Inmate

Aaron Jones and the Junior Black Mafia "are synonymous," said a Common Pleas Court judge who yesterday sentenced Jones, the reputed boss of the JBM, to a maximum 10 to 20 years in prison for the stabbing of a fellow inmate. Jones, 29, "is a moving principal" in the JBM who employed the "extremely violent" tactics of the organization when he attacked inmate Parrish Barnes at the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center on Nov. 3, 1989, said Judge John W. Herron in imposing the sentence.

A corrections officer faces charges in the theft of $72 in cash from an inmate being processed at the Delaware County prison, the District Attorney's Office said Monday. Michael Siler, 45, of Upper Darby, a guard at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornton, was charged last week with theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, and theft by failing to make required disposition. Siler is accused of pocketing the money from an inmate who handed in the cash while being processed in October, according to the criminal complaint.

A Camden County Jail inmate with AIDS has been charged with attempted murder for biting a sheriff's deputy. The inmate allegedly shouted, "Die, you pig!" before biting the deputy three times and drawing blood, said County Prosecutor Samuel Asbell. Asbell said the incident occurred Sunday at Cooper Hospital, where the inmate, Gregory Dean Smith, 26, of Cherry Hill, a convicted robber, had been taken after he complained of a back problem. He said Smith got into an argument with a doctor there, and when deputies tried to restrain him, he bit the officer.

A 12-year veteran of the Camden County Sheriff's Department was fired yesterday for assaulting an inmate in a dispute over a meal tray. Corrections Officer Tyrone Polk, the only county jail guard ever convicted of that offense, was dismissed by Sheriff William J. Simon on the recommendation of a departmental hearing officer, officials said. "I think there is a deterrent message that has to be sent," said Howard Wilson, the department's special counsel. "You have to be real careful in putting your hands on an inmate when it's not justified.

An inmate at the Pennsylvania state prison in Huntingdon has petitioned a court either to release him or to ensure that he will not be exposed to another prisoner who has tested positive for AIDS antibodies. The petition for habeus corpus was filed in January in Common Pleas Court in Huntingdon County and a brief was filed last week on behalf of inmate George Feigley, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office said yesterday. Feigley is serving a 10- to 20-year sentence for statutory rape and faces an additional term for an escape conviction, state prison officials said.

A seventh correctional officer has been charged with participating in the beating of an inmate at a city prison work-release center in Kensington. Sgt. Clyde Gainey, 33, of the 8000 block of Temple Road, was arrested yesterday afternoon after being identified by a witness to the incident, said Laura Linton, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office. The witness, an inmate, came forward to corroborate the story of the beating victim, William Kennedy, after six guards were charged March 15 with assaulting Kennedy at the work-release center, she said.

The New Jersey State Prison inmate who was fatally stabbed Thursday, allegedly by another inmate, was Kenneth Mahan, 43, of Camden, state corrections officials said yesterday. Mahan, who was serving a 25-year sentence for armed robbery, was attacked in the yard of the maximum-security prison in Trenton at 2:26 p.m. He was taken to St. Francis Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 3:47 p.m. Julia Marian-Campbell, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, said authorities had a suspect in custody, but she declined to identify him. The killing is under investigation by the department's internal-affairs division and by the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office.

A Holmesburg inmate died Sunday of a brain hemorrhage because a guard had refused to get him his blood-pressure medication, an inmate leader charged yesterday. James Barnwell, 45, of Stillman Street near Cambria, died about 2 p.m. at Nazareth Hospital. A spokesman for the medical examiner's office said Barnwell died of a cerebral hemorrhage due to hypertension. Dr. Ian Hood, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Barnwell, said it was possible that missed blood-pressure medication could have prompted the hemorrhage.

A former convict who spoke on behalf of other inmates in seeking city prison reform was arrested yesterday for allegedly stabbing his cousin at a Christmas Eve party. Jesse Kithcart, 47, of Clinton Street near 9th in Center City, was arrested yesterday morning while at work at Family Court, police said. He was charged with aggravated assault and recklessly endangering another person in connection with the stabbing of his cousin, Edward Jainlett, 21, of 21st Street near Dauphin, North Philadelphia.

The handcuffed Holmesburg Prison inmate, a smallish 30-year-old man, was in a hysterical state, kicking, spitting, screaming and thrashing. A handful of guards, perhaps as many as eight, tried to control him. After the inmate was down, at least one guard stood on his back. Finally, the inmate became quiet. But something was wrong. Minutes later, a prison doctor declared him dead. The medical examiner's autopsy report concluded that the inmate, Wayne Anthony Taitt, had suffocated.

A federal report issued Friday says two city jails, Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center and Riverside Correctional Facility, had among the nation's highest rate of inmates who said they were the target of sexual victimization. At the Industrial Correctional Center, 6.3 percent of inmates who responded to the Bureau of Justice Statistics survey reported they were the victims of staff sexual misconduct, more than triple the national rate in jails of 1.8 percent. Staff sexual misconduct was defined to include all incidents of unwilling and willing sexual contact between staff and inmates, both of which are illegal.

AS AN INMATE laborer at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, Chal D. Kennedy Sr. worked in the kitchen, heating and serving meals for nearly 400 inmates and then cleaning up after them. That meant scrubbing down two giant ovens once or twice a week with a noxious degreaser that kept him coughing and left a sudsy sludge up his arms. "You look like you just came out from under an automobile," Kennedy, 46, of North Philadelphia, said of the two-hour, two-man cleanups. For the nearly three years he worked that $1.61-a-day job, prison staff ignored inmates' repeated requests for protective gear or training, he said.

The series so far: The inmates have graduated from the three-month New Leash course. They have completed life-skills training and taught their dogs how to behave well enough to become obedient pets in new adoptive homes. Most of the men are getting ready to start paid internships at area animal shelters. Last of six parts. Three days after he turned 22, Jamal Thompson left prison a relatively free man. A former drug dealer whose years in juvenile detention had been a reprieve from his jagged life at home, Thompson had taken to New Leash on Life with hungry enthusiasm.

The series so far: The 12 inmates and their six rescue dogs living on Mod 3 have formed close bonds. The men are practicing job interviews, preparing for employment after prison. And most are working hard to ready their dogs for the AKC Canine Good Citizen Test, which is fast approaching. Others are falling behind. Fourth of six parts. Under a gray spongy sky on a Sunday afternoon, the hopeful came to the Philadelphia Pet Hotel and Villas, a boarding facility near the airport.

Gloucester County is expanding its plan to outsource its entire inmate population beyond South Jersey. Some inmates could be shipped to the Essex County jail in Newark - about 90 miles northeast of the jail in Woodbury. The county Board of Freeholders voted unanimously Wednesday to enter into contracts with Cumberland, Salem, Burlington, and Essex Counties, to which Gloucester would ship its 270 adult male inmates starting June 1 at $100 an inmate. The controversial move drew scrutiny from Gloucester County corrections officers and beleaguered public defenders.

CONROE, Texas - An 84-year-old woman jailed on a theft charge allegedly tried to hire a hit man to kill the Houston-area prosecutor handling her case and to maim his boss, one of the apparent targets said Monday. Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon said Dorothy Canfield allegedly sought to have him attacked and his assistant district attorney, Rob Freyer, slain. Neither man was injured in the alleged plot, which investigators said surfaced in early April. Canfield allegedly wanted the attacks to appear similar to the recent unsolved killings of two other Texas prosecutors, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse, according to Ligon.

A PRISON guard at the Federal Detention Center in Center City started having sex with an inmate, then he tried to help her escape, authorities said. Lamont Lucas, 47, was charged Thursday with sexual abuse of a ward, providing contraband in a prison, and instigating or assisting an attempted escape, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Lucas worked as a tool-room supervisor at the facility during the affair from February to May 2012, the office said. Investigators also allege he gave the inmate sterling-silver studded earrings.

TRENTON - New Jersey's county jails are clogged with suspects awaiting trial who can't afford to post their often-nominal bail, according to a new report. The Drug Policy Alliance's report, obtained by the Associated Press in advance of its release Monday, shows that 4 out of every 10 county jail inmates are granted bail but can't afford to post it. The report, which analyzes the state's jail population, finds that up to 1,500 people could secure their release pending trial with $2,500 or less.

Anjeanette Maldonado, a 17-year-old aspiring artist, was sexually assaulted and strangled in 1996, her body dumped in a Kensington crackhouse. Investigators thought they'd find the killer close to home. "The answer is right there," a police inspector said, referring to her neighborhood. She lived on Mascher Street. Her body was found three blocks away on Hope Street. Sixteen years later, the answer turned up in a Florida prison. Rafael Crespo, 46, was charged Monday with murder, rape, and related offenses for Maldonado's death.

A corrections officer faces charges in the theft of $72 in cash from an inmate being processed at the Delaware County prison, the District Attorney's Office said Monday. Michael Siler, 45, of Upper Darby, a guard at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornton, was charged last week with theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, and theft by failing to make required disposition. Siler is accused of pocketing the money from an inmate who handed in the cash while being processed in October, according to the criminal complaint.