Cayuga County District Attorney Jon Budelmann says that a Cayuga County jury convicted Jaquan Cobb, an inmate, for first-degree promoting prison contraband, a Class “D” felony punishable by up to seven additional years in prison.
Cobb was found guilty of possessing a weapon on August 9th, 2015 while incarcerated at Auburn Correctional Facility for his violent felony conviction of first-degree assault.
Cobb’s conviction involved the defendant taking a hammer out of his back pack, using it to break a man’s arm, and then beating the man in the head, crushing his skull.
On August 9th 2015, two corrections officers were releasing inmates from their cells for dinner. One Officer spotted the Cobb suspiciously putting something in the prison uniform pants pocket.
Upon a pat down frisking a weapon was recovered, which was made from a sharpened piece of broken plexi-glass mirror, with a handle made out of cloth wrapped tightly around the blunt end.
Corrections Lt. Vasile testified that inmates use such weapons to assault, mark, seriously injure, or kill other inmates.
There were approximately 85 inmate-on-inmate assaults with a weapon reported at Auburn Correctional Facility in 2016 alone.
The majority of these inmate fights happen in areas where a large number of inmates are congregated together, like the recreation yards and mess halls, which is exactly where this defendant was heading when caught with the weapon.
In recorded prison calls, the defendant was not only heard admitting to getting “caught with a shank,” but was also overheard asking his sister to manufacture evidence against the officer who recovered that weapon.
After being charged with the weapon, this defendant filed a series of changing, retaliatory claims against this Corrections Officer, which were determined to be unfounded.
