January 2004

Texas inmates scheme $8,000 from 400 false subscriptions

The FBI and Texas Department of Criminal Justice are investigating a scheme by three inmates that defrauded more than 400 newspapers and magazines out of at least $8,000.

TDCJ is contacting newspapers that were affected and is seeking assistance from publications that may have been unknowingly bilked by the scam.

“The more information we have the better our case when we go to a federal grand jury,” spokesman Mike Viesca said.

Federal investigators joined the case because the U.S. Postal Service was used for mail fraud, he said.

More than 400 publications nationwide and some international were targeted by the scam in which the inmates sent letters claiming that they had paid for a subscription but never received any issues. The inmates included a tracking receipt for a money order that they had supposedly sent and claimed the publication had cashed. The inmates then were able to garner refund checks for the fake subscriptions.

TDCJ Offender Mail Rules
Newspapers, magazines, and books may be mailed directly to offenders only by the publisher, publication supplier or bookstore; subject to review and rejection in accordance with the correspondence rules.
TDCJ policies strictly prohibit inmates from e-mail and Internet access.
Letters sent to offenders should include the offender’s name, TDCJ number, and unit/facility address on the envelope. All mail addressed to offenders must be received through authorized channels.

Education
The Windham School District, the prison system’s school district that operates all of TDCJ’s educational components, purchases newspaper and magazine subscriptions that are then available in the units’ educational centers where inmates can go during their library time to read. Inmates also can purchase their own subscriptions.

Some of the publications caught in the scheme include the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Times and The Miami Herald.

TDCJ learned of the scam after the Boston Globe, which had been contacted by the inmates, notified the agency, Viesca said.

The inmates obtained the names of publications from a national media directory that they also received without payment using the same scheme, Viesca said.

Most outgoing prison inmate mail is stamped as originating from a Texas prison, but the inmates bypassed that system by sending their letters inside a second envelope addressed to postal

officials and explaining that they were having trouble getting their mail sent.

Mail addressed to inmates must have the offender’s name, TDCJ number and unit/facility address on the envelope but the inmates running the scam listed their ID numbers as special post office boxes, investigators said.

Investigators identified the inmates as William Denton Woods, 33, serving a 55-year sentence for a Polk County robbery and two burglaries; Jerry Dale Walker, 38, serving 60 years for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon in Gregg County; and Leighton Ray Smith, 31, serving a 15-year sentence for a Houston armed robbery. Woods and Walker are at the Robertson Prison Unit in Abilene and Smith is at the Lewis Unit in Woodville.