Producers filming a series for Netflix in the Pulaski County jail paid a pair of deputies $40 an hour to provide "additional security" during the production in one of the jail's cell blocks, authorities confirmed Thursday after the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was provided with a document outlining the security arrangement.

The memorandum appears to contradict Pulaski County Sheriff Eric Higgins's statement this week that the showrunners, Lucky 8 TV, Inc., only paid the jail a fee of $1,000 per day of filming to offset costs, said 13th District Justice of the Peace Phil Stowers.

Two deputies worked as off-duty security on the production and were paid, sheriff's office spokeswoman Kristin Knox said Thursday evening. Another nine deputies, identified by the agency last week, worked in the cell block where the series was filmed during the course of their regular duties, she said.

Knox did not dispute the legitimacy of the Feb. 22, 2023, memo, which Stowers, a Republican from Maumelle, said came to him from an anonymous source.

Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde, who like Higgins is a Democrat, and members of the Quorum Court have been looking into Higgins' August 2022 agreement with the film crew, which Hyde said he considers illegal and outside of Higgins' authority to make.

Authorities have said the filming for the series, "Unlocked: A Jail Experiment," which is set to premiere April 10, took place from Feb. 18 to April 10, 2023. That places the date of the memo titled "Lucky 8 special assignment" shortly after the start of filming.

"I am requesting additional deputies, sergeants or lieutenants to provide security in H-unit while the production team are inside the unit," a jail official wrote in the memo.

The memo lists its author as "Lt. Atwood," with no first name given.

Interested staff needed to apply by March 2, 2023, have good attendance and no write-ups within the prior six months, the memo states.

"If selected, you will be paid by the production company, $40.00 [per] hour," Atwood wrote.

Chief Deputy Charles Hendricks, who runs the sheriff's office detention section, was copied on the memo, as were majors, captains and lieutenants with the agency. Higgins' name does not appear.

Lucky 8 has yet to pay the day rate of $1,000 stipulated in the filming agreement signed by Higgins on Aug. 19, 2022, Higgins said, but he expects the check to come in next week. That money will go into the county's general fund, he said Wednesday.

In addition to possibly contradicting that claim, Stowers said, he thinks that accepting the additional pay may violate the law.

Under Arkansas Code 21-8-801, public servants are barred from receiving gifts or compensation other than income and benefits from their government employer for the performance of their duties.

Deputies, like other law enforcement officers, are regularly paid to work off-duty jobs, usually as security. The arrangement with the production company was unusual, however, in that the deputies were paid to provide security at the jail rather than at a private business or other off site location.

Also Thursday, Knox clarified the selection process for the inmates who participated in the show's filming. The agency released last week the names of 50 men who participated as inmates.

The show's experiment consisted of allowing inmates to live in a cell block without cell doors, allowing them more freedom of movement while a deputy was stationed outside the cell block for safety purposes. In many of the jail's other blocks, a deputy is stationed inside the unit, and the inmates are locked in their cells for as many as 23 hours a day, Higgins said.

For the course of the show, the jail's H block was converted to the open plan, which the jail's older A and B blocks already use, Higgins said. After the filming wrapped up, Higgins has continued to operate H block in this way, he said.

Inmates are separated based on their behavior into a four-tier system, with Tier 1 inmates being the best behaved, Higgins said. Typically, only Tier 1 inmates are allowed in the open-style cell blocks, if there's enough space in the blocks.

None of the inmates who participated in the show were Tier 1 inmates at the start of the experiment, Knox said Thursday, but by the end of the filming process the inmates who remained were considered worthy of Tier 1 status.

Newly booked inmates are placed at Tier 3, said Hendricks, the chief deputy, and most Tier 4 inmates are placed in solitary confinement in the jail's T block.

Violations of jail rules were handled by the regular disciplinary process throughout the show's filming, Hendricks said. Charges were filed against one inmate who was thought to have cocaine, he said, but after that test turned out to be a false positive, the charges were dropped and the inmate was removed from H block.