A former food service worker for the state Department of Corrections will spend three years behind bars after pleading guilty to accepting money in exchange for furnishing inmates with drugs, cellphones, hair clippers and several other items.
In an emotional sentencing hearing on Thursday, Javaris Marquies Da’Sant, 22, pleaded guilty before Circuit Judge Daniel Coble to three counts of trafficking in methamphetamine, furnishing contraband to prisoners and possession of a schedule one, two or three drug. Coble sentenced Da’Sant to three years, with the contraband charge weighing heavily on his decision.
In October 2022, Da’Sant was arrested following an investigation by the corrections department’s inspector general. Da’Sant possessed 109 grams of meth, 23,107 grams of tobacco, 1,647 grams of synthetic marijuana, cellphones, chargers, charging blocks, earbuds, SIM cards, rolling papers, glass pipes, cigarettes, tattoo ink and hair clippers.
The slew of items were found in Da’Sant’s car and in boxes of frozen chicken, accessible by Da’Sant, who at the time worked as a food service warehouse employee for the corrections department on Broad River Road, according to arrest warrants.
Da’Sant’s parents, who are both longtime employees of the corections department — and who also helped secure him a position at the food warehouse — pleaded with Coble to give Da’Sant “a second chance,” saying he’d never been in trouble before and was an all-around “good kid” and star athlete at Keenan High School, where he played football and basketball.
“He won’t come out being the same,” Nikke Da’Sant, Da’Sant’s mother, told Coble. After 27 years with the corrections deparment, she knows first-hand the negative impact being incarnated bears on inmates, she said.
“Please have leniency on him,” Nikke Da’Sant urged Coble. “He’s never been in trouble and has always walked a fine line.” She suggested that Da’Sant may have been coerced by others to commit the crimes.
She and her husband, Deano Da’Sant, said they thought they were “doing a good thing” by helping their son get a job at the corrections department, not realizing that “he was weak” in a work environment where “you have to be strong.”
Attorney Seth Rose, who represented Javaris Da’Sant, also implored Coble to consider his client’s clean record and stellar work ethic.
“He is by all accounts a good person who made a grave mistake,” said Rose, a Democratic state representative from Richland County. “In the two years since I’ve known him, he has fully complied with the terms of his bond release while working three jobs.”
But prosecutors said Javaris Da’Sant wasn’t as “clean” as Rose and others portrayed, considering that he committed the crimes while out on bond for an unrelated drug charge that dropped in exchange for Da’Sant’s guilty plea.
Still, Special Assistant S.C. Attorney General Margaret Scott said Da’Sant fully cooperated with law enforcement authorities, resulting in a sentencing recommendation of 3 to 10 years rather than 7 to 25 years, which the trafficking statue calls for.
In 2019, Da’Sant was a finalist for the Mr. Richland County football player of the year award, which recognizes superior high school athletic achievement on and off the field.
In addition to his parents, Da’Sant was supported in court Thursday by siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents.
Visibly shaken, Da’Sant apologized to the corrections department and his family as he stood before Coble. He said “he had a lot going on” during the time he committed the crimes and that he just wanted “to make some money.”
Da’Sant was approached by inmates who offered to pay him money to deliver contraband, according to Scott. In one instance, Da’Sant received $5,000 in exchange for the illegal items, she said.
Although Coble acknowledged Da’Sant’s sparkling criminal record and his ability to stay out of trouble since 2022, he said the contraband charge “was most bothersome,” as cellphone access by inmates is an increasing problem.
Had Da’Sant not smuggled cell phones, he would’ve likely been sentenced to a year in prison, Coble said.
But “this type of contraband is very serious,” Coble said. “There’s a problem with cellphones (in jails) and it puts people’s lives at risk, particularly the officers who work in those facilities.”
South Carolina department of correction officials have long battled against inmates in possession of cell phones in a number of facilities across the state. Last year, for example, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office announced a set of indictments against inmates and employees of the state Department of Corrections who were found to have smuggled cell phones and narcotics .
Relatives of Da’Sant were visibly emotional throughout the hearing, with many holding their heads down and their hands clamped together, seemingly in prayer, and others leaving the courtroom sobbing following Coble’s ruling.
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