HEATHER RAWLYK, Staff Writer | Wednesday, January 30, 2013

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The Anne Arundel County Sheriff's Office is investigating how a link to a politically charged message from a Facebook page titled "American White History Month" was posted from its Twitter account Monday morning.

The link posted by @AACOSHERIFF just after 7 a.m. sent followers to a post from the Facebook account of Reb Orrell, who according to his profile, is a cold case investigator and part-time cyber investigator with the Office of Sheriff Ron Bateman.

The post shared by Orrell was from the American White History Month Facebook page.

The post "joked" that the IRS sent back his tax return due to listing illegal immigrants, drug abusers and prisoners among others as dependents.

The post was removed by 10 a.m.

Maj. Rick Tabor said he was in county Circuit Court in Annapolis when his secretary alerted him to a number of phone calls about the Twitter post.

The Sheriff's Office issued a statement saying a part-time contractual civilian employee posted an "inappropriate" message on Facebook. The employee was not working at the time and posted the message from his home. That message, they said, was inadvertently copied to the Twitter page of the Sheriff's Office.

"Measures have been taken to ensure that this type of incident will not occur in the future," the statement reads. "The Sheriff's Office in no way condones the views of the posting, and an internal investigation has been launched."