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Guard and Four Summit Food Service Employees Arrested for Smuggling at Troubled Atlanta Jail

Loaded on March 1, 2024 published in Prison Legal News March, 2024, page 36
Filed under: Contractor Misconduct, Guard Misconduct, Jail Misconduct. Locations: Georgia, South Georgia and SouthSandwich Islands, Georgia.

A former guard at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta and four employees of its food service contractor, Summit Food Services (SFS), are among a half-dozen people accused of running a smuggling ring at the lockup.

Two were arrested on January 19, 2024. One of them, former guard Tiffany Davis, allegedly began an affair with former detainee Vanlen Preston before he bonded out of the lockup in September 2023. Preston was the other person arrested that day and the sixth defendant charged in the case.

The others are SFS Assistant Director Sequoyah Anderson, who was arrested on January 5, 2024, and Warehouse Supervisor and Driver Richard Smith, who was arrested the day before. Two more SFS workers, Tiffany Anderson and Nicole Sheats, were also arrested on January 4 and 9, 2024, respectively.

A drone, a stolen firearm, marijuana and $4,500 in cash were found at Davis’ Atlanta home when she was arrested. Preston was also found there living with her. Sheriff Pat Labat said an investigation began in December 2023, when jailers found a carton of contraband cigarettes headed to an unnamed detainee on his food tray. That led them to “a network of bad actors with ill-intentions,” Labat said. Davis was fired from the jail where she had worked a year.

Preston was one of five jail detainees accused of stabbing a sixth on February 7, 2023. Frank Hubbert, Jaquan Fields, Jermaine Carter and Julian Shipman were also charged in that attack on fellow detainee Qwayshawn Green, 26, along with former jail guard Gloria Franklin, 30. The 10-minute-long assault was caught on surveillance video, which also captured Franklin’s efforts to cover it up by wiping down blood that Green spilled. It was unclear what the status was of charges against Preston in that attack.

South Dakota-based SFS took over food service at the jail from rival Aramark in April 2023. The Fulton County jail is the subject of a federal Department of Justice Investigation triggered by a recent wave of detainee deaths, as PLN has reported. [See: PLN, Feb. 2024, p.12.”  

 

Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WSB

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