Warden hired to guard a Georgia prison indicted in contraband operation

A former Smith State Prison warden was indicted Wednesday, accused in a complex contraband smuggling operation that officials first began investigating four years ago.

Brian Adams, 52, was indicted by a grand jury in southeast Georgia on charges of violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, making a false statement, two counts of tampering with evidence and two counts of violation of oath by a public officer. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced the case’s advancement and confirmed Adams’ alleged involvement was tied to an inmate and what Carr called a “prison gang.”

“Those who work in our prisons are expected to protect Georgians from the most dangerous criminals, not become one themselves,” Carr said in a Wednesday news release. “Using a state position to profit off gang activity and contraband, if proved, is completely inexcusable and will lead to prosecution by our office. Public corruption at any level will not be tolerated.”

While trying to contact Adams for comment, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution learned from the Tattnall County Superior Court clerk that he did not yet have an attorney listed in the court’s records.

In May 2022, Carr asked the GBI to investigate allegations of corruption at Smith State Prison in Tattnall. Adams’ termination and arrest the next year was a key event that revealed dysfunctional and criminal activities within the Georgia Department of Corrections.

An investigation by the AJC published in 2023 and 2024 exposed widespread corruption in the prison system, including how hundreds of GDC employees had smuggled in drugs and other forms of contraband. The stories also detailed extreme understaffing, extensive illicit drug use by inmates, record numbers of homicides and suicides, and large criminal enterprises run by prisoners that killed and victimized people on the outside.

According to Adams’ indictment, he engaged in a “scheme” by accepting bribes in return for neglecting his warden duties, assisting in bringing contraband into the prison and failing to report the possession of contraband. In order to conceal physical evidence, the indictment states Adams also buried shanks and cellphones in his own backyard.

Adams is accused of accepting money to move an inmate out of solitary confinement. The indictment adds that Adams even received and hid a written note about payment from that same inmate.

Brian Adams is the former warden at Smith State Prison. He was arrested in 2023 for allegedly being involved in a contraband scheme. (AJC photo illustration)

He is accused of falsely telling a GBI agent that it had been more than 10 years since he had “been solicited to bring contraband” into a prison and that he “would never” accept a bribe from an inmate, the indictment details. He also dishonestly told the agent that a cash payment made toward a pool was sourced through selling “properties,” according to the indictment.

In 2023, the AJC uncovered more than 425 cases in which GDC employees had been arrested since 2018 for crimes on the job. Some were charged with brutality, extortion or sexual assault. But most arrests — at least 360 — involved contraband. In 25 additional contraband cases within that time period, employees were fired but not arrested.

The AJC found that correctional officers are sometimes corrupt from their first day on the job, recruited by gangs to work in a prison. In other cases, employees are enticed or coerced into smuggling drugs and phones, issuing warnings about upcoming shakedowns, helping launder money, unlocking doors or looking the other way when drones drop contraband.