An inmate already in prison for conspiring to launder money and to distribute cocaine was sentenced to an additional 1 1/2 years Thursday for running a contraband smuggling operation and operating a “taxi service” for escapees with his fiancee.
Deldrick Jackson, already serving 10 years and 10 months for a 2013 conviction, pleaded guilty to escape last May. His fiancee, Kelly Bass, pleaded guilty to conspiratorial and substantive escape charges last June and she was sentenced on Sept. 13 to six months in prison followed by eight months of home confinement.
“Inmates who escape from prison threaten the safety of our communities and undermine our criminal justice system,” said U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak. “In this case, Jackson not only escaped from prison, but shockingly ran a contraband smuggling scheme and a for-profit taxi service for escaped inmates.”
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Jackson is one of three inmates arrested last year as federal authorities attempted to crack down on prisoners coming and going at will from the prison camp adjacent to the U.S. Penitentiary in southeast Atlanta.
Businesses and residents around the camp had complained repeatedly for years about inmates leaving the low-security camp. The Atlanta Police Department filed a report with the prison as far back as 2013 that inmates had been spotted leaving and returning to the prison camp. Then in January 2017, APD surveillance cameras placed along the fence line at New Town Circle recorded images of inmates slipping through or climbing over the fence to retrieve bags or climb into waiting cars.
“Prison is where criminals go to be punished, not a place to take joyrides and commit even more crimes,” said Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields.
After an inmate was arrested a few weeks later, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported accounts from inmates who backed up their stories with videos and photographs of prisoners leaving to fetch cell phones, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and even takeout food.
But despite the arrests and the news accounts of problems at the camp, the free flow of alcohol and other contraband has apparently continued. Video and photographs provided the AJC showed a New Year's Eve party just weeks ago inside one of the buildings. Inmates had set up a bar and were playing loud music as they walked around with drinks in hand.
Jackson, the last of three inmates to be sentenced for escaping, was caught on April 13 after he and Bass left a local fast-food restaurant. According to the charges against them, the couple had operated an inmate taxi service for at least 10 months. But on the night he was captured, Jackson had scaled the fence around the low-security prison camp so he could have a sexual encounter with Bass, a Stone Mountain mother of three, prosecutors said.
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But also found in Bass’ SUV were items intended for re-sale at the camp — two cell phones, 83 packs of cigarettes and eight bottles of whiskey, which are all banned inside the prison.
Prosecutors said Jackson, 41, and Bass, 38, had made about $4,000 from their business of buying banned items for other inmates and driving other convicts to nearby restaurants, hotels, or residences.
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