In a criminal justice system where known murderers are released on technicalities you must wonder how they keep filling up all those prisons. Petr Taborsky knows how — he just served two years time, including time in a maximum security prison and work on a prison chain gang.

Is Taborsky a child molester? Bank robber? OJ accomplice?

Not quite. The soft-spoken 35 year-old is an inventor, and quite a successful one at that. In fact, no one disputes that Taborsky is the inventor of an extremely useful new method of waste water treatment. But despite the fact that Taborsky was awarded three patents for the invention, the University of South Florida says it owns the rights to the inventions, because he made the advances while a student. The university had him arrested, and Taborsky was convicted of grand theft.

Florida officials continue to release convicted felons before their sentences are served, citing the necessity of relieving overcrowding in the state’s penal system. So, while the truly dangerous are released back into society, an inventive genius is subjected to confinement and all of its tortures, such as prison rape.

This story was suggested by Outraged reader Rob Jaeger, who has followed the case closely.

(Source: Miami Herald.)