An East Point woman accused of trying to help an inmate escape from the Pelham City Jail is now behind bars herself, Gwinnett County authorities said.
Tamah Jada Wallace, 24, is in the Pelham City Jail charged with conspiracy. Authorities believe she was trying to help Jason Joseph Clark, her baby's father, escape from jail.
Clark, 30, was in the Pelham City Jail last weekend -- waiting to be transferred to the state prison system, sheriff’s spokeswoman Stacey Bourbonnais said in a news release. He recently was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Camilla police stopped Wallace, who was driving with her 1-year-old son in the car, last weekend, Bourbonnais said. Camilla police searched the car and found an AK-47 assault rifle, a .45 caliber pistol and items “for survival in the wilderness,” Bourbonnais said.
Authorities continued to investigate the incident by listening to recorded telephone conversations between Wallace and Clark. According to the phone calls, Wallace was in the area to “conduct a jail break in Pelham in order to free Clark, her baby’s father, from prison,” Bourbonnais said.
Wallace was charged with conspiracy to aid the escape of another; conspiracy to commit reckless abandonment; criminal attempt to commit reckless abandonment; cruelty to children in the first degree and possession of tools for the commission of a crime.
She is in the Pelham City Jail.
Her 1-year-old child is now in the custody of the Department of Family and Children’s Services, Bourbonnais said.
Clark was charged with conspiracy to commit a crime of escape; criminal solicitation to commit a felony; and criminal attempt to possess a firearm by a convicted felon.
He is in the Gwinnett County Jail in the maximum security area, Bourbonnais said.
Clark was one of 211 Gwinnett County inmates awaiting transfer into the state prison system, Bourbonnais said. Of that amount, 93 were being housed in the Pelham City Jail.
Gwinnett County has an agreement to reimburse the Pelham City Jail $22.50 a day -- the same amount the county receives from the state -- for each inmate that must be housed there until a bed opens up in the state prison system, Bourbonnais said.