May 4, 2009 11:27 pm US/Eastern
Calling The Shots: Cell Phones & Crime Behind Bars
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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Some inmates locked up and living on the taxpayer dime are calling the shots.
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Some inmates locked up and living on the taxpayer dime are calling the shots. In Maryland, several high-profile cases have exposed how they're illegally obtaining cell phones and committing brazen crimes on the outside.
WJZ has been investigating the problem for months, with numerous stories on the chaos inmates are creating on the outside.
Now
Mike Hellgren takes an inside look at this threat to public safety.
The prison is their kingdom.
Behind barbed wire and locked cell doors, inmates are in charge and out of control, ordering brazen, violent crimes on the outside and running gangs and drug empires.
"Basically, without skipping a beat, yes," said an inmate. "You can get anything that you want in jail."
Even murder.
Patrick Byers did. Jurors recently convicted the inmate of using a cell phone he got while locked up at the Baltimore Detention Center to order a hit on Carl Lackl, a key witness in a murder case against him.
Despite extraordinary security during his trial, Byers was able to obtain a second phone, also behind bars. Byers was sentenced to life without parole Monday in Lackl's death.
"The problem is extremely acute at the Baltimore City Detention Center. That is a facility where the inmates are running the asylum," said Antonio Gioia, chief attorney of narcotics division.
Eyewitness News was granted a rare interview with Gioia who heads drug prosecutions at the City State's Attorney's Office and has seen hundreds of witness intimidation cases involving contraband cell phones.
"It's not a big secret. They are chiefly smuggled in by correctional officers," said Gioia.
He also says many correctional officers are upstanding and do their jobs well. But the few who don't make a big difference.
"It only takes a handful of correctional officers to bring in 15 or 20 cell phones in a gym bag," said Gioia.
They then sell them for hundreds of dollars each, and officers split a cut of the cash with the criminals.
"We have developed intelligence that there are some members of the correctional community that, if not gang members, are very sympathetic to the gang members who are awaiting trial," said Gioia.
During our investigation,
WJZ obtained hundreds of pages of conversations from inmates using cell phones behind prison walls to order witnesses silenced, rival gangs beaten, sex, cigars and seafood dinners, even at Supermax.
"It is a business," said a former inmate who requested his identity be concealed.
He spent months locked up in Baltimore and was surprised by how many inmates have phones.
"I would say maybe 20 percent, 30 percent," he said.
And it was easy for him to get one.
"You get movers in there. These guys who can make anything happen," said the ex-inmate. "Nine times out of 10, they know right where to get it."
He simply asked his family to put $200 on a prepaid credit card and gave the number to his supplier.
"That person will hand it to somebody who will make a phone call on their cell phone, verify the numbers, and boom, you've got your product," he said.
Just as easy as getting a phone is keeping it.
"Pull down a light, stick it up in a lighting area," said the former inmate. "I hid mine in a mattress. I've hid them in the bottom of a box of Dunkin' sticks."
He says many of the officers in charge didn't care. They've even warned him to hide it.
"If you've got something, they'll give you a chance to get rid of it. Very rarely do you have a surprise shakedown," he said.
Phones also get in through medical teams, other prison staff and sometimes smuggled inside the body.
"You don't ask questions because that can wind up getting you stabbed or killed," he said. "I don't think any time soon it's going to stop."
Lawmakers in Washington are considering blocking cell signals in prisons, a practice now banned by the FCC.
But those who are faced with witness intimidation every day believe it may be the only way to silence those who seek to silence justice.
"No amount of screening, even of correctional officers, is as effective as legal authorization to jam the signals coming out of these institutions," said Gioia. "That's the easiest way to stop it in its tracks."
Tuesday on
Eyewitness News at 11,
WJZ's complete investigative coverage continues. The commissioner of the Division of Correction weighs in on what is being done to solve the problem. Also, lawmakers share their outrage and speak candidly to
WJZ about who is responsible and what must be done next.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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