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Reynolds, Shavari
Status: active
Profile written August 2, 2026
Salary
$69,835
2025 · state payroll
This profile reflects positional accountability — this individual held the leadership roles shown during the dates shown, during which the listed deaths or lawsuits occurred. Inclusion does not constitute a legal finding of personal culpability for any specific incident.
Tenure Summary
Shavari Reynolds’ career with the Georgia Department of Corrections began in 2013 as a correctional officer at Burruss Correctional Training Center, progressing through community supervision and behavioral health counselor roles before ascending to a unit manager position at the Special Management Unit (SMU) in 2025. In April 2026, Reynolds was appointed Deputy Warden of Security at SMU, the state’s maximum-security prison. GPS records attribute one death to Reynolds’ leadership tenures — a 32-year-old man, Antony Ramon Penick, who died while Reynolds was serving as the facility’s deputy warden of security. Reynolds’ time at SMU coincided with a period of extraordinary outside scrutiny: a federal judge had held the GDC in contempt for violating a 2019 settlement over conditions at the unit, the U.S. Department of Justice had issued a scathing report describing systemic violence and understaffing, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was publishing detailed accounts of falsified records, obstructed investigations, and deaths that followed lapses in required security checks.What happened on their watch
Unit Manager, Special Management Unit (2025)
During Reynolds’ tenure as a unit manager at SMU, no deaths are attributed to the facility. However, the unit was already operating under the cloud of the 2019 class-action settlement, which required sweeping changes to solitary-confinement practices. In April 2024 — the year prior — U.S. District Judge Marc T. Treadwell issued a contempt order finding that GDC officials had falsified and backdated prisoner review forms, stalled compliance, and made false statements about the unit’s operations. The AJC later reported that prison records showed a deceased inmate, Ricardo Daughtry, as having attended activities after he was pronounced dead, and that Daughtry went unchecked for nearly seven hours before his body was discovered, in violation of a policy requiring checks every 30 minutes.Deputy Warden of Security, Special Management Unit (2026–present)
On May 30, 2026, 32-year-old Antony Ramon Penick died while Reynolds was serving as Deputy Warden of Security. GPS records list the cause category as 6; no additional notes are available. The death occurred less than two months after Reynolds assumed the post, at a facility that the AJC had described as the subject of a “blistering contempt order” and a DOJ finding that people were being “assaulted, stabbed, raped, and killed” in Georgia’s prisons. According to the AJC, GDC officials had repeatedly presented false or misleading information to investigators and lawmakers, restricted access to prisons, and hurriedly repaired buildings before federal visits. The paper also reported that, as late as May 2026, GDC agencies continued to obstruct scrutiny and that internal investigations into prisoner rape allegations were routinely found defective. These systemic failures form the backdrop against which Penick’s death was recorded, though no specific allegation ties Reynolds directly to the circumstances of the death. Another high-profile incident — inmate Arthur Lee Cofield Jr.’s use of a contraband cellphone to steal $11 million from inside SMU — came to a head when the phone was discovered by the warden in January 2026, shortly before Reynolds’ deputy warden appointment. The AJC noted that Cofield’s ability to acquire and use contraband phones inside the state’s top-security prison underscored persistent security challenges at the facility.Sources
- GPS records — death of Antony Ramon Penick, career positions, and tenure dates
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution — multiple reports on SMU falsified records, contempt order, DOJ investigation, Cofield contraband phone scheme, and systemic abuses in Georgia prisons
- U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia — contempt order (Judge Marc T. Treadwell, April 2024) and 2019 settlement in Gumm v. Georgia Department of Corrections
- U.S. Department of Justice — October 2024 report on inhumane conditions in Georgia prisons
Positions Held
| Title | Facility | Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| Deputy Warden of Security | SPECIAL MANAGEMENT UNIT | 2026-04-16 → present |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL UNIT MANAGER | SPECIAL MANAGEMENT UNIT | 2025-01-01 → present |
| BEHAVIORAL HLTH COUNSELOR 3 | SPECIAL MANAGEMENT UNIT | 2024-01-01 → 2024-12-31 |
| BEHAVIORAL HLTH COUNSELOR 3 | 2022-01-01 → 2023-12-31 | |
| BEHAVIORAL HLTH COUNSELOR 2 | SPECIAL MANAGEMENT UNIT | 2021-01-01 → 2021-12-31 |
| BEHAVIORAL HLTH COUNSELOR 1 | 2020-01-01 → 2020-12-31 | |
| COMMUNITY SUPERVISION OFC 2 | BURRUSS C.T.C | 2019-01-01 → 2019-12-31 |
| COMMUNITY SUPERVISION OFC 2 | 2018-01-01 → 2018-12-31 | |
| COMMUNITY SUPERVISION OFC 1 | 2017-01-01 → 2017-12-31 | |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL OFFICER 2 | BURRUSS C.T.C | 2016-01-01 → 2017-12-31 |
| CORRECTIONS OFFICER(WL) | BURRUSS C.T.C | 2015-01-01 → 2015-12-31 |
| Correctional Officer | BURRUSS C.T.C | 2013-01-01 → 2013-12-31 |
Deaths attributed during tenure
1 people died at facilities under Reynolds, Shavari's leadership.
| Date | Decedent | Age | Facility | Role at time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-05-30 | ANTONY RAMON PENICK | 32 | SPECIAL MANAGEMENT UNIT | Deputy Warden of Security |
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