GLENVILLE, Ga. — A Georgia corrections officer was allegedly caught smuggling almost $30,000 into a Georgia prison to an inmate she was romantically involved with.
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the cash was funneled inside Smith State Prison in Glenville so a prison crime ring could bribe prison guards.
Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne talked with GBI Director Vic Reynolds about the new indictment.
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“I’m not talking about $100 or $500. I’m taking about $29,000 that they brought into the state prison system,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds said that thankfully, the money was intercepted.
Reynolds said Ireon Moore has been indicted for furnishing prohibited items to inmates and violation of oath. Reynolds said the oath was for her job as a corrections officer, a job she was fired from in April of 2021.
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Also charged in the June 28 indictment is Deivon Waller, the alleged vice president of a criminal ring inside the prison called the Yves Saint Laurent Squad. The GBI said Moore and Waller had a romantic relationship while he was an inmate and she was an officer.
Waller had been convicted of several offenses in Fulton County.
Waller faces charges of unauthorized possession of a weapon by an inmate, two counts of possession of prohibited items by an inmate, meth possession and more.
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“We’ve got to stop this,” Reynolds said of the corruption in the prison. “We’ve got to make it end soon.”
Reynolds pointed out another indictment returned in April that charges four people with the murder of an 88-year-old pillar of the community, Bobby Kicklighter. He was murdered when a hitman went to the wrong house in Glenville, intending to kill an honest corrections officer.
“We had a good officer at the department of corrections who could not be bought or intimidated,” Reynolds said.
The murder investigation led the GBI and corrections investigators to a web of corruption surrounding the prison contraband trade at Smith. The number of officers involved has not been determined.
“The Department of Corrections is working with us,” Reynolds said. ”They stand side by side in this investigation, and together, I believe we’ll find where it goes, how high it goes. I don’t know. But we’ll ultimately find that out.”
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