Hinds Sheriff: I'm not to blame for murderer staying home

Hinds County Sheriff Tyrone Lewis says a convicted murderer stayed away overnight from the Hinds County Detention Center because the state Department of Corrections had wrongly approved him for a work program that included a 72-hour pass.

Mississippi law bars violent inmates from the Joint State County Work Programs.

Corrections officials responded Friday that convicted murderer Jerry Mack was not a part of the program, but a jail support worker requested by Lewis' predecessor in 2008.

Lewis shared an old copy from the state Department of Corrections website, listing the unit where Mack was being held as the "Hinds County State Work Program."

On Wednesday, corrections officials found Mack, a 49-year-old state inmate changing out of regular clothing into green-and-white-striped prison clothing.

"In a weekly timeframe, I normally run by my house twice a week. I try to sleep at my house twice a month," Mack was quoted as telling investigators. "When I was away from the HSO (Hinds sheriff's office) Farm, the dispatcher at the HSO Farm would call my cell phone and tell me where to go. To my knowledge everyone at the HSO Farm was aware that I had a cell phone."

Mack also alleged he stored his horse at the farm and was paid cash to work on officers' cars, bail hay, clean houses, split wood, gather eggs at locations off prison grounds and do other errands in a county vehicle.

When corrections officials stopped him Wednesday, they found $435 in his pocket, a cell phone and a valid driver's license.

Lewis said his office has "no proof of those allegations. We stand ready to participate in any investigation and to deal with the findings of investigation."

If there is proof of such allegations, "we are prepared to deal with it accordingly," he said. "At this time, all we have is allegations."

On Tuesday, a Justice Department report on the detention center described the center's facilities as "in crisis."

The report states that in the past three years, at least three major riots occurred, resulting in one prisoner's death and the closing of entire housing units. The Justice Department also documented rampant prisoner-on-prisoner violence, including an additional prisoner-on-prisoner homicide and a remarkable volume of contraband.

"We find that the county violates the constitutional rights of prisoners by failing to protect prisoners from serious physical harm caused by other prisoners and by exposing prisoners to an unreasonable risk of harm from the inappropriate use of force by untrained and poorly supervised staff members," the report says.

Lewis said the report is pointing out problems that he has pointed out since 2012.

Corrections officials cited the report in pulling 41 inmates from the Joint State County Work Programs.

On Friday, Lewis pointed to the Justice Department report as proof these allegations don't apply to the work center.

The report reads: "We did not specifically review conditions at the Work Release Center, because it is a distinct and separate … operation."

Contact Jerry Mitchell at jmitchell@jackson.gannett.com or (601) 961-7064. Follow @jmitchellnews on Twitter.