100 people charged in ‘Prison Empire’ drug investigation, with some already locked up
Surrounded by officers from the Upstate and Midlands, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced what he called the the largest drug conspiracy ever indicted in a state court.
The indictments are part of a drug trafficking case called “Prison Empire,” Wilson said.
Speaking from the State Grand Jury Room in Columbia, Wilson said 487 charges were filed against 100 defendants as part of the “Prison Empire” investigation.
About 20 kilograms of methamphetamine, 5 kilos of heroin, and 1.5 kilograms of cocaine, as well as 82 firearms, have been seized during the investigation, according to a news release from the Attorney General’s office.
The drugs were trafficked throughout South Carolina, but primarily in the Upstate, according to the release.
Other crimes included in the indictments were burglary and kidnapping. The investigation uncovered gang involvement as well as Mexican sources for the drugs, the Attorney General’s office said.
“This case shows the importance of our state grand jury and its ability to investigate statewide cases that cross jurisdictional lines,” Wilson said. “It also highlights what we’ve been talking about for years now — the danger of contraband cell phones and how prison inmates use them to commit more crimes even while they’re behind bars.”
Both Wilson and South Carolina Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling said much of the drug trafficking uncovered in the investigation was run by current and former inmates through the use of contraband cell phones in South Carolina prisons.
At least two defendants who are currently Department of Corrections inmates had cell phones and meth when they were rounded up this week for bond hearings, according to the release.
The investigation also uncovered drug smuggling into prison by a member of a law firm, Wilson said. A paralegal at a law firm allegedly used hollowed out documents in legal mail to smuggle meth into the prison system, according to the release.
“This is one more tragic example of the damage illegal cell phones do in the hands of inmates,” Stirling said. “The public would be safer if we were able to block cell phone signals.”
Bond hearings for 46 of the defendants were held Wednesday and Thursday, according to the release. Previous bond hearings in the case were held in November 2019, the Attorney General’s office said.
South Carolina’s prisons are barred by federal law from jamming contraband cellphones used by inmates inside prison walls.
Stirling has argued for the ability to jam cellphone signals in state prisons, which would make the contraband cellphones useless. But he has faced opposition from the cellphone industry, which said the jamming devices could interfere with cellphones outside of the prisons.
In 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice conducted a field test at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia that showed how the signals can be blocked and not interfere with the surrounding community, Stirling said.
The department of corrections said this technology would block any cell signal from leaving institutions, rendering the illegal cellphones useless.
Since 2015, the Department of Corrections said it has confiscated more than 25,000 cell phones and accessories from inside its prisons.
In addition to the Attorney General’s office and the Department of Corrections, “Prison Empire” was investigated by the South Carolina State Grand Jury, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office, the Greenville County Multi-Jurisdictional Drug Enforcement Unit, the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office, the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office, the Edgefield County Sheriff’s Office, the Lexington County Sheriff’s Office, the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office, the Easley Police Department, the Liberty Police Department, the Pickens Police Department, and the South Carolina Governor’s Counterdrug Task Force, which is a unit of the South Carolina National Guard.
The cases will be prosecuted by Senior Assistant Attorney General Joshua R. Underwood, Assistant Attorney General David A. Fernandez, Assistant Attorney General John Conrad, Assistant Attorney General Johnny E. James Jr., and State Grand Jury Division Chief Attorney S. Creighton Waters.
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This story was originally published March 8, 2021 at 1:28 PM.
