Drug-dealing Convict Gets 8 More Years

By KURTIS RATTAY

Manhattan Judge Ellen Biben sentenced inmate Tommy Davis to eight years in state prison and five years of probation on Thursday for his role in a conspiracy to smuggle drugs, cellphones and tools into the Manhattan Detention Complex with the help of relatives and a correctional officer.

Wearing the standard tan jumpsuit, tight-fitted brown kufi CAP and handcuffs, Davis seemed unfazed by the eight-year sentence. In addition to the sentence, he received a concurrent three-and-a-half years for promoting prison contraband.

Davis, correction officer Patricia Howard, Davis’s sister Velver Jean Davis and niece Khalilah Mattocks conspired to smuggle cocaine, marijuana, lighters, pliers and tobacco into the Lower Manhattan facility, said the DA’s office.

Davis—who was jailed for attempted murder—would fill requests for contraband from fellow inmates, said Manhattan DA Cyrus R. Vance, Jr..

“Officer Howard, who maintained unfettered access throughout the facility, would then smuggle the goods inside to Tommy Davis for distribution into the MDC,” Vance said. “The inmates on the inside would collect their drugs and contraband often at several times their street value. While one buys a packet of cigarettes for $12 today on the street, it would cost $100 in the facility.”

The arrest and indictments were the result of a months-long investigation by the Manhattan DA’s  Public Corruption Unit and the Department of Investigation.

This criminal indictment “further demonstrates the very real dangers created when corrupt correction officers join league with the inmates they are guarding,” said DOI Commissioner Mark Peters. “The correction officers who choose to engage in this illegal conduct are a driving force in sophisticated, underground contraband rings, and they compromise the safety of their colleagues and the jail system.”

Posing as Davis’s associate, an undercover investigator requested a package containing contraband including cellphones be delivered to the detention facility. The investigator used the Find-My-iPhone feature to track the package from Mattocks to Howard to the jail where Howard was arrested. The investigation also used court-authorized wiretaps.

Howard—who had nearly 20 years of experience in corrections—was arrested with a red shopping bag holding nine grams of cocaine, three ounces of marijuana, four cellphones and other illegal contraband. She received a fee of $500 to $1,000 for every delivery of contraband, said prosecutors.

Following the investigation, sweeps of the Manhattan Detention Complex turned up 25 grams of marijuana, a scale, a cellphone hidden in a light fixture and a rope made of 64 bedsheets. Three other prisoners were charged with contraband possession. Patricia Howard’s badge and $800. It is from a DA’s press conference announcing the smuggling charges on 6-18-15.

Photo shows Howard’s badge and $800.