Gay told him so in February, one month after he was paroled saying "…he let me know that the OD did not hook him up properly."
Instead of fixing it, the investigation indicates Vaughn tried to cover it up, intentionally deleting Gay's profile.
The error, intentional or not, may cost Vaughn his job. Kavanaugh went to his home for comment Monday and got no answer.
But Vaughn told investigators, "Yeah, I made some mistakes and I hate that I did 'cause I hate what happened...And If I gotta be the fall guy, then I guess that is what it is. But, you know, I don't feel right about it, but, you know, what can I say?"
Vaughn also complained to the investigators about a lack of proper training on the system. But, the state claims he successfully handled other parolees at the time he was supervising Gay.
The state sent Vaughn a letter stating plans to terminate him effective November 14. He was notified October 30 and has three business days to request a hearing.