DOCUMENT: Crime

Get Out Of Jail Freeree

Indiana man charged with forging court records in escape bid

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Get Out Of Jail Freeree

OCTOBER 20--Meet Jared Bailey. The 20-year-old Indiana man was locked up in a Bloomington jail when he recently hatched a unique escape plot, investigators allege. Jailed on felony forgery and theft charges--and being held on $100,000 bond--Bailey fabricated court documents ostensibly dropping his bond to $500, according to a probable cause affidavit. A supposed Monroe Circuit Court order, which included the signatures of a judge and clerk, recounted a September 29 pretrial hearing during which Judge Douglas Bridges drastically cut Bailey's bond. However, Bailey's gambit failed when a friend on the outside mistakenly faxed the phony court order (and an accompanying docket sheet) to Monroe County Correctional Center, where officials were immediately suspicious of the documents. It surely didn't help that the material--apparently fashioned in Bailey's jail cell--was faxed from a nearby Kinko's and, on one line of the order, the county was spelled "MONROEROE." For his efforts, Bailey was hit with a few more felonies and had his bond boosted to $250,000. (5 pages)