Sanders Criminal Justice Adviser Caught Plotting Violent Jailbreak
Police say radical activist stole prison blueprints, stashed guns and ammo in facility
A former adviser on criminal justice issues to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) was plotting a violent prison escape, stashing guns and ammunition inside a soon-to-be-opened prison, authorities said this week.
Nashville police said Wednesday that Alex Friedmann, a prison reform advocate who helped
shape the Vermont senator's criminal justice agenda, spent months plotting an escape for inmates of the city's detention center. Sanders worked with Friedmann to develop positions on criminal justice in the lead up to his 2016 presidential campaign—positions Sanders still touts.
Davidson County sheriff Daron Hall, at a press conference on Wednesday, said Friedmann hid at least three loaded guns upon breaking into the detention center in December. The break-in was part of "an extremely deliberate and, in my opinion, evil plan" Friedmann developed "over many months," Hall
said.
"What disturbed me most is not that this was about an escape, it was also about loss of life," Hall added. "Mr. Friedmann, a convicted felon and self-described criminal justice advocate, planted loaded guns with additional ammunition inside the detention center."
Friedmann, while managing editor at
Prison Legal News and associate director at the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), helped Sanders go beyond his usual focus on economic issues in 2015. Acting as a consultant for the senator's office, Friedmann called for Sanders to adopt progressive criminal justice positions such as the abolition of private prisons. Sanders's current presidential campaign promises to
ban private prisons.
Sanders Criminal Justice Adviser Caught Plotting Violent Jailbreak