Former corrections officer being retried on extortion
Marcus Henderson was found guilty of providing contraband in prison last year.
By Mike Sigov / The Blade
Thu, 23 Jan 2020 01:08:48 GMT
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Editor’s note: This story was corrected to indicate that Mr. Henderson was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of providing contraband in prison.
A former Lucas County corrections officer appeared Wednesday before a jury in U.S. District Court in Toledo for retrial on a charge of extortion.
Marcus Henderson’s retrial on the felony charge was ordered Sept. 13, when he was found guilty on a misdemeanor charge of providing contraband in prison.
Mr. Henderson, 32 at the time, and two other former county corrections officers were arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service in August, 2018, on federal charges alleging they smuggled contraband to inmates at the county jail. All three had previously resigned.
Lucas County Sheriff John Tharp has told The Blade his office launched an investigation into the alleged contraband smuggling and then asked the FBI to assist.
Mr. Henderson’s federal indictments that ensued and the guilty verdict on the contraband charge stem from a June, 2016 incident, in which he allegedly took bribes to provide a cellular phone and tobacco to inmates.
He worked for the sheriff’s office from August, 2013, until July, 2016.
On Wednesday, Mr. Henderson’s defense attorney Mark Geudtner said what his client had done “was wrong,” but “did not fit with the description” of Hobbs Act extortion — the charge on which Henderson is being retried.
The Hobbs Act prohibits actual or attempted robbery or extortion affecting interstate or foreign commerce “in any way or degree,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice Archives official website.
“When you’ve seen all the evidence in this case... I expect you to find that [Henderson] did not [commit the offense] because there was no extortion and because it was not an official act,” Mr. Geudtner said, addressing the jury in his open statement. “This incident was orchestrated [by the FBI] to set up a corrections officer, who fell for it hook, line, and sinker... A verdict of ‘not guilty’ would be proper.”
Mr. Geudtner spoke after assistant U.S. attorney Mike Freeman showed the jurors excerpts from the FBI’s phone-call and text-message intercepts and video surveillance footage, which, he said in his opening statement, featured Henderson and the wife of a jail inmate discussing or handling contraband and Henderson’s payments for such.
Mr. Freeman also said at the trial Wednesday that the FBI acted “proactively” after an inmate was found with a cell phone in the spring of 2016 and agreed to cooperate with the authorities, as did his wife.
The other two arrested in August, 2018, were Matthew Wiegand, 39 at the time, and Robert Hobson, who was 31.
In November, 2015, Hobson, who was hired in March, 2015, and resigned in January, 2016, allegedly accepted bribes in return for providing synthetic marijuana and tobacco to inmates. Hobson pleaded guilty to two counts of extortion and was placed on probation for a year for each count in April.
Mr. Wiegand was indicted on a misdemeanor charge of providing contraband in prison for allegedly giving tobacco to an inmate in May, 2017. He had worked for the sheriff’s office for nearly 10 years before resigning in May, 2017.
He pleaded guilty and received two years of probation in December, 2018.
Henderson’s retrial is to continue Thursday before Judge Jack Zouhary. Mr. Freeman has told the court the extortion charge carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison.