Federal agents say a prisoner from Georgia may have planned the theft from a gold store in North Carolina.
According to the criminal charge, Deuntria Lyons talked to the thieves and helped them find their way before the theft.
Lyons is in prison for six life terms for the same crime he committed more than ten years ago.
Chris Timmons, a former prosecutor, told Channel 2’s Michael Doudna, “The level of sophistication here is different from what we usually see in the state of Georgia.”
A police report says that a suspect looked around the North Carolina store a few weeks before the theft.
This person then posted videos of the plan to an Instagram account that police later found to belong to Lyons. In messages between the suspect and Lyons, they planned to steal more than one thing.
“The prison system in Georgia needs to do something to stop this guy from getting cell phones. Quite frankly, this is embarrassing for the prison system in Georgia,” Timmons said.
A request for comment was sent to Georgia’s Department of Corrections, but they did not reply.
In 2012, Deuntria Lyons was serving a 20-year prison sentence for armed robbery, but police say he was still the planner behind a number of crimes.
It was almost hard to believe that someone who was serving time for armed robbery was planning other armed thefts, Sgt. John Wilbanks told Channel 2 Action News at the time.
They said Lyons kept committing crimes because prepaid cell phones are easy to get in jail.
Detective David Brucz said, “He texted them times and places where he wanted them to be and what he wanted them to do.”
Thieves forced people to the ground inside Barrons Fine Jewelry in Snellville in February 2011 during the first theft.
A month later, someone broke the cases with tools and attacked people at Tara Fine Jewelry in Buford.
Investigators say Lyons set up for the stolen goods to be pawned and fenced. They said Lyons was wearing a cellphone watch when they asked him about it.
Because of the crimes, Lyons got six life terms.
Timmons said, “Someone like this, who is serving multiple life sentences, doesn’t really have a reason to behave on the inside.”
He said that cell phones being brought into jails illegally is not a new problem.
He said that at the moment, the benefits of sneaking the illegal phone are often greater than the risks that people think they face.
Timmons says that federal officers are involved in the case in North Carolina, and he says that a federal complaint could get him sent to a prison with more strict rules.
He said, “Maybe something like Supermax in Colorado would stop this guy from doing what he is doing.”