According to a Justice Department announcement, inmate Shawn Brown at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility received a 30-month federal sentence for bribing a state corrections officer to get some luxury contraband inside the prison walls. The contraband was a bejeweled dental "grill" worth $30,000. Not stopping at flashy dentistry, Brown will also serve an additional 48 months for defrauding California's Employment Development Department out of $550,000 in COVID-19 relief funds.
In a scheme that began unfolding in October 2020, Brown used a smuggled cell phone to arrange the grill's creation and delivery. Corrections officer Benito Jamar Hugie admitted to being Brown's inside man, smuggling the sparkly dental wear into the facility. Sentenced last month to two years in prison, Hugie is out on bond and scheduled to surrender by May 6 while wearing the uniform of a corrections officer. Despite Brown's protests that the expensive mouthpiece was glued to his teeth, the government supplied proof, via jail surveillance video, that it's quite removable.
But Brown's decadence had a darker side—the inquiry into his flashy dental piece uncovered a concurrent COVID-19 fraud scheme. "Diamonds are not always your friend," U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath said in the press release, highlighting the significant consequences of Brown's actions. Using his illicit phone, Brown coordinated a theft of pandemic unemployment benefits that resulted in over $695,000 pocketed by him and his accomplices—money meant to help Californians struggling in the pandemic.
Brown, already serving time for first-degree murder, will see his new federal sentences run consecutively to his current stint. Judge Bencivengo, overseeing the hearing, has clarified that the additional time Brown faces is piled on top of the prison time he was already serving. "Those who abuse their positions of trust and those who corrupt the same will be held accountable," said FBI San Diego Acting Special Agent in Charge John Kim via the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of California news report.
The FBI and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation coordinated the investigation into these crimes.
