Georgia man who stole $11 million from behind bars escapes from federal prison

A Georgia man who stole millions from a Hollywood producer in an audacious heist he orchestrated from behind bars has escaped federal prison, officials say.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons said that Arthur Lee Cofield Jr. was discovered missing Tuesday afternoon from a minimum-security prison camp in Jesup, about 40 miles northwest of Brunswick. Authorities described him as a “walkaway.”

Cofield was sentenced in 2024 to more than 11 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and aggravated identity theft. He’d been accused of draining $11 million from the bank account of Hollywood movie producer Sidney Kimmel in what was believed to be the largest theft ever coordinated from state prison.

Prosecutors said that the scheme, in which he allegedly gained access to Kimmel’s Charles Schwab account by posing as him on the phone, was only one of multiple thefts he pulled off from prison.

Cofield allegedly used the proceeds to buy thousands of gold coins from a company in Idaho and charter a plane to bring them back to Georgia. He then bought a $4.4 million mansion in Buckhead.

The case hinged on a contraband cellphone prison officials seized from Cofield in 2020 inside the Georgia Department of Corrections’ highest-security facility, the Special Management Unit in Jackson. The phone yielded data that linked Cofield to the Kimmel scheme, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.

Cofield, now 34, entered federal custody immediately after his state prison sentence ended in 2021. Cofield was first incarcerated in 2008 after pleading guilty to armed robbery. He was accused of using a handgun to steal $2,600 from a Douglasville bank as a 16-year-old.

He was represented in the federal case by the high-powered Atlanta attorney Steve Sadow, who also represented President Donald Trump in Fulton County’s 2020 election interference case. Sadow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cofield’s case was highlighted in an AJC investigation into the state of Georgia’s prisons, a vivid example of how even the state’s most closely guarded inmates can continue to break the law.

From state lockup, Cofield managed to pull strings in the outside world, the AJC reported. He’d been working on scam schemes for years before federal authorities charged him. He was known as the leader of a prison crew called YAP, short for Young and Paid, that organized parties in Atlanta. He was in a maximum-security facility because Fulton County prosecutors accused him of ordering a drive-by shooting in southwest Atlanta from prison.

Records show that the shooting will land Cofield another 18 years in state prison after he completes his federal sentence, plus 12 more years on probation.

Cofield pleaded guilty in 2024 to a series of charges including criminal attempt to commit murder in connection with the shooting, which left the victim paralyzed from the waist down. According to prosecutors, Cofield believed the man was involved with a woman Cofield had developed a relationship with over the phone.