Image Credit: Metro Nashville Police Department & The Tennessee Comptroller
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas pleaded not guilty to charges of using prison labor for illegal personal profit.
Thomas appeared in circuit court in Trenton to answer to charges of forcing inmates to work for his own personal gain, as well as housing prisoners in homes outside of the prison without obtaining permission to do so. He faces a total of 18 charges in Gibson County.
According to court documents, Thomas was a stakeholder in three different for-profit companies that provided transportation for inmates on work-release, housed those inmates in a transitional house, and provided labor for local companies.
Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower stated that Thomas failed to make his involvement in those companies, known collectively as Alliance Group, known when he submitted his annual filing with the Tennessee Ethics Commission.
Thomas allegedly allocated more than $1.4 million in inmate wage fees and deductions to Alliance Group. An investigation showed that at least 170 inmates worked for the staffing agency, and 82 inmates were allowed to reside at Orchard House.
The sheriff received more than $181,000 in payroll benefits from Alliance Group from money earned through the inmate labor.
Additionally, Thomas continued to list the inmate’s residence as the county jail while they were staying at Orchard House. This led to the county obtaining more than $500,000 in reimbursements from the state. Thomas then had that money allocated to Orchard House without obtaining consent.
“Orchard House was neither attached to the jail nor staffed by jail personnel, and no contract existed between the county and Orchard House,” the comptroller’s office said.
Thomas was also indicted on four additional charges of forgery, theft, computer crimes, and official misconduct in Davidson County. He will be arraigned on those charges at a later date in Nashville.
2 Responses
The prison labor racket in this country, especially where it involves privatized prisons, has more in common with Stalinist prisons than it does with U.S. values. The privitizers like Core Civic, et al. will use not only underpaid or even unpaid prison labor to make top-dollar overpriced and under-quality products that one could buy far more cheaply at a regular retailer or wholesaler. For the private prison industry to survive, however, requires laws that require state and local government to buy all their products from prison industries at unreasonably high prices for shoddy quality. The fact that convicts receive almost no pay for their work therefore, does not mean low-priced or high-quality products. Most inmates will do just enough to get by and take no pride in their products for which they receive next to no pay at all. Some crooked government officials will use this prison labor to fatten their family’s pocket for selfish gain.
Correct.
In the BOP (Feds) it’s UNICOR Federal Prison Industries.
It is disgraceful that we are the only country in the world that incarcerates our own people for profit. I have been one of those prisoners. I was falsely accused as were many, many others. The Federal Legal System, as we all now know (Trump, J6, Bannon etc.) is the single most corrupt in the free world.