Orange Co. mayor says home confinement won't return without major changes

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Less than two weeks after Orange County officials suspended the troubled home confinement program, Mayor Teresa Jacobs said it's highly unlikely the flawed system will ever return in its current form.

"I will not support reimplementing the program with the technology and the procedures we have -- that is just not going to happen under my watch," said Jacobs.

Jacobs made the announcement during a county commission meeting where officials were briefed on several ongoing studies into the program.

Channel 9 Eyewitness News was first to expose the serious breaches when we told you about Bessman Okafor's 109 curfew violations. Okafor was supposed to be at home the night he's accused of killing Alex Zaldivar.

"There's nothing that I've done since I've gotten into office that I've taken more seriously than this investigation and getting to the bottom of what went wrong," said Jacobs.

Even after the program was suspended, 9 Investigates found other accused criminals with even more curfew alerts, including Joshua Maner, accused of a violent carjacking, with 1,200 alerts.

Angel Corcino, charged with second-degree murder, had 900 alerts.

The judge was not informed of the home confinement violations in either of those cases.

"I think when we have people that are a threat to society, they need to be in jail, behind bars, not home confinement," said Jacobs.

Commissioners hope to have a more in-depth discussion at their March 26 meeting.

WFTV