Nash, Torika R

Tenure Summary

Torika R. Nash has had a nearly two-decade career within the Georgia Department of Corrections, primarily in behavioral health roles. According to GPS records, Nash began as a Behavioral Health Counselor II at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison (GDCP) in 2006 and progressed through various counselor and supervisory titles at the same facility through 2024. In October 2024, Nash transitioned to a leadership position as the Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment at the Special Management Unit (SMU), Georgia’s maximum-security prison, a role she continues to hold.

During Nash’s leadership tenure at the SMU, GPS records attribute a total of four in-custody deaths to the facility. This period has coincided with intense external scrutiny of the SMU, including a federal contempt order against the GDC for violating a settlement agreement and a U.S. Department of Justice report describing conditions in Georgia prisons as inhumane.

What happened on their watch

Special Management Unit (Deputy Warden, Oct. 2024 – Present)

Four individuals died in custody at the SMU during Nash’s tenure as Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment. The deaths occurred over a compressed timeframe: Emilio Christopher Canales, 40, on October 22, 2024; Lashon Boddie, 30, on September 2, 2025; Michael Ogletree, 33, on October 31, 2025; and Antony Ramon Penick, 32, on May 30, 2026. GPS records list each death under a uniform cause category.

Nash’s posting began amidst a well-documented period of crisis at the SMU. In April 2024, just months before Nash’s promotion, U.S. District Judge Marc T. Treadwell issued a contempt order against the GDC for failing to comply with a 2019 settlement regarding SMU conditions, finding that officials had falsified and backdated prisoner review forms. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reported that the DOJ subsequently accused the GDC of obstructing federal investigators by restricting facility access and hurriedly making repairs before visits. A DOJ report released in October 2024 characterized Georgia’s prisons as places where people are “assaulted, stabbed, raped, and killed” in severely understaffed facilities.

Within the SMU, the AJC documented multiple systemic allegations that overlap with Nash’s tenure. These include reports that GDC falsified records to show a deceased inmate attended programming after his death, and that another inmate went unchecked for nearly seven hours before his body was discovered, in violation of policies requiring checks every 15 to 30 minutes. The newspaper also cited a 2022 audit by GDC’s own PREA consultants that found none of 388 investigated files met federal standards, a finding not disclosed to lawmakers.

Litigation

No lawsuits naming Nash as a defendant are recorded in GPS records.

Sources

• GPS records — personnel, position, and in-custody death data for Torika R. Nash and the Special Management Unit.
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — multiple reports on alleged falsification of records, obstruction of DOJ investigators, PREA investigation failures, and failure to conduct required welfare checks at the Special Management Unit.
• U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia — contempt order (Judge Marc T. Treadwell) against GDC for violating the 2019 SMU settlement agreement.
• U.S. Department of Justice — October 2024 report on unconstitutional conditions in Georgia prisons.

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Aug 2, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.