PASCO COUNTY, Fla. — The Southern Poverty Law Center calls on the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) to collect more than half a million dollars from a Pasco County Jail inmate.

The ABC Action News I-Team began investigating Florida’s pay-to-stay law in April. The law allows the state to charge inmates $50 per day for the duration of their prison sentence. Critics argue that this is often a lifelong debt that only makes it more difficult for people to change their lives.

The I-Team has uncovered stories of inmates charged years after release, judges applying the law in different ways and the state’s prison system — accused of retaliation when choosing who to collect from.

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“There are 80,000 people in the Florida Department of Corrections. And the department chose to file these liens against several hundred. Southern Poverty Law Center Attorney Kelly Knapp told the I-Team.

The SPLC, a civil rights nonprofit, says there are patterns in which FDC collects the $50-a-day “pay-to-stay” fees.

“One of the patterns is that they file liens against people who have filed civil rights lawsuits against them,” Knapp said.

People like itJason Baez.

“Mr. Baez filed a civil rights lawsuit because the officers beat him so hard that he lost an eye and settled that claim against the department, and after determining when he wanted to transfer the funds to his family his, the department filed half a million … one dollar against him,” Knapp said.

Court records show the settlement was $60,000.

FDC then filed a motion that the state is entitled to civil restitution of $547,850 – $50 per day for Baez’s 30-year sentence.

In a letter to the judge opposing the motion, Baez wrote that “(five officers) on July 27, 2019, at Santa Rosa Correctional … took me to the nurses’ station fully restrained, handcuffed and in handcuffs deliberately. he pointed me in front of (two) nurses and stabbed me in the eye with a walkie talkie radio and took my right eye causing complete blindness.”

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Baez was sentenced to prison in 2006 for the second-degree murder of his roommate in Pasco County.

The I-Team Series | Crisis in corrections

“This is his punishment,” Knapp said. “It’s alarming that the state can come back anytime it wants, whether it’s ten, five, 10, 15 years later and just arbitrarily or discriminatoryly or in a retaliatory manner, add more to that punishment.”

When asked if there were things she thought the state legislature could do to change or amend the law that allows it, Knapp said state lawmakers could end the cost of the right-to-incarcerate statute.

“They might put some guardrails or some kind of direction on who these rights are going to be imposed on, so it’s not, so they’re not imposing in an arbitrary or discriminatory or retaliatory manner. Right now, the Florida Department of Corrections, by statute, is free to go after whoever they want, because there’s no guardrails or there’s no guidelines for — that direct them to who they should go after for those rights.” said Knapp.

The SPLC is asking the judge to take another look at Baez’s case and reconsider imposing the fine.

“We should all be concerned if we have people re-entering society who are set up to fail,” Knapp said.

The I-Team first contacted the Department of Corrections more than a month ago about Baez’s case and the SPLC’s allegations that the state is selectively filing civil bonds to collect the $50-a-day fines. The I-Team asked what prompts the prison system to post a bond against any current or former inmate. I have followed up several times and still no response.

We’ll keep you posted on the details of any incarceration costs bill in the next legislative session.

This series of stories started with a tip. If you have something you’d like the I-Team to investigate, contact Kylie: