A notorious prisoner got four female guards pregnant as he played “kingpin” inside a corrupt jail, a court has heard
Gangster Tavon White was serving 20 years for attempted murder inside Baltimore City Detention Centre.
But he managed to make tens of thousands of dollars a week by smuggling in drugs and mobile phones, CBS Baltimore reports, and was once heard saying: “This is my jail. My word is law.”
Prosecutors
say gang members held the balance of power inside the prison, and sex
between guards and inmates led to four guards becoming pregnant.
The two of
the four women are even said to have had tattoos of White’s name, with
one displaying a “Tavon” tattoo on her neck and the other on her wrist.
However
White, a member of the Black Guerilla Family who is also known as “The
Bulldog”, is now set to become a star witness in the prosecution of two
other inmates and five prison guards over money laundering, drugs and
conspiracy charges.
White has already pleaded guilty to a number of drug distribution and money laundering charges.
THEY call him Bulldog, and this is his jail.
Tavon
White is serving 20 years in the Baltimore City Detention Centre for
attempted murder. During his incarceration, he has impregnated four
female prison guards and ascended as kingpin of a breathtaking world of
corruption.
He is the
leader of the Black Guerilla Family — a gang that worked with guards to
smuggle drugs and mobile phone into the Baltimore jail and others around
the country.
He is also
the prosecution’s star witness in a federal case against dozens of
inmates and correctional officers involved in the “upside-down world …
where officers took directions from gang members”.
Bulldog: ‘This is my prison’
Inside the
Baltimore City Detention Center, gang members used smuggled mobile
phones, dealt drugs and had sex with corrupt guards — several of whom
they impregnated — who helped them as they ran operations of the Black
Guerilla Family, according to court papers in a case alleging widespread
corruption at the state-run facility.
“This is
my jail, you understand that,” Tavon “Bulldog” White told a friend in a
January 2013 call, according to the documents. “I make every final call
in this jail … everything come to me.”
“Whatever I
say is law,” White, a member of the gang that took root in Baltimore’s
jails in the 1990s, proclaimed in a call a month later. “Like I am the
law.”
Black
Guerilla Family members worked with guards to smuggle drugs and phones —
crucial for the gang to conduct business on the outside — into the jail
and other correctional facilities, according to a 2013 federal
indictment charging White, 16 other inmates and 27 correctional officers
with conspiracy, drug distribution or money laundering charges.
Prosecutors also say the ring involved sex between inmates and guards, which led to four officers becoming pregnant.
Nearly all
of those charged, including White, accepted plea deals. Trial for two
inmates, five correctional officers and another state employee is under
way.
In opening
statements, prosecutor Robert Harding painted a portrait of a jail
plagued with corruption at the hands of guards. Four of the five
officers on trial, he said, engaged in sexual relationships with gang
members and allowed the enterprise to operate inside the jail with
impunity.
“There was
no raising of the BGF flag on the guard tower, but a gradual assumption
of an incredible amount of power by the prison gang inside the prison,”
Harding said. “They operated an underground economy in the prison for
years. How is this possible? … People who were supposed to be protecting
the public interest but instead opted to form an alliance with an
exceedingly violent gang.”
Defence attorneys insisted that their clients’ actions did not further the interests of the enterprise.
Prisoners gain the upper hand
The case
reveals details about how inmates controlled the very guards tasked with
supervising them and provides a glimpse into the strategies of the
Black Guerilla Family’s operations on the streets and behind bars. The
case also sparked fierce backlash and harsh criticism, leading the
Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to resign.
Since the
indictment, the Public Safety Department has increased personnel in its
intelligence and investigations unit and is developing a polygraph unit
that can test guard candidates, spokesman Mark Vernarelli said.
The
department invested $US4 million in technology to block calls on
unauthorised mobile phones. The facility is searched at least once a
week, he said.
Several
laws were passed this year to try to strengthen security and ensure
oversight. One enables the state to remove officers from an institution
without pay for bringing a mobile phone or charger into a facility, in
addition to drugs and alcohol. Another raises fines for visitors who
smuggle electronics to inmates and increases jail time for inmates
caught with contraband.
While the
most recent scandal made national headlines, it is not the first time
authorities have tried to dismantle Black Guerilla Family’s stronghold
in Baltimore’s jails.
Founded in
San Francisco in the 1960s, Black Guerilla Family began taking root in
Maryland in the 1990s, investigators say. In 2008, BGF became the
dominant gang at the jail, where members established a monopoly over the
drug trade.
The next
year, a federal investigation produced 24 indictments against BGF
members and associates in Baltimore. Four were state corrections
officers.
The
blasts came after a bomb attack was foiled against a mosque in the
northeastern city of Maiduguri earlier on Friday, five days after two
female suicide bombers killed over 45 people in the city.
