Beasley, Jacob

Tenure Summary

Jacob Beasley entered the Georgia Department of Corrections in 2007 as a correctional officer at Rogers State Prison, moving through sergeant there (2009), then lieutenant (2012) and unit manager (2014) at Telfair State Prison. He was a CSM sergeant at Telfair in 2016 and a CSM lieutenant at Valdosta in 2017, then moved into facility leadership: Deputy Warden at Hays State Prison (2018), Deputy Warden at Telfair (2019–2021), Deputy Warden at Valdosta (2022), Warden 3 at Smith State Prison (2023–2024), and — beginning January 2025 — Warden 3 at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison (GDCP), where GPS records list him as Warden from July 16, 2025 to the present.

Per GPS records, 42 deaths are attributed to facilities during his leadership-tier tenures: 15 at GDCP, 14 at Telfair, 7 at Valdosta, and 6 at Smith. GPS's court-records index also lists him as a named defendant in eight federal dockets filed between 2021 and 2025; none carries a recorded settlement or judgment amount, and the input contains no allegation that Beasley himself committed a homicide or denied care.

What happened on their watch

Telfair State Prison — Deputy Warden, 2019–2021 (earlier tours as lieutenant 2012, unit manager 2014, CSM sergeant 2016). All 14 attributed Telfair deaths fall between March 2020 and August 2021. Five are coded homicide: Aldrich Cain, 26 (multiple stab wounds, per a Telfair County coroner certificate and the AJC); Cedric Johnson, 35 (strangulation, same sources); Marcus Pearson, 28; Louis Garcia-Palacio, 41 (blunt impact injuries to the head); and Juan Carlos Arguello-Revelles, 37 (stabbing) — the last three per the AJC's Georgia prison homicides investigation. Most of the remainder are coded natural, several drawn from GDC's own coding obtained by the UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project. William Lumpkin, 74, is coded Medical Neglect: the coroner certified sepsis and acute pancreatitis as natural, while a GPS source reported that chest-pain complaints went unevaluated by medical staff; GPS retains the medical-neglect classification. GPS's records also index to Telfair the 13WMAZ-reported $3.2 million state settlement over Juan Carlos Ramirez Bibiano, an inmate allegedly left in a fenced box in the prison yard while an officer reportedly said "if he dies, he dies." The input does not give the date of Bibiano's death, so it is not tied here to a specific tenure.

Valdosta State Prison — Deputy Warden, 2022 (CSM lieutenant there in 2017). Seven deaths, ages 27 to 42. Two are coded homicide per the AJC investigation: Dexter Burnett, 35 (stab wound to torso) and Hakeem Williams, 27 (stab wound to chest). GPS event records state Williams was handcuffed when an officer locked him in a cell with an unsearched cellmate, Jonathan Bivens, later convicted of murder; the lawsuit over that death was filed against former officer Angela Butler, not Beasley, and a federal judge sanctioned GDC for destroying video footage in bad faith.

Smith State Prison — Warden 3, 2023–2024. Six deaths, ages 31 to 43. Donquerius Mahone, 37, is coded homicide per the AJC. Richard Williams, 43, carried conflicting cause records until a GBI Medical Examiner file (DOFS 2024-6005477) obtained on open records was applied to the record on 2026-09-02 listing toxic effects of MDMB-4en-PINACA, manner accident. The AJC described Smith as among the state's most understaffed and violent facilities, with roughly two-thirds of officer positions unfilled. A former Smith warden, Brian Adams, was indicted May 12, 2026 by a Tattnall County grand jury on six felony counts including RICO — an allegation against a predecessor, not Beasley.

Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison — Warden 3 (Jan.–Jul. 15, 2025), then Warden. 15 deaths, ages 19 to 76. Christopher Lee, 19, was initially coded suicide; a GBI Medical Examiner report (ME-26-10348) certified "probable cardiac dysrhythmia," manner natural. A prisoner account that Lee was found dead in a stripped H-house cell with staff attributing death to cold/exposure is retained in GPS records and is not resolved by the autopsy. Mark Rutledge, 72, is coded homicide; a user report states he was beaten at GDCP on Father's Day, and GDC confirmed the death on its June 2026 mortality report (date discrepancy: June 26 vs. June 27), with the Office of Professional Standards investigating. Novice Langston, 60, was found dead in J-House per a prisoner report; Charles Coppeak, 26, died after a reported seizure. The state scheduled the execution of Stacey Humphreys at GDCP for Sept. 16, 2026, and Deivon Waller was sentenced Sept. 11, 2026 to 240 months in a DOJ drone-contraband prosecution involving drops into multiple prisons, per WGXA.

Litigation

Per court records, Beasley is listed as a defendant in:

• Grier v. Jacob Beasley, No. 1:25-cv-00074 (N.D. Ga., filed Jan. 7, 2025) — pending.
• Hamilton v. Beasley, No. 6:25-cv-00057 (S.D. Ga., filed July 22, 2025) — pending.
• Miller v. Holt, No. 5:25-cv-00356 (M.D. Ga., filed Aug. 25, 2025) — pending.
• Humphreys v. Oliver, No. 1:25-cv-06100 (N.D. Ga., filed Oct. 24, 2025; terminated Dec. 10, 2025).
• Humphreys v. Oliver, No. 1:25-cv-07012 (N.D. Ga., filed Dec. 9, 2025; terminated Jan. 15, 2026).
• Daker v. Oliver Filing Restriction Per 59 Order, No. 1:25-cv-03191 (N.D. Ga., filed June 6, 2025; terminated Mar. 30, 2026).
• Jackson v. Beasley, No. 4:23-cv-00198 (M.D. Ga., filed Dec. 8, 2023; terminated Jan. 8, 2024).
• Pak v. Sprayberry, No. 4:21-cv-00113 (N.D. Ga., filed June 15, 2021; terminated Mar. 4, 2022).

No outcome amounts are recorded for any of these dockets.

Sources

• GPS personnel and court-records index (CourtListener federal dockets, as listed above)
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Georgia prison homicides investigation (Telfair, Valdosta, Smith deaths); Smith State Prison understaffing/contraband coverage; Operation Skyhawk contraband arrests at Valdosta
• Telfair County Coroner certificates (records produced on open-records request)
• GBI Medical Examiner files — DOFS 2024-6005477 (Richard Williams); ME-26-10348 / DOFS 2026-1003166 (Christopher Lee)
• GDC June 2026 monthly mortality report (confirmation of the Mark Rutledge death)
• UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project custodial mortality dataset (GDC's own cause coding, 2015–2021)
• 13WMAZ — Ramirez Bibiano settlement report
• WGXA / U.S. Department of Justice — drone contraband sentencing
• WTOC, WRDW, The Georgia Virtue — Valdosta, Smith and GDCP facility reporting

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Sep 13, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.