Inmate Made, Mailed Bombs at State Prison

A person already in prison has been sentenced to 80 years in federal custody after authorities said the inmate built two bombs while behind bars and mailed them to a federal courthouse in Anchorage, Alaska, and the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.

• Federal prosecutors say David Dwayne Cassady, 57, was incarcerated in a state prison in Georgia when the devices were made, the AP reports. The inmate pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted malicious use of explosive materials.

• The inmate has severe anxiety and gender dysphoria, defense lawyer Tina Maddox wrote in a sentencing memo to the court. The crimes were "acts of desperation born out of unrelenting abuse, hopelessness, and mental distress," Maddox wrote. The defendant is a transgender woman and now goes by the name Lena Noel Summerlin, the lawyer said in the July 8 court document.
• The indictment says both bombs were made at a state prison in Tattnall County, Georgia, and mailed from the prison. The document does not detail how the bombs were built or where the materials were obtained.
• Asked by WSB-TV how the inmate was able to build bombs in prison, the Georgia Department of Corrections said: "Cassady was able to manipulate primarily items he was authorized to possess into makeshift explosive devices."
• The bombs were functional and had the capabilities to explode, a plea agreement states. The inmate admitted to mailing them "in retaliation for prison conditions," it said.

• Since the early 1990s, the inmate has been held in a variety of Georgia prisons after being convicted of more than a dozen crimes including kidnapping and aggravated sodomy, according to records from the Georgia Department of Corrections.
• "This defendant's devices were not only a threat to the recipients, but to every individual that unknowingly transported and delivered them," US Attorney Bryan Stirling said in a statement.
• WSB-TV notes that there is no parole in the federal system, meaning Cassady will spend the rest of their life in prison.