More than a dozen former and current inmates, corrections officers charged with criminal conspiracy (2024)

COLUMBIA — The state has charged 13 prison inmates, former inmates, corrections employees and civilians with criminal activity at various South Carolina prisons. This brings the total number of people that a state grand jury has charged in related cases since last summer to 27.

The new defendants, including four former corrections officers, are accused of having conspired to bring contraband into the state prison facilities in Clarendon, Lancaster and Lee counties. Prosecutors with the state attorney general’s office said the smuggled goods included cellphones, cigarettes and drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.

Some defendants were additionally charged with drug trafficking and money laundering, under what officials described as conspiratorial illicit activities at these prisons.

The most serious new charges have been leveled against current inmates Dexter Brown and Muhsin Sabree, former inmate Ajeron Gamble and former corrections officer Nina Goodson.

Brown is accused of conspiring with corrections officer Regina James to bring banned items into the Lee Correctional Institution and distributing them to other incarcerated people.

The charges for Brown, who has been in prison since 2011, include criminal conspiracy, inmate carrying or concealing a weapon and attempted murder. Prosecutors said that, during a prison altercation last August, Brown and other incarcerated individuals stabbed a fellow inmate multiple times. Brown is already serving a sentence with an expected release year of 2041.

James, a nursing assistant who became a corrections officer, allegedly learned Brown assaulted an inmate and did not report this to investigators. It wasn’t immediately clear whether authorities believe this assault was the stabbing. During a bond hearing at the Richland County courthouse on July 31, Circuit Judge Robert Hood ordered her detained in lieu of a $20,000 surety bond.

Prosecutors said Goodson, who had worked at the Kershaw Correctional Institution in Lancaster County, was a “key conduit for the contraband.” They said she brought goods into the correctional facility and placed them in an area where inmates could pick them up and distribute them.

She is facing multiple charges including trafficking meth, money laundering and misconduct in office. Hood issued her release conditions of a $100,000 surety bond, house arrest and GPS monitoring.

Sabree is facing charges that include meth trafficking and money laundering at Kershaw Correctional. He has been serving time since 2000 and is not expected to be released for another decade, the state inmate database shows.

Gamble, who is now out on parole, is accused of trafficking “significant quantities” of meth and marijuana to Kershaw Correctional. Prosecutors said his participation in the conspiracy ended last year, when he and Sabree had a falling out. Hood issued him a $150,000 surety bond, GPS monitoring and house arrest.

Since July 2023, 14 other people have been charged following investigations into criminal activity at various state prisons, according to information from the attorney general’s office. The previous round of charges came in November.

Bryan Stirling, director of the state corrections department, said corrections officers who participate in illegal activities should face harsher punishment because they’ve “broken a public trust.”

He said the Department of Corrections has been working on various ways to prevent corrections officers from scheming with inmates, including providing them additional training and significant raises.

“Money is no longer the excuse,” Stirling told reporters after the July 31 bond hearing in Richland County. “The people in Wall Street are making millions and stealing millions. Either you have morals or you don't.”

The other former corrections officers charged were Chiquila Adams and Victoria Singletary, of the Clarendon County correctional facility.