Australia: Brisbane Correctional Center prisoner Jack James Peterson, 29, was sentenced to an additional 18 months in January 2023 for assaulting a guard with a squash racket, the Courier reported. Peterson struck the unnamed 34-year-old during a confrontation involving a riot response team, leaving him with a forehead contusion and a broken thumb requiring surgery. The prisoner apologized in court, adding that after five years of sobriety and commitment to the Islamic faith, “I’m not that person anymore.” But Judge Jodie Wooldridge was moved only enough to extend his parole eligibility by just four months to February 2026.

California: A federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) guard Sandra Munagay, 42, was indicted on November 13, 2024, for allegedly assaulting an unnamed prisoner at the United States Penitentiary in Atwater. Munagay allegedly struck the prisoner and submitted a false account to cover it up in November 2023. If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000. See: United States v. Munagay, USDC (C.D. Cal.), Case No. 1:24-cr-00256.

California: Former California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) guard Avelino Ramirez, 52, was indicted on October 31, 2024, for an alleged smuggling scheme and related fraudulent overtime claims. The Latin Times reported that the K-9 officer is accused of smuggling drugs, cellphones, weapons, and tobacco into San Quentin and Vacaville state prisons so that he could then stage its discovery to boost his career. In the process, he also filed claims for $8,200 for overtime pay while writing reports about the phony finds. Suspicious supervisors who removed him from his post then saw a “dramatic reduction” in contraband discoveries. See: United States v. Ramirez, USDC (N.D. Cal.), Case No. 3:24-cr-00564.San Quentin janitor Keith Reindeer Randle was also indicted on September 26, 2024, for allegedly attempting to smuggle methamphetamine and cannabis oil into the lockup. See: United States v. Randle, USDC (N.D. Cal.), Case No. 3:24-mj-71438.

California: State prisoner Juan Linares, 44, was fatally stabbed at High Desert State Prison on November 26, 2024, allegedly by fellow prisoner Zachary Barron, 32, KRCR in Redding reported. Linares was 15 years into a 36-years-to-life sentence for second-degree murder in Alameda County. Baron is serving 14 years to life for first-degree murder in San Bernardino County. He has been placed in restricted housing, CDCR said.

California: El Dorado County Jail guard Michael Griffiths IV, 24, was arrested on November 22, 2024, for sexually assaulting an unnamed detainee, the Sacramento Bee reported. Sgt. Kyle Parker, another deputy of County Sheriff Jeff Leikauf, said that Griffiths was placed on leave and booked into the jail on $50,000 bail.

California: Aryan Brotherhood (AB) member Ronald Yandell, 62, was charged with attempted murder after attacking two CDCR guards at California State Prison in Sacramento on November 22, 2024, according to KMAX in Sacramento. Other guards subdued him with pepper spray, and no injuries were reported. Yandell was incarcerated in 2004 for first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter, and he was convicted on April 30, 2024, for helping orchestrate murders of AB members who violated gang rules. [See: PLN, Feb. 2024, p.14.] He was being held under heightened security ahead of a scheduled December 2024 sentencing.

Connecticut: The Boston Herald reported that DOC guard Todd Blevons, 43, was arrested on November 20, 2024, and accused of assaulting an unnamed 66-year-old prisoner during a November 2023 pat-down search at Corrigan Correctional Center. When the guard discovered that the prisoner had taken cookies from the cafeteria, in violation of prison rules, he allegedly threw him to the ground, punched him, kneed him in the back and pepper-sprayed him—even after other guards arrived and restrained the prisoner. The attack was caught on surveillance video and left the prisoner with injuries including broken ribs and a laceration requiring stitches. Blevons was placed on leave and charged with assault in the third degree on an elderly person.

District of Columbia: A sweeping indictment was unsealed on November 19, 2024, charging a guard, detainees and outside accomplices in a contraband smuggling operation at the D.C. Jail. U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves, alongside the FBI and D.C. DOC, announced the charges against jail guard Rashaad Roper, 36, and five others. The scheme involved supplying knives, drugs and cellphones detainees awaiting trial for violent crimes. The contraband was concealed in Tupperware containers within plastic-wrapped packages. LaTara Brown, 31, and Kiya Holland, 33, delivered the packages, which Roper—and possibly other guards—smuggled into the facility. Once inside, detainees Darius Robertson, 31, Marcel Vines, 28, and Stefon Freshley, 28, allegedly received the items. A February 2024 raid intercepted contraband including a switchblade, iPhone, marijuana and gambling items, while a July 2024 search uncovered synthetic drugs, additional phones and cigarettes hidden in cells. If convicted, Defendants face up to 20 years for contraband possession and five years for conspiracy. See: United States v. Roper, USDC (D.D.C.), Case N0. 1:24-cr-00520.

Florida: WTVJ in Miami reported that state DOC guards Christopher Rolon, Kirk Walton and Jeremy Godbolt were sentenced to 20 years in prison on October 25, 2024, for the brutal beating death of 60-year-old mentally ill prisoner Ronald Ingram at Dade Correctional Institution in February 2022. As PLN reported, the guards retaliated when Ingram threw urine at them, beating him and leaving him with 20 broken ribs in a transport van, where he was found dead hours later and hundreds of miles away. [See: PLN, May 2022, p.34.] Despite initially accepting plea deals in exchange for testifying against a fourth guard, Ronald Connor (who was ultimately acquitted of murder), Walton and Rolon attempted to withdraw their pleas. But state Judge Teresa Pooler refused, calling the crime “heinous and horrible.” If not for the plea deals, she would have sent them all to prison for life, she said, because “[t]hat man died in the worst way possible by himself in pain in a prison vehicle chained up.”

Florida: Former Broward County Jail guards Tracy Wade, 51, and Carolyn Wade, 49, were convicted in federal court on October 23, 2024, of submitting fraudulent applications for loans totaling over $40,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program, which Congress passed to ease the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than being used to maintain payroll and save jobs, the funds were diverted to personal use by the Wades and over 20 other deputies of County Sheriff Greg Tony, all of whom have been convicted or pleaded guilty to similar crimes, the Miami Herald said. See: United States v. Wade, USDC (S.D. Fla.), Case No. 0:23-cr-60173.

Florida: WSVN in Miami identified the man who impregnated Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center detainee Daisy Link, 28: fellow detainee Joan Depaz, 23. The paternity was a mystery when Link’s baby arrived in June 2024, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Oct. 2024, p.21.] Though they never met, the second-degree murder suspect later confessed that she communicated with Depaz through an air conditioning vent, using it to pass his semen rolled in Saran Wrap. She then injected it using yeast treatment applicators. The couple remains incarcerated in separate lockups, maintaining phone contact with one another and their infant.

Illinois: Cook County Jail guard Reginald Roberson, 53, was acquitted on November 22, 2024, of charges stemming from an alleged jail beating amid prosecutorial misconduct, the Chicago Tribune reported. Roberson was accused of using handcuff-like brass knuckles when he punched a 29-year-old detainee, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, June 2023, p.63.] But Assistant State’s attorney Tiffani Mims allegedly promised the detainee better housing in exchange for testimony against Roberson—a deal never disclosed to the Defense. Judge William Gamboney denied a mistrial motion but allowed the additional evidence and ultimately acquitted Roberson.

Indiana: Westville Correctional Facility guard Salina Newton, 43, was arrested on November 14, 2024, and charged with attempting to smuggle contraband to an unnamed prisoner, according to WTRC in Niles, Michigan. Fellow guards conducting a routine search discovered a package wrapped in black electrical tape containing marijuana, tobacco and rolling papers, which was concealed between Newton’s legs. A subsequent strip search at the La Porte County Jail uncovered another package with suboxone hidden in a body cavity. If convicted, Newton faces up to six years in prison for each charge.

Kentucky: On November 22, 2024, former BOP guard Sean T. Lawless pleaded guilty to smuggling alcohol and other contraband into the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. Lawless worked at lockup between September 2020 and February 2022, when he muled an unnamed prisoner at least five bottles of Fireball whiskey, three cans of Copenhagen smokeless tobacco, two vape pens and cigarettes. His plea agreement also stated that Lawless provided liquor, vape pens and cigarettes to a second prisoner. At sentencing in January 2025, he faced up to a year in prison. See: United States v. Lawless, USDC (E.D. Ky.), Case No. 0:24-cr-00023.

Louisiana: According to WBRZ in Baton Rouge, East Baton Rouge Parish Prison guards Elijah Christopher, 25, Julius Conner Jr., 25, and Noah Jenkins, 23, were fired and arrested on October 18, 2024, for malfeasance in office and simple battery of a unnamed detainee. Surveillance video showed that he was not resisting when they pulled him from his cell in June 2024 and assaulted him with pepper spray. The investigation also led to additional charges against Christopher for allegedly assaulting detainees in July and August 2024, while using racial slurs against them. He was a five-year employee of Parish Sheriff Sid J. Gautreaux III. Jenkins had worked for three and a half years and Conner for nine months.

Louisiana: Six months after escaping the Tangipahoa Parish Jail in May 2024, state prisoner Jamarcus Cyprian, 20, was found hiding in a closet at a Hammond-area apartment on November 20, 2024, according to WVUE in New Orleans. Cyprian escaped with three other prisoners who were caught the same week that they shimmied under a fence and scaled two walls in May 2024—though they were not missed for two days by jailers who skipped head counts, as PLN reported. [See PLN, Aug. 2024, p.62.] Sheriff Gerald Sticker said that Cyprian was found with a firearm during an investigation into a shooting that led to the arrest of four other people involved, who allegedly were harboring the prisoner.

Maryland: On October 2, 2024, state prisoner Gordon Staron, 35, pleaded guilty to fatally strangling cellmate Javarick Gantt, 34, at Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center in 2022, the Independent reported. At the time, Staron was awaiting sentenced for killing an elderly man with an ax at a bus stop. Gantt, who was deaf and nearly illiterate, was arrested on minor domestic disturbance charges yet detained for months due to court backlogs. State’s Attorney Ivan Bates personally prosecuted the case a year after Gantt’s murder, the first time in “nearly a decade” that a state’s attorney had done so. On December 19, 2024, Staron was sentenced to life without possibility of parole.

Massachusetts: The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts reported that a former Bosnian prison guard living in Swampscott was convicted on October 18, 2024, of concealing his involvement in the persecution of Serb prisoners at the notorious Čelebići prison camp during the 1990s. Kemal Mrndzic, who had immigrated to the U.S. and become a naturalized citizen, was found guilty of making false statements to immigration authorities and possessing fraudulent documents. During his two-week trial, survivors of the Čelebići camp testified about horrific abuse they endured, including “near suffocation after being sealed in manholes for hours at a time” and daily and nightly beatings that were administered with a “baseball bat, wooden poles and rifle butts.” Some detainees were murdered, they said, while another’s tongue was burned with a heated knife blade. Mrndzic’s conviction is part of ongoing efforts to hold accountable those who perpetrated atrocities during the Bosnian War.

Massachusetts: A former state DOC guard was arrested on November 2, 2024, for allegedly smuggling synthetic cannabinoid-laced paper worth over $500,000 into Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Shirley. The arrest of Roxsandra Wright, 38, followed a joint investigation by state police and the DOC. Wright resigned at the end of October 2024 and planned to move to New Jersey before her arrest. Her bail was set at $50,000 cash.

Michigan: WJRT in Flint reported that former Saginaw County Jail guard Angelina Young, 33, avoided jail time at sentencing on November 25, 2024, after pleading no contest to assaulting a fellow guard. As PLN reported, she tasered her unnamed fellow guard in March 2024, knocking him from his chair, but claimed it was a practical joke. [See: PLN, Sep. 2024, p.61.] Sheriff Bill Federspiel placed her on leave and then fired her in June 2024. She faced up to 93 days behind bars but was sentenced to pay $455 in fines and court costs.

Minnesota: A prisoner and a former guard at Minnesota Correctional Facility in Stillwater were sentenced for their roles in a methamphetamine smuggling operation on November 18, 2024. According to KFGO in Fargo, N.D., prisoner Axel Kramer, 37, was already serving 24 years for second-degree murder when he received an additional 15-year sentence followed by 10 years of supervised release. The former guard, Faith Gratz, 26, was sentenced to over two years in prison followed by two years of probation. As PLN reported, Kramer and another prisoner coordinated with outside drug sources to supply methamphetamine to Gratz, who exploited her position to smuggle the drugs into the lockup and tip off Kramer about upcoming cell searches; they also exchanged hundreds of text messages detailing the plan as well as their romantic relationship. [See: PLN, Nov. 2022, p.65.] Kramer also pleaded guilty to a meth conspiracy in January 2024.

New Jersey: DOC guards Gary Nieves, 53, and William Young, 35, were suspended without pay and charged on October 29, 2024, with sexual assault of an unnamed 18-year-old prisoner at the Female Secure Care and Intake Facility in Bordentown. According to a statement by state Attorney General Matt Platkin (D), the two also admitted to related charges of criminal sexual contact, official misconduct and witness tampering. If convicted, each faced up to 10 years in prison. The alleged abuse took place in various locations in the prison and was reported in August 2024 after staff tipped off the state Juvenile Justice Commission.

New Jersey: Former Bayside State Prison guard Joshua Hand, 35, was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison on November 5, 2024, for failing to prevent prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, NJ Advance Media reported. As PLN reported, Hand pleaded guilty in February 2024 to depriving prisoners of their constitutional rights when, in December 2019, he witnessed multiple prisoners assault another prisoner, pinning him to the floor and delivering repeated blows—after which the guard did nothing to intervene or notify supervisors. Later that day, Hand also observed a guard strike another prisoner’s legs with a broomstick and again failed to act. [See: PLN, May 2024, p.61.] In addition to his prison term, U.S. District Judge Karen M. Williams ordered Hand to pay a $10,000 fine and serve three years of supervised release. See: United States v. Hand, USDC (D.N.J.), Case No. 1:24-cr-00119.

New Jersey: WCAU in Philadelphia reported that Burlington County Jail guard Austin Metivier, 34, was arrested at the jail on November 15, 2024, and charged with possession of child sexual abuse material. In October 2024, investigators acting on a tip from Pemberton Township cops found pornographic photos of underage girls on a hard drive that he owned. He was booked into Camden County Correctional Facility.

New Mexico: Cibola County Correctional Center detainees Lupe Vargas and Edward Vallez were among nine people arrested at a sweep of 13 locations on October 30, 2023, in what the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico called a significant prison drug ring. Also arrested was Monalisa Vargas, Lupe Vargas’ wife. Fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, firearms, and ammunition seized during the raids included over 1,000 fentanyl pills found inside the jail, which is privately operated under contract by CoreCivic.

New York: Rockland County Jail guard Sgt. Daniel Dworkin, 44, was arrested on November 21, 2024, after allegedly downloading child pornography to his computer, the Rockland News reported. The smut included 51 photos and videos of girls under 16 in sexual performances. The investigation began when state police contacted the Rockland District Attorney’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit about Dworkin, an 18-year veteran of the County Sheriff’s Office who also held a high position in the union representing jail guards. He was arraigned and suspended without pay; he pleaded not guilty and was given a minimum $500,000 cash bond.

Ohio: Former Cuyahoga County Jail guard Austin Casto, 24, was sentenced to six months in jail on November 18, 2024, for his role in a June 2024 urine-tossing incident involving a convicted felon, according to WKYC in Cleveland. Casto pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted harassment with a bodily substance for assisting prisoner Romelle Smith in throwing bodily fluids at five guards and supervisors, including the jail warden. Smith pleaded guilty to five counts of harassment by an inmate. Casto resigned his position and agreed to forego future employment in corrections. Common Pleas Judge William Vodrey also fined the former guard $2,000 and ordered him to serve the sentence in any county jail except Cuyahoga.

Pennsylvania: On October 31, 2024, Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi exonerated former state prisoner Tracy Jordan, finding that the former Marine, ex-Philadelphia Housing Authority police officer and father of three was wrongly convicted for the 2004 murder of Harold Wexler at a Philadelphia check-cashing store. According to the University of Michigan Law School’s National Registry of Exonerations, Jordan had long maintained his innocence despite being sentenced to life without parole in 2006. He made appeals and petitions in 2008, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2021; all were dismissed or denied. Attorneys from the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) of the Philadelphia County District Attorney’s Office then began a review of his case in 2023 and found that the state had failed to disclose a wide range of exculpatory evidence that impeached the prosecution’s witnesses, refuted its evidence and challenged its theory of the crime. Jordan’s attorneys argued that this misconduct deprived him of a fair trial. A motion for a new trial filed in May 2024 asserted that the state’s case was riddled with errors, casting doubt on the legitimacy of his conviction and leading ultimately to his exoneration.

Pennsylvania: The Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice reported that a court paperwork error led to the accidental release of a prisoner Derek Havard, 42, from the Luzerne County Minimal Offender Unit on November 26, 2024. James Wilbur, jail warden and head of the county division of correctional services, explained that the second page of a Protection from Abuse document— without a prisoner’s name but authorizing release—was attached to a judge’s order dismissing Havard’s motions to dismiss and to modify bail. The error was discovered shortly after Havard’s release, and he was apprehended and returned to custody the next day.

Rhode Island: WLNE in Providence reported that former Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility guard Kaii Almeida-Falcones, 30, was sentenced to six months in federal prison on November 14, 2024, for smuggling controlled substances to detainees. U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Cunha said that the guard worked with detainees Roosevelt Dale and Yahaira Cristina Contreras to smuggle suboxone strips from outside accomplices; the contraband was discovered during a detainee strip search in February 2021. More contraband was found concealed in a pillowcase in another detainee’s cell. Surveillance footage showed Almeida-Falcones entering both cells the night before the substances were discovered, leading to his arrest and charges.

Tennessee: Former Trousdale Turner Correctional Center guard Nkoli Nwosu, 49, was arrested on October 9, 2024, for money laundering and other charges related to smuggling contraband to a prisoner with whom she had a personal relationship. According to the Tennessean, the guard accepted $4,135 via CashApp from the prisoner in exchange for food, drug paraphernalia and personal items, including sneakers, SD cards and synthetic cannabinoids. Trousdale Turner, which is privately operated by CoreCivic, is under federal investigation for ongoing violence, understaffing and drug smuggling, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Dec. 2024, p.56.] Nwosu had been employed since May 2023, admitting that the relationship began shortly thereafter. She was given away when investigators discovered her failure to confiscate a contraband cellphone used by the prisoner, tracing then her use of the illicit funds for personal expenses.

United Kingdom: The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) confirmed a data breach affecting prisons in England and Wales in the second and third weeks of November 2024. The BBC reported that confidential layouts with details of key security features in at least 20 prisons were leaked onto the dark web. The National Crime Agency was providing advisory support, but no formal investigation was underway, MoJ said.

Virginia: Former Coffeewood Correctional Center guard Davey Jonathan Sisk, 30, was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison on November 21, 2024, after pleading guilty in June 2024 to two counts of sexually exploiting and attempting to sexually exploit a child as well as one count of receiving child pornography. Sisk used the Telegram social media app to receive illicit videos that his girlfriend Anna Layher created of three- and six-year-old family members. She received a 40-year sentence in September 2024. Sisk admitted to paying over $450 through Cash App to purchase child pornography from a 12-year-old in Texas who engaged in sexual intercourse with another child and then sold videos and images of these encounters. See: United States v. Sisk, USDC (W.D. Va.), Case No. 3:24-cr-00009.

Washington: Outkick reported that Michelle Goodman, 31, a former guard at Green Hill School juvenile lockup in Chehalis, was arrested on October 17, 2024, and charged with multiple counts of custodial sexual misconduct in the first degree for allegedly recording sexual acts with a 23-year-old resident in the facility’s staff bathroom earlier this year. The victim’s attorney provided screenshots from the recordings, which reportedly took place in January 2024. Surveillance footage corroborated that Goodman and the victim entered the staff locker area on two occasions. At her initial court appearance, bond was set at $100,000. In March 2024, she was arrested for allegedly facilitating and laughing at an attack on another resident. Goodman is the third Green Hill employee charged with sexual misconduct. In addition to criminal charges, she also faces a civil lawsuit from the victim, alleging that she exploited her position of authority to coerce him into a sexual relationship and pressured him to film their encounters. Filed in Thurston County Superior Court, the suit further accuses Goodman of repeatedly engaging in similar behavior.

West Virginia: Former Southern Regional Jail guards Johnathan Walters and Corey Snyder pleaded guilty to federal civil rights violations on November 18, 2024, and November 19, 2024, respectively, in the March 2022 death of detainee Quantez Burks. According to AP News, they face up to 30 years in prison and fines up to $250,000. As PLN reported, Burks, 37, died less than a day after being booked on a wanton endangerment charge, when the guards allegedly beat him in a room lacking surveillance cameras; handcuffed and restrained during the incident, Burks sustained fatal blunt force trauma, as confirmed by a private autopsy requested by his family. [See: PLN, May 2024, p.22.] Mark Holdren, another guard charged Burks’ death, pleaded guilty in federal court on November 13, 2024. See: United States v. Holdren, USDC (S.D. W.Va.), Case No. 5:23-cr-00188.

West Virginia: Former South Central Regional Jail guard Stephen A. Elswick, 52, was arrested on November 26, 2024, and charged with two counts of imposing sexual acts on an incarcerated victim. According to a criminal complaint filed in Kanawha County, Elswick allegedly engaged in sexual acts with the prisoner on multiple occasions—once even waking the victim in her cell to perform a sex act. Other prisoners reportedly witnessed the assaults. Elswick confessed to tipped-off investigators, who also interviewed the victim and corroborated details of the complaint. He was fired by the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, according to spokesperson Andy Malinoski. After posting a $3,000 bond, Elswick was released pending a preliminary hearing set for December 3, 2024, in Kanawha County Magistrate Court.   

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