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 Six enterprising inmates at the Osceola County Jail were brewing homemade alcohol using fruit they hoarded and fermented within their cell walls, deputies said.

Inmates in corrections facilities across the United States often trade the homemade booze or "buck," as it is commonly known, for cash, drugs, cigarettes or favors.

Now the six men, including a convicted felon behind bars for murder, are facing charges of introduction and possession of contraband into a detention facility and criminal mischief, jail records show.

Tuesday's discovery of the contraband is the latest blemish at the troubled jail.

Michael Rigby, the 21-year-old head of the Bloods street gang in Poinciana and former inmate, escaped from a maximum security area of the jail in February and officials said he remains on the run.

Rigby, now one of Florida's most-wanted fugitives, escaped Feb. 19 by removing a toilet and sink from his cell wall and digging his way out of the jail, officials said.

A report on the disciplinary action facing the jail is expected, possibly by Friday.

The incident involving the six inmates came to light after a corrections officer noticed an 18-inch section of chain link fence used to separate the shower areas was missing.

After the discovery, corrections officers began checking inmate cells inside the area where they noticed the missing fence.

One corrections officer found the toilet paper holder inside cell 108 was "loose and had been previously removed from the wall," a sheriff's report shows. Corrections officers removed that toilet paper holder from the wall and found a large void behind it that connected to the rear of the toilet paper holder of adjoining cell 107.

Corrections officers removed inmates Kevin Mark Alsen, Philip Wickham, Angel Portuondo, Wendell Elliott, Salvatore Czajak and Christopher Carter from the two cells while they investigated the space behind the wall.

Inside the space, jail officials located a T-shaped pipe, several cigarette lighters and "a large plastic bag containing ‘buck'."

"The ‘buck' had not fully fermented yet and I was able to observe chunks of fruit still inside the plastic bag," a deputy from the Sheriff's Office wrote in his report.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Twis Lizasuain said "the inmates denied having the contraband."

Jail records show Sheriff's Office deputies had charged Carter, of Okeechobee, with first-degree murder in the 2009 slaying of Polk County resident David Arsenault.

The other inmates have been behind bars on unrelated charges, including those for failing to appear in court, drug offenses, assault and aggravated battery charges.

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