By Jason Renard Walker

Former Telford unit captain, Jessica Nichole Ricks and 6 other staff were arrested and charged with engaging in organized crime on April 9 2025.(1) On April 17 2025 TDCJ News reported that 9 Telford unit inmates were also charged, in connection, with: possession of prohibited items, money laundering, bribery, and organized crime, as part of a larger investigation by multiple law enforcement agencies. 

Ricks was a captain at the Telford unit as far back as 2018 when I was there during the deadly K2 epidemic. You had the occasional prisoner deaths, daily trips to the infirmary for overdosing (most weren’t properly treated) and the unreported cases where callous guards encouraged untrained prisoners to give the victims draconian healthcare, by tossing their unconscious bodies into a cell or shower until they recovered. 

I wrote an article on the epidemic in an effort to show the public how deliberately indifferent prison staff are to the lives of prisoners, which it did. For instance, many prisoners gave me insight on past K2 related incidents that happened at the Telford unit before I got there, the San Francisco Bayview ran the story in one of their 2018 print editions,(2) a book author by the name of Richard Spraggins reprinted it in his published book: Pimp N The Pen and various online abolitionist media outlets posted it for their readers. 

At the time I wrote the article I didn’t know that Ricks was flooding the prison with contraband, and using her role as captain to gather confidential information from administrative investigations that would be used to the advantage of excelling her scheme and eliminating any threats. The article eventually posed a threat, but before it was published I was moved to another unit, unaware that death threats, assault by guards and inmates, and attempted murder would be the consequence, spanning 12 prisons in the course of four years. With more to come. 

In 2023 I was sent back to Telford unit and placed in 12 bldg restricted housing. I didn’t discover that Ricks was one of the unseen hands that wanted me dead until inmates assigned with stabbing me were removed from population during the night shift, methodically placed in cells all around me and bragging about it.

The plan, they discussed, was to ‘pop out’ of their cells and enter mine as soon as the ‘right law’ worked in the picket that control the cell doors. 

One of the inmates explained out loud that a certain inmate involved with the ‘head law’ Ricks got information from her that I was in the way and the first to get me would get paid. He spent over an hour spewing details that only could’ve come from Ricks or the administration, though some of what he said was made up. This told me that he wasn’t lying about her being the purveyor of the information. He claimed to have seen documents about two hits that were foiled when I took the weapon from the attackers and used it, and the investigations done after two people at the Hughes unit went to staff and explained that an inmate tried to bribe them into stabbing me for publishing the article. 

One example he mentioned happened at the Michael unit on New Years day 2021 when a paid inmate tried to beat me to death in the cell with a homemade Thor hammer made out of a fan motor. I managed to take it away and beat his skull in as his watch out crew scattered to alert the guards once the tides turned. The inmate was sent to the hospital on a helicopter. 

What enraged him most is that I’m still alive, I never received a case and the OIG investigated the beating and determined that I acted in self defense. 

Two days later the right law still hadn’t shown up.

One of the inmates had gotten so impatient and desperate he began asking random staff for help with getting me. Each declined to assist. A white female sergeant told him she already knew what was going on and even though I deserved it, she wasn’t getting involved. 

Supporters on the outside knew I wasn’t supposed to be at Telford and filed complaints demanding my transfer once they found out I was there. 

Of course Ricks was the official assigned to investigate the complaints. When she sent guards to escort me to her office in March of 2023 I refused to go. The very next day a team of guards with gas and riot batons returned and told me Ricks gave them orders to gas, beat and drag me to her office if I refused. I agreed to go. I didn’t give her a statement or talk to her as the problem was her. She didn’t care about any investigation, she knew being strutted in handcuffs was a big opportunity for me to get stabbed. 

While I was in her office, an adventurous inmate popped out of his cell and hid by another cell block with intentions to stab me when I was escorted back to my cell. He was discovered and hauled off before I passed by. 

A white female name officer Sanchez witnessed the incident and told officer Donna K Strickland (who was assigned to suicide prevention watch) he was caught trying to escape. Once I was put back in my cell I could hear inmates gossiping that the only reason he got caught was because he went to the wrong cellblock. Ricks tried to distance herself from any responsibility by getting reassigned to 8 bldg (close custody) as soon as rumors about the incident circulated. 

Even though her arrest won’t solve any issues the article I wrote generated. What it did do is confirm that administrative officials have been trying to silence me, the reason why they want me silenced and how those arrested for organized crime are just pawns the head of the snake sacrificed as a means to achieve an end. 

Jason Renard Walker 

1532092

Powledge Unit 

PO Box 660400 

Dallas, Tx 75266 

Jason Renard Walker is a prison journalist that has been publishing articles and essays in various print and online media outlets since 2016. You can view his work by visiting his website: www.jasonsprisonjournal.com You can also purchase his paperback book (available on amazon.com) ‘Reports From Within The Belly Of The Beast: Torture And Injustice Inside Texas Department Of Criminal Justice’