Two inmates and a Bureau of Prisons employee have been indicted and accused of conspiring to smuggle contraband into a federal prison in Atlanta.
But an attorney for the corrections officer accused of the crimes claims there is no way the inmates could have conspired with his client. In fact, he said, they had never met him.
The indictment alleges Patrick Shackelford and U.S. Penitentiary inmates Patrick Kirkman and Mitchell Arms conspired to smuggle contraband, including cellphones, tobacco and other drugs, into the medium-security prison via the institution’s bathroom plumbing. The plot began around June 2018 and continued through at least February 2019, the document claimed.
Attorney Paul Kish, who represents Shackelford, doesn’t dispute that drugs were being smuggled into the prison. But, he said, his client wasn’t involved in the operation.
“So far as I know, the other two inmates had never met Patrick Shackelford,” Kish told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Kish said his client has worked for the Bureau of Prisons for 15 years after a career in the military. He came to the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta as a corrections officer in January 2011 and works as a plumbing supervisor, the indictment said. In that position, Shackelford oversaw a group of inmates who had been hired to work on the prison’s plumbing.
“My understanding is that the Bureau of Prisons tries to reduce costs by employing inmates,” Kish said.
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