WAYCROSS, GA: A former correctional officer has been sentenced to federal prison for accepting bribes in return for smuggling contraband to an inmate.
Micheal Eaddy, 25, of Blackshear, Ga., was sentenced to six months in prison after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of Bribery, said Bobby L. Christine, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia. At the time of the offense, Eaddy was a correctional officer at D. Ray James Correctional Facility, a private prison operated under federal contract in Folkston, Ga. After completion of his prison term, Eaddy must serve three years of supervised release.
“Michael Eaddy sold out his fellow corrections staff and forfeited his own freedom when he accepted money in return for smuggling contraband into the prison,” said U.S. Attorney Christine. “His crime endangered other prison guards and the security of the entire facility, and as a result he’ll now spend time on the wrong side of the prison bars.”
In his guilty plea, Eaddy admitted accepting a bribe of $246.25 from inmate Jean Civil, 25, of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in return for smuggling cigarettes into the prison. Investigators discovered the activity after seizing a contraband phone from Civil and reading electronic conversations between Civil and Eaddy.
After pleading guilty to Possession of Contraband, Civil received one month added to his current sentence of 78 months for Conspiracy to Distribute 500 Grams or More of Cocaine.
“Eaddy put his own interests above his duties when he accepted bribes from an inmate and smuggled contraband into the prison he was supposed to secure,” said Special Agent in Charge James F. Boyersmith, Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, Miami Field Office. “He will rightly serve time for his actions, which put his fellow correctional officers, prison staff, and the entire institution at risk.”
The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, and prosecuted for the United States by Assistant U.S. Attorney Marcela C. Mateo.
