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TRENTON – Attorney General
Anne Milgram announced that the Division of
Criminal Justice has obtained state grand
jury indictments charging 35 inmates with
the illegal possession of cell phones in state
prisons as a result of a collaborative effort
with the Department of Corrections. Twenty-five
of the indicted inmates are members or associates
of criminal street gangs, including various
sets of the Bloods, as well as the Crips,
Latin Kings, and Netas.
Attorney General Milgram and
Department of Corrections Commissioner George
W. Hayman have directed a joint initiative
to target contraband cell phones in the state
prisons. The initiative takes aim, in particular,
at gang members who use such phones as a connection
to the outside world for their continued participation
in criminal activities.
According to Criminal Justice
Director Deborah L. Gramiccioni, each of the
defendants was charged with unlawful possession
of a cell phone in a correctional facility,
a third-degree crime that carries a maximum
sentence of five years in state prison and
a $15,000 fine. All prison time imposed would
have to be served consecutively to the inmate’s
current sentence.
The indictments were brought
by the Division of Criminal Justice Gangs
& Organized Crime Bureau as a result of
searches by corrections officers and investigations
by the Department of Corrections Special Investigations
Division. While these indictments target the
end users, the Division of Criminal Justice
and DOC are continuing investigations that
focus on the entire supply chain by which
contraband cell phones are introduced into
the prisons.
“When we take violent gang offenders
off the street, they cannot be allowed to
continue to direct criminal activities using
contraband cell phones,” said Attorney
General Milgram. “This wave of cases
should signal to inmates that we are disconnecting
their illicit calls, and we will seek significant
additional prison time when we catch them
with cell phones.”
“Safety and security
both inside and outside the prison walls are
paramount to our mission,” Commissioner
Hayman added. “Illegal cell phones potentially
provide the offender population with an opportunity
to compromise public safety. This cannot and
will not be allowed to happen, and we will
continue to utilize aggressive, proactive
measures in our efforts to protect law-abiding
citizens throughout New Jersey and beyond.”
The 35 defendants are charged
in 31 separate state grand jury indictments
which were handed up on Friday, Sept. 11,
to Superior Court Judge Linda R. Feinberg
in Mercer County and which were filed in court
yesterday. Of the 35 defendants, 24 are inmates
at Northern State Prison in Newark, nine are
inmates at East Jersey State Prison in Woodbridge,
and two are inmates at South Woods State Prison
in Bridgeton.
The defendants are serving
prison sentences ranging from five years to
life with 30 years of parole ineligibility.
They were incarcerated for crimes that include
murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault,
armed robbery and drug and weapons offenses.
The cell phones were found between October
2008 and June 2009.
Between August 2008 and July
2009, the DOC confiscated a total of 391 cell
phones. Additional investigations are pending
and other cases have been referred for prosecution
to the county prosecutors in the counties
where the prisons are located.
“We will continue to
work closely with the Department of Corrections
on these cases,” said Director Gramiccioni.
“We must ensure that the offenders we
send to prison are isolated from criminal
associates on the outside, particularly if
they belong to street gangs. That means eliminating
their access to cell phones.”
In addition to leading efforts
to detect and prosecute inmates with cell
phones and those who smuggle them into prisons,
Attorney General Milgram and Commissioner
Hayman have advocated passage of proposed
federal legislation that would allow states,
with permission from the FCC, to install devices
that would jam cell phone communications within
specific correctional facilities. They wrote
in July to the leaders of the U.S. Senate
Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee,
which approved the bill last month. In their
letter, they noted that imprisoned gang members
use cell phones to communicate with outside
gang members in order to direct gang operations,
intimidate witnesses or even plan escapes
The official prison phones
which inmates are permitted to use are monitored,
and inmates can only call people on an authorized
list, which excludes known gang associates.
The use of cell phones by
gang leaders to conduct criminal business
from prison has been exposed in major investigations
by the Attorney General’s Office. The
Division of Criminal Justice has indictments
pending against David “Duke” Allen,
who allegedly led the Nine Trey Gangsters
set of the Bloods from New Jersey State Prison
in Trenton, and Michael Anderson, who allegedly
helped lead the Nine Trey Headbustas in Camden
from New Jersey State Prison.
“We have been effective
in disrupting gang operations by targeting
their command structures with intelligence-led
investigations,” said Attorney General
Milgram. “We won’t let those efforts
be undermined by gang leaders who use cell
phones to issue commands to the street from
behind prison walls.”
The Attorney General has led
highly successful operations, involving all
levels of law enforcement, to target the most
dangerous street gangs and remove violent
gang offenders from our communities under
the Governor’s Strategy for Safe Streets
and Neighborhoods. The first two-phases of
a statewide initiative against street gangs
have led to the arrest since June 2008 of
more than 4,943 individuals, including 1,195
suspected street gang members. One result
of such efforts has been that the gang population
in the state’s 13 prisons has been growing
rapidly.
In May 2009, the State Commission
of Investigation issued a report detailing
how gang members engage in criminal activities
while incarcerated, frequently utilizing contraband
cell phones. The DOC has taken a number of
proactive steps, commencing before release
of that report, to eliminate cell phones from
the prisons.
The NJDOC is one of the first
departments of corrections in the nation to
utilize dogs to detect cell phones. The DOC
continues to train its own staff and dogs
for cell phone detection and routinely deploys
the dogs for unit and cell searches. Of the
391 cell phones seized between August 2008
and July 2009, 131 were detected by dogs.
The canines also detected 126 cell phones
chargers and nine cell phone batteries.
The visitor identification
process has been strengthened and a policy
of pat-searching all visitors has been implemented.
Also, the number of authorized items permitted
in the visit area has been limited. The DOC
has removed vending machines in visitor halls
in all correctional facilities because visitors
were hiding cell phones in snack packages
and passing them to inmates.
In addition, the DOC now requires
that all inmates entering or exiting a facility
for work details or other reasons must be
strip-searched and then searched using a BOSS
(Bodily Orifice Security Scanner) chair specifically
to eliminate the possibility of electronic
devices and other contraband from being hidden
in body cavities.
Efforts have also been made
to eliminate smuggling of contraband by prison
staff, including corrections officers and
civilian staff. Custody staff uniforms have
been modified to remove all metal accessories,
enabling entry-point walk-through metal detectors
to be placed on the highest settings and calibrated
routinely to help eliminate the introduction
of contraband into facilities.
Further, the screening process
for hiring of DOC employees has been enhanced.
The Custody Recruitment Unit has received
more than 180 hours of training in investigative
interviews, gang identification, computer
networking investigations, drug identification,
and other relevant issues. Potential employees
must complete a 28-page recruit application
and are now subject to home visits and extensive
interviews as part of the screening process.
The DOC and New Jersey State
Police are in the process of linking their
gang intelligence databases, which will enhance
the ability of the DOC to identify, track
and manage gang members in their custody.
Deputy Attorney General Julia
Glass coordinated the cases for the Division
of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized
Crime Bureau, and every attorney in the bureau
assisted with the cases.
Attorney General Milgram thanked
the numerous corrections officers for the
Department of Corrections and investigators
in the DOC Division of Investigations who
worked on these cases. They include Senior
Investigators Jeffrey Poling and Randy Valentin,
and Principal Investigators Scott Russo, Trinidad
Pena, Vincent Wojciechowicz and Leonard Randolph.
The indictments are merely
accusations and the defendants are presumed
innocent until proven guilty. Judge Feinberg
assigned the cases to Essex, Middlesex and
Cumberland counties, depending on which prison
was involved.
The following defendants were
indicted:
1. Darnell Smith, 34, Northern
State Prison
2. Keyano Sapp, 29, Northern State Prison
3. Dawud Amin, 55, Northern State Prison
4. Darnell Haywood, 43, Northern State Prison
5. Kevin Robinson, 25, Northern State Prison
6. Angel Hernandez, 49, Northern State Prison
7. Wilson Valdez, 29, Northern State Prison
8. Brian Williams, 31, Northern State Prison
9. Raheem Pratt, 28, Northern State Prison
10. Calvin Alexander, 44, Northern State Prison
11. Brad Smith, 35, Northern State Prison
12. Michael Fields, 35, Northern State Prison
13. Derrell Riddick, 30, Northern State Prison
14. Cagliano Ulysses, 26, Northern State Prison
15. Jose Camacho, 27, Northern State Prison
16. Eric Fyshe, 24, Northern State Prison
17. Carmelo Herrara, 45, Northern State Prison
18. Dennis Clifford, 38, Northern State Prison
19. Andrew Wyble, 24, Northern State Prison
20. Shondale Grady, 26, Northern State Prison
21. Hector Garcia, 41, Northern State Prison
22. Miguel Rodriguez, 31, Northern State Prison
23. Taron McDougald, 36, Northern State Prison
24. Troy Gardner, 28, Northern State Prison
25. Tawann McGuire, 30, East Jersey State
Prison
26. Tyrone Dennis, 29, East Jersey State Prison
27. Manuel Hernandez, 34, East Jersey State
Prison
28. Al-Malik Amir, 38, East Jersey State Prison
29. Levay Moore, 29, East Jersey State Prison
30. Duan Howard, 26, East Jersey State Prison
31. Joshua Gaudette, 31, East Jersey State
Prison
32. Quawee Mitchell, 22, East Jersey State
Prison
33. Joseph Lopez, 38, East Jersey State Prison
34. Andre Kirkland, 28, South Woods State
Prison
35. Roy Rawl, 29, South Woods State Prison
Tyrone Dennis was also charged
with possession of marijuana with intent to
distribute, a fourth-degree offense, in connection
with marijuana he allegedly possessed in the
prison.
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