JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Leaking confidential information to wanted criminals, a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office secretary is now on the wrong side of the law, accused of being a mole.
Officers arrested 40-year-old Arlisa Tarver on Tuesday, accusing her of using a police database to look up violent criminals and tip them off.
She was able to do it because she was the executive assistant for the agency’s chief of patrol.
Tarver now faces two felony charges after bonding out of jail.
Jacksonville’s undersheriff Pat Ivey said Tarver put officers she worked for in danger.
“The names of individuals that she looked up were violent felons, to include individuals wanted for murder,” Ivey said.
Investigators claim she used a police-only computer program to find out about confidential information.
The documents: “Several members of a local street gang were arrested on murder related charges and members of the Violent Crimes Task Force were concerned that an employee...may be utilizing databases to potentially alert criminals of pending arrest warrants.”
Her own agency arrested her and she resigned.
“We do not want her employed at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s office,” Ivey said.
Part of the warrant is blacked out, so the specific cases were not named. JSO not commenting about specific details, but telling News4Jax she did this many times for multiple suspects since January.
“Every action taken by a user is logged in, notated, and kept in a separate database,” said computer expert Chris Hamer.
Hamer, the former IT manager for another local sheriff’s office, he says this information is strictly forbidden from being leaked and the programs can track who has looked at it.
“You have to pass certification courses, you have to be background checked by the FBI to even be able to access areas that have the potential to be displaying that information,” he said. “It’s very heavily restricted and guarded.”
He said doing this could have leaked this information could have helped dangerous criminals get away or even put officers at risk for an ambush.
News4Jax wanted to give her a chance to respond after bonding out of jail – people were at her Northside home but no one answered.
Ivey said she had been with the agency for seven years;. An officer who knows her tells us she was quiet but friendly, and they never expected this.