KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City man was sentenced in federal court for his role in a conspiracy to smuggle contraband cellphones and other items to inmates at the Jackson County Detention Center.
Marion Lorenzo Byers, also known as “Cuddy,” 36, was sentenced to two years and three months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered the federal sentence be served consecutively to whatever sentence may be imposed in state court as a result of Byers violating his probation for a DUI conviction in Buchanan County, according to a news release from the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.
Byers pleaded guilty in December 2017; he admitted he conspired with others, including a corrections officer and an inmate, to smuggle contraband to inmates between May 2 and June 26, 2017. The news release said Byers also admitted that he delivered contraband to a co-conspirator, who then delivered the contraband to a corrections officer at the jail, who was to deliver the contraband to an inmate.
Co-defendants Jalee Fuller, a former corrections officer, Carlos Hugely, an inmate at the jail, and Janikkia Carter have all pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
The news release said in a separate but related case, another former corrections officer at the jail, Andre Lamonte Dickerson, pleaded guilty to two counts of using a telephone in furtherance of the unlawful activity of acceding to corruption, related to a public servant taking a bribe in return for violating his legal duty. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for August 2018.
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