Wiley, Flemister E

Tenure Summary

Flemister E. Wiley spent nearly a decade with the Georgia Department of Corrections as a Public Safety Trainer (2015–2023) before moving into a facility-deputy leadership role. Beginning in 2024, GPS records show Wiley serving as Deputy Warden at the Special Management Unit (SMU) — Georgia's supermax prison in Jackson — a posting he held through at least 2025. During that tenure, four deaths occurred at the SMU while Wiley held the Deputy Warden role. The facility was simultaneously under active federal contempt proceedings tied to a 2019 settlement agreement, with a federal judge finding in April 2024 that GDC had falsified and backdated records related to SMU conditions.

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What Happened on Their Watch

Special Management Unit — Deputy Warden (2024–2025)

GPS records attribute four deaths at the SMU during Wiley's tenure as Deputy Warden. Ricardo Castavio Daughtry, 41, died June 10, 2024; Emilio Christopher Canales, 40, died October 22, 2024; Lashion Boddie, 30, died September 2, 2025; and Michael Ogletree, 33, died October 31, 2025. All four deaths carry cause category 6 in GPS records; no additional notes are recorded for any of them. Daughtry was the lead plaintiff in the long-running SMU class-action lawsuit. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, prison records showed Daughtry logged as attending "table time," recreation, and the book cart after he had already been pronounced dead — and the AJC further alleges that no one checked on him for nearly seven hours before his body was discovered, despite a GDC policy requiring checks every 30 minutes.

Wiley assumed the Deputy Warden post against a backdrop of compounding institutional findings. In April 2024 — months into his tenure — U.S. District Judge Marc T. Treadwell issued a contempt order against GDC for failing to comply with a 2019 settlement agreement governing SMU conditions and for falsifying and backdating prisoner review forms. The AJC alleges that GDC officials, including then-Assistant Commissioner Ahmed Holt, swore under oath that prisoners were receiving required out-of-cell time, educational programming, and adequate staffing, all of which evidence contradicted. The AJC further alleges that GDC ran a deliberate stalling strategy to avoid compliance until the injunction expired, and that GDC obstructed DOJ investigators by refusing to release records, restricting prison visits, and hurriedly making repairs before federal inspectors arrived.

The SMU also carried a documented contraband-control failure predating Wiley's leadership: according to the AJC, inmate Arthur Lee Cofield Jr. repeatedly acquired contraband cellphones inside the facility, and a phone seized in summer 2020 led federal investigators to an $11 million theft scheme. Cofield was sentenced in January 2024 to 135 months in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $12.5 million in restitution. The AJC alleges GDC learned of Cofield's financial crimes as early as 2018 but did not charge him until 2020.

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Litigation

• Gumm v. Jacobs, No. 5:15-cv-00041 (M.D. Ga.), filed February 12, 2015; terminated May 7, 2019. Prisoner Timothy Gumm filed a handwritten challenge to his placement in solitary confinement at the SMU; the case became a class action represented by the Southern Center for Human Rights and settled in 2019, requiring sweeping changes to SMU conditions. GDC's subsequent non-compliance led to the April 2024 contempt order. Wiley is listed as a defendant in this case per court records; no outcome amount is recorded.

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Sources

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — reporting on SMU deaths, falsified records, contempt proceedings, and Cofield sentencing
• GPS records — positions table, deaths-during-tenure data, cause categories
• Court records — Gumm v. Jacobs, 5:15-cv-00041, M.D. Ga. (CourtListener)
• Federal court — Judge Marc T. Treadwell contempt order, April 2024, related to 2019 SMU settlement

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on May 6, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.