A Florida inmate said his teacher raped him. He kept his job for 6 months, then was arrested.
On Jan. 30, Antonio Carlisle helped oversee the graduation of 15 inmates from a vocational training program at Florida State Prison in Raiford. A crowd of 45, including proud relatives, watched from wooden pews in the prison chapel as “Pomp and Circumstance” played over speakers and student/inmates in caps, gowns and yellow and black tassels stepped forward to receive their certificates from the State Contracted Electrical Program.
“Our students have overcome many obstacles,” declared Carlisle, the prison’s education supervisor. “They have shown great perseverance.”
On Thursday, one week later, Carlisle was arrested at his Jacksonville home. The charge was sexual battery. The alleged victim: one of his students.
On the same day as the graduation, his DNA swab had been sent to the lab for testing.
The Florida prison system knew about the allegation since August, but let Carlisle keep his job, run the program, interact with other inmate/students and oversee the graduation, which was profiled in a news article by the local PBS affiliate.
Only after the DNA match confirmed the allegation was Carlisle removed from his $50,000-a-year post.
Asked directly by email to comment on why Carlisle remained on the job despite an active criminal investigation, Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Mark Inch referred the matter to the department’s press office. The press office issued a statement saying “as this is an ongoing criminal investigation by the FDC [Office of Inspector General] releasable, information pertaining to the case is limited at this time.”
In its press release earlier in the day announcing the arrest, the FDC said the department “takes all allegations of abuse or mistreatment of inmates seriously and any employee found to have acted inappropriately or illegally will face the consequences of those actions.”
The press release provided a statement from Secretary Inch: “The charges against Antonio Carlisle are deeply disturbing and abhorrent. His actions are absolutely contrary to the core values of the Florida Department of Corrections. FDC is moving forward with his immediate dismissal.”
Carlisle was quoted prominently in the story about the event by TV station station WUFT. The online article was headlined “Learning to be electricians leads Florida inmates to a graduation.”
“Some were told they would never graduate,” Carlisle said. “But, today, that has been proven wrong.”
The 45-year-old is charged with one count of sexual battery and one count of sexual misconduct in connection with the incident that is alleged to have occurred on Aug. 6, 2019.
According to the arrest warrant, Carlisle physically overpowered the inmate while helping him with his “educational needs” at approximately 5:30 p.m., his arrest warrant states.
He then “penetrated the victim’s rectum with his penis” and began to have sex with him, the warrant states.
The victim, whose name and inmate number were blacked out of the documents, reported the alleged assault the same day and agreed to undergo a rape kit test the next day, according to the probable cause affidavit. The victim’s underwear was also taken as evidence.
The documents do not state where in the prison the assault allegedly happened. The victim’s statements are also blacked out.
The FDC did not answer a question about whether Carlisle was confronted about the allegation after it was reported and whether he denied it.
The rape kit was submitted to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Laboratory in late August. A lab report produced on Dec. 3 indicated that there was a “presence of a mixture consistent with two donors, including at least one male contributor.”
Although that would have lent credence to the inmate’s allegation, Carlisle remained on the job.
On Jan. 29, nearly two months later, investigators requested and obtained a search warrant authorizing them to swab Carlisle’s mouth for saliva and skin cells for a DNA analysis at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s laboratory. His swab of DNA was taken on the 30th and sent to the lab on the same day as the graduation.
Days later, the results were in. It was a match, according to the affidavit.
“The profile obtained from the defendant is greater than 700 billion times more likely to occur if the sample originated from Antonio Carlisle than from an unrelated individual,” the arrest affidavit states.
Calls to Carlisle’s phone Friday went straight to voicemail.
Correction: This article initially stated that the prison system provided the above statement from Secretary Inch after the Miami Herald sent him follow-up questions about the arrest of Antonio Carlisle. That was inaccurate. The quote was provided by the Department of Corrections with the original press release sent earlier in the day.
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 7:33 PM.
