By Brandy Brubaker
The Associated Press
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The latest iPhone won’t be among the items in any West Virginia prison’s commissary. In fact, no cellphones will be there.
It is illegal for West Virginia inmates — from those in local jails to federal lockup — to possess a cellphone. That means no texting, no snapping casual photos from the prison gym and no Angry Birds.
Wardens also nix Internet access, although federal inmates have access to an email system they can use to message people who have approved the contact. But that doesn’t mean inmates don’t find ways around the warden’s rules. An inmate at FCI Morgantown will spend another three months behind bars for having a cellphone inside the Green Bag Road correctional facility.
Daniel Johnson, 21, pleaded guilty to possession of a prohibited object and was sentenced before U.S. Magistrate Judge John Kaull earlier this month, according to a press release from U.S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld.
The state Division of Corrections (DOC) seized 16 cellphones from inmates in 2011, officials said. The same year, 3,684 cellphones were confiscated in federal prisons across the country, according to news reports. Figures were not available on the number of cellphones seized at local federal correctional facilities, but, according to U.S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld’s office, nine federal inmates in West Virginia were charged with cellphone possession in 2011.
Full Story: 16 cellphones seized from W.Va. inmates last year