Former Talladega Correctional Officer Sentenced to a Month in Prison for Accepting Bribe to Smuggle Phone to Inmate

BIRMINGHAM – A federal judge today sentenced a former corrections officer at the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega to one month in prison for accepting a bribe to provide a cell phone to an inmate, announced U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Special Agent in Charge Robert A. Bourbon.

STACIE MARIE GARDNER, 31, of Weaver, pleaded guilty in March to accepting $1,474 in January 2015, while she was working as a correctional officer, in exchange for smuggling a cell phone into the prison and providing it to an inmate. U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler sentenced her to the month in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Gardner also must forfeit $1,474 to the government.

DOJ OIG investigated the case, which Assistant U.S. Attorney Davis A. Barlow prosecuted.