The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency until recently has had a prison inmate convicted of working with a hit man to kill his wife overseeing its purchasing program in Nashville.
The inmate also had access to an area where guns are stored, The Tennessean reported in Sunday’s editions.
Daniel D. Erickson, 45, is serving an eight year prison sentence for trying to hire a hit man to help him kill his wife. Divorce documents allege the 2001 murder plot was aimed at collecting $225,000 from a life insurance policy. Erickson was disbarred as a lawyer because of the crime.
TEMA director James Bassham said he knew Erickson was an inmate, but did not know what crime he had committed.
“We had a situation here where a guy was doing a good job for us,” Bassham said. “He’s apparently done some things that’s gotten him locked back up.”
Erickson went to work for TEMA as part of a work-release program in which inmates work jobs during the day and return to prison at night. The program is intended to help inmates be prepared to re-enter the work force after being released from prison.
Erickson, who is scheduled for release in 2008, had an annual salary of $26,000, a state cell phone and a state vehicle to drive to the post office and between TEMA offices in Nashville.
He was transferred recently to a more secure prison after an investigation by prison officials of his use of the cell phone and vehicle. An anonymous tip led to the probe.
State Correction Commissioner George Little said the Correction Department had never given Erickson permission to use the TEMA-issued cell phone. And the investigation found he was driving places he was not authorized to go.
“We needed a more restrictive environment,” Little said of Erickson’s transfer.
TEMA officials said that for part of the time Erickson worked at the agency, he had access to a safe where weapons were stored. Officials later moved the weapons to another safe Erickson did not have access to.
Bassham called Erickson a model worker and said he regretted losing him. But he said he would not hire an inmate for such a job again.
Erickson’s work was so highly regarded that the head of the Tennessee Military Department, of which TEMA is a subsidiary, wrote a letter seeking a raise for him.
“Due to the amount of responsibility placed upon this position, coupled with Mr. Erickson’s education, this department feels justified in requesting the aforementioned salary range,” Gen. Gus Hargett wrote.
Erickson disclosed his conviction on his job applications, but state officials were not required to perform a background check, state personnel spokeswoman Lola Potter said.
Topics Tennessee
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