Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling speaks to reporters following a bond hearing at the Richland County Courthouse on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — A dozen prison guards, inmates and coordinators on the outside face charges of sneaking cellphones and drugs into South Carolina’s prisons as the Department of Corrections continues its crackdown on contraband.
The charges result from three separate investigations involving five prisons. Eight of the people indicted by the State Grand Jury appeared in a Richland County courtroom Wednesday for bond hearings.
The investigations are part of a larger effort to keep prohibited items out of prisoners’ hands.
In recent years, the department has put up 50-foot nets around its prisons, used full-body scanners to screen people entering, and installed monitors to detect drones attempting to get over the nets to drop off packages for prisoners.
Pay raises for employees have also reduced their willingness to risk getting arrested themselves to make some extra money by sneaking in contraband, said Corrections Director Bryan Stirling.
Officials also do consistent sweeps of prisons to find contraband drugs, cellphones and/or weapons, Stirling said. The State Grand Jury indictment announced Tuesday was an example of how those sweeps can lead to charges, he said.
“We’re going to find you, and we’re going to charge you with crimes,” Stirling said as a warning to inmates and employees.
Illegal cellphones have allowed inmates to coordinate with people outside the razor wire on how to sneak in contraband, as well as orchestrate crimes on the outside, endangering the public, Stirling said.
In 2010, an inmate in Lee Correctional used a contraband phone to order a hit on an officer, who survived being shot six times.
Cellphones have also contributed to escalating violence within prisons, as happened in the 2018 riot at Lee Correctional thatleft seven inmates dead and 20 more injured.
For years, Stirling has advocated for the federal government to repeal restrictions that keep states from jamming cellphone signals inside prisons.
Last year, South Carolina became the first state in the country licensed to start using a different method of weeding out cellphone use in prisons. Starting at Lee Correctional, officials installed technology that identifies cellphones making calls from within the prison, allowing officials to report the phones to their carriers and get them shut off.
The state budget that took effect July 1 included $10 million for the department to expand that initiative.
While that amount fell short of the department’s $34 million request to install and maintain the technology at all 21 prisons, the money should be enough to cover seven or eight more prisons, Stirling said.
“The root of the entire problem is cellphones,” Stirling said. “They can’t corrupt people, they can’t communicate effectively without the cellphones.”
One of the three ongoing investigations uncovered a smuggling operation in which inmates and guards were working together to get narcotics and other contraband into Turbeville, Lieber and Kershaw correctional institutions, leading to charges for four people. Those were not among those in court Wednesday.
Of the 12 total indicted Tuesday, three are inmates, two are former inmates, five are now-former prison officers and two are charged with coordinating operations from outside the prisons.
None of the inmates received a bond. Others received bonds ranging from a low of $20,000 for an outside coordinator to $150,000 for a former inmate whose charges include conspiracy and trafficking methamphetamines.
Former correctional officer Nina Goodson is accused of bringing contraband into the Kershaw prison and leaving it where prisoners could get it and distribute it, said David Fernandez, an assistant deputy attorney general.
Her charges include trafficking methamphetamine and marijuana, conspiracy, money laundering, and misconduct in office. She faces up to 25 years in prison on the meth charge alone.
Inmate Dexter Brown faces the most serious charge of attempted murder, potentially adding up to 30 years on his time in prison. Already serving a 30-year sentence for attempted murder, Brown wasn’t expected to be released until 2041, according to his prison record.
He’s accused of attacking another inmate at Lee and stabbing him repeatedly, including in the thorax, using a contraband weapon, said Stephen Lunsford, a special assistant attorney general.
“As you can see, this is serious business,” Stirling said after the bond hearings. “This is not just someone trying to smuggle in a little bit of stuff for fun on the weekends. This is life and death.”
