An administrative board has decided that a former corrections officer and Ku Klux Klan member who conspired to kill a black inmate will lose his state retirement benefits, upholding the ruling of an administrative law judge and...
Wait ... what?
I know it seems like we’re burying the lede. Wherever you live, I’m betting that you don’t usually read about a corrections officer who had a side job with the Klan, so this might seem like an extraordinary story but this happened in Florida, which means it technically isn’t news. It’s just another Sunday afternoon.
In August 2017, a Columbia County, Fla., jury found David Elliot Moran and Charles Thomas Newcomb guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in a plot that involved a third conspirator, Thomas Jordan Driver.
The three men, who were all corrections officers, were convicted after an FBI informant told authorities that the men planned to kill a black inmate after the incarcerated man was released from prison. The plan was allegedly hatched at a meeting of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, where all three men worshipped under the leadership of pastor Wyatt P. Pull.
The death plot apparently emerged from a physical altercation between Driver and the inmate, where Driver was allegedly bitten by a black man. I’m sure Driver couldn’t sleep at night, afraid that he had caught “the black.”
The informant, who infiltrated the KKK group, promised to kill the inmate for the men, and Driver even handed the informant a photo of the potential victim and discussed plans for the murder. The informant eventually faked the murder and sent pictures back to the idiot corrections officers. Driver pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years in Prison, while Moran and Newcomb were sentenced to 12 years each.
Moran still wanted to receive his benefits, saying that it was unfair that his retirement could be stolen just because he tried to have someone killed. Moran argued that he didn’t plot the murder while he was at work, so his benefits shouldn’t be stripped away, which is a bold statement, even in Florida.
But apparently, the K in 401k does not stand for “Klan.” His request was denied.
In other Florida news, an alligator got into a knife fight with a boa constrictor at a golf course next to a strip club’s daycare center and gift shop that sells confederate flag thongs.
Florida, man.