Georgia Prison Phone Scam Operation Worth $1M

ATLANTA, GA — A Georgia inmate has been sentenced to 12 more years in prison for running a million-dollar phone scam from behind prison walls.

Authorities say Reginald Perkins, 36, of Atlanta, and other inmates at Autry State Prison in south Georgia worked the scam using contraband cellphones smuggled into the institution.

Using websites they accessed on their phones to identify victims, the inmates would call victims and say they had failed to appear for jury duty and must pay a fine or be arrested, according to the U.S. Attorney's office in Atlanta.

Claiming to be law enforcement officers, they would give the victims the option of purchasing prepaid money cards or wiring money for the fraudulent "fines" directly to debit accounts held by the inmates.

Perkins worked with people outside the prison and laundered about $1 million from the fraud and other schemes, federal prosecutors said.

"Prisons should be the one place where we have confidence that multi-million-dollar telemarketing schemes are not being conducted," said U. S. Attorney John Horn in a news release. "Cases like this show how much needs to be done to make sure that those who are convicted and sentenced to prison are not still victimizing citizens from behind bars.

"We are working with state and federal law enforcement to eradicate the illegal use of cell phones and fraud in our Georgia state prisons, and will continue to prosecute offenders, whether they are in or out of prison."

From 2014 to 2015, officials seized more than 23,500 cellphones from inside Georgia state prisons, the U.S. Attorney's office said. Many of the seized phones possessed internet capabilities and the latest smartphone features.

According to prosecutors, Perkins' co-conspirators who were not in prison would transfer money out of accounts controlled by inmates into their own accounts, then turn around and send money back to the inmates via seemingly innocent means.

Perkins was sentenced Monday to 12 years, seven months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.

He was convicted in the case after pleading guilty in March.

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