For more than fifteen years, Second Judicial Circuit State Attorney Willie Meggs had assigned Assistant State Attorney Jack Campbell to prosecute criminal cases that were being investigated under the jurisdiction of Leon County Sheriff Larry Campbell. State Attorney Willie Meggs was elected to prosecute cases in the Second Judicial Circuit which covers six counties–all located in Florida’s panhandle. State Attorney Willie Meggs’ decision to assign Assistant State Attorney Jack Campbell to prosecute cases being investigated by Leon County Sheriff Larry Campbell was a choice, not a necessity. Assistant State Attorney Jack Campbell is the son of Leon County Sheriff Larry Campbell. Any time there was an arrest in Tallahassee, the defendant was taken to the Leon County Jail, which is/was under the control of Leon County Sheriff Larry Campbell. Many defense attorneys, both local and out of town, have expressed a disadvantage to their clients because of the father/son team. Some defense attorneys had asked judges to allow their clients to be moved to a jail in a neighboring county, after their clients experienced “shakedowns” (more like harassment), by officials at the Leon County Jail. However, no judge has ruled in any defense attorneys’ favor.
In a desperate attempt to ensure the conviction of DeShon Thomas, Assistant State Attorney Jack Campbell recruited State Attorney Investigator Jason Newlin, along with Leon County Sheriff’s Deputy Ronald O’Brien and Leon County Jail inmates Dawuan Williams and Walter Cole Rayborn to entrap DeShon in a Solicitation to Commit Murder charge. Williams, who was in the Leon County Jail awaiting trial on two bank robbery charges, was released from jail and provided with a cell phone and money from both the Leon County Sheriff’s office and the State Attorney’s office. Williams testified that he was seeking relief in both of his bank robbery charges. Deputy Ronald O’Brien testified that he’d smuggled contraband that he received from Williams into the Leon County Jail in order for an unsuspecting correctional officer to deliver to DeShon.
In 2012, during a brief interview with State Prosecutor Jack Campbell, in response to an attorney whose client was being harassed in the Leon County Jail, the attorney filed a motion to have him (State Prosecutor Jack Campbell) removed from the case on the grounds of prejudice—to no avail. State Prosecutor Jack Campbell told a Tallahassee reporter, “My dad being sheriff doesn’t change the way I would handle the case.”
Between late 2011 and mid 2013, the mother of DeShon Thomas repeatedly begged Governor Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi to assign a special prosecutor to her son’s case—to no avail. DeShon was a 17-years-old full-time freshman at Tallahassee Community College when the Leon County Sheriff’s Office charged him with Two Counts of 1st Degree Murder and Possession of a Firearm by a Juvenile Delinquent. DeShon plead Not Guilty. There was no evidence linking DeShon to the murders. State Attorney Willie Meggs assigned Assistant State Attorney Jack Campbell to prosecute DeShon’s case. Within a little over a year, DeShon’s private paid defense attorney, Greg Cummings proved to be extremely foul. Greg Cummings and State Prosecutor Jack Campbell, along with Circuit Judge James C. Hankinson had been deliberately delaying DeShon’s trial. Greg Cummings had not deposed a single witness on the defense witness list. State Prosecutor Jack Campbell had filed at least four Motions for Continuance for Pre-trial Hearing. Circuit Judge James C. Hankinson granted all of the Motions for Continuance. After having paid Greg Cummings nearly $30,000, DeShon and his mother fired Greg Cummings. In August 2012, on the same day Greg Cummings filed his motion to with draw as DeShon’s defense counsel, Circuit Judge James C. Hankinson and State Prosecutor Jack Campbell amped up their conspiracy—and that’s when DeShon was charged with Solicitation to Commit 1st Degree Murder—naming Trentin as the target. Trentin was State Prosecutor Jack Campbell’s key witness against DeShon in the double murder case.
After Greg Cummings was fired off of DeShon’s case, Greg Cummings told DeShon’s mother that State Prosecutor Jack Campbell and Trentin’s attorney, Paul Srygley, purposely prevented him (Greg Cummings) from deposing Trentin. Again, confirming what a lot of defense attorneys have complained about, the bias actions by judicial officials within Leon County—starting with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office. Defense attorney know that their client will surely get convicted regardless of the facts of the case because State Prosecutor Jack Campbell’s access to the jail and relationship with his dad’s employees.
Recently in the TV One series, Fatal Attraction: Crippled by Blood, State Prosecutor Jack Campbell and State Attorney Investigator Jason Newlin gave the world an inside glimpse of their distorted ways of conducting investigations, as well as their depraved hearts.
Anyone familiar with the available resources to all law enforcement agencies know that it doesn’t take a team of law enforcement officers to figure out a gang coded letter. When a credible law enforcement officer receives a legitimate tip about a threat against a person’s life, what team of law enforcement officers have the time to get together to try to figure out a gang coded letter? Whenever a legitimate threat against a person’s life is received by or relayed to any member of a law enforcement agency and the threat is gang related, then the agencies Gang Task Force Unit will either takeover the investigation of the threat or assist in the investigation. That is why county sheriffs are awarded grants so that their agency will have access to combat gang violence. But with State Prosecutor Jack Campbell running the State Attorney’s Office, the Leon County Courthouse and the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, in the Solicitation to Commit 1st Degree Murder Charge against Deshon, there was no need to utilize the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Gang Task Force Unit because they were not a part of the “team/group” that cracked the coded letter that State Attorney Investigator Jason Newlin referenced. The same as it took a “Team” of judicial officials to wrongly convict DeShon–due to corruption—it took a “Team” of law enforcement officers who knew nothing about gangs to entrap DeShon— all due to corruption.
State Prosecutor Jack Campbell, who shows signs of being abused as a child, is clearly disconnected from human beings.
Without a doubt, years of coming in contact with horrific crime scene photos will make a person question the capability of how people can commit such heinous acts. But it the job of a prosecutor to have reservations about a person’s guilt or innocence—and let the evidence speak for itself. State Prosecutor Jack Campbell has clearly reached that point in his career where someone needs to intervene. State Prosecutor Jack Campbell looked straight into a T.V. camera and said, “We, who live in the world don’t want to believe that there’s that level of evil—we want to believe that they’ve got horns and a tail, but they don’t, they look just like you and me.” He said this knowing that DeShon is INNOCENT! Someone, if anyone, who loves Jack Campbell as a person—not as an Assistant State Attorney—not as a State Prosecutor—but someone, if anyone, male or female—needs to intervene in his life—State Prosecutor Jack Campbell has a depraved heart. As the son of a dad with over fifty years of law enforcement dating back to the Jim Crow south, Jack Campbell’s mental state is clearly distorted. And then working under State Attorney Willie Meggs, another protégé of the Jim Crow south, more than likely added to Jack Campbell’s depraved heart and distorted state of mind. State Prosecutor Jack Campbell has been programmed to see people with “horns and tails” versus acknowledging the evidence that shows that not all people have “horns and tails.” State Prosecutor Jack Campbell mindset is equal to Dylan Roof seeing nine innocent African-Americans as a threat to the White race and then gunning them down inside their church.
While State Prosecutor Jack Campbell firmly stands by his words, “My dad being sheriff doesn’t change the way I would handle the case.” Recently, in the case involving the death of fourteen-year-old Ansley Rayborn, State Attorney Willie Meggs has shielded his depraved heart. State Attorney Willie Meggs sent a letter to Governor Rick Scott requesting that a Special Prosecutor be assigned to handle the criminal case against the juvenile defendant, stating that the juvenile defendant’s grandfather was a former employee at the State Attorney’s Office. Some media outlets have stated that the defendant’s grandfather is a friend of State Attorney Willie Meggs. Either way, it is disturbing that State Attorney Willie Meggs can find it problematic to handle the prosecution of a case of the grandson of a former employee, but not find it to be problematic to assign Assistant State Attorney Jack Campbell to prosecute criminal cases under the jurisdiction of Jack Campbell’s own dad.
Crime in Tallahassee has skyrocketed. Criminals in Tallahassee are aware of the severe disconnect between law enforcement and those within the judicial system, and the people in the community. People are aware that innocent people are being convicted for crimes that they didn’t commit. And the real criminals are reacting by committing more crimes and laughing at law enforcement agencies and all of those who play a role within the judicial proceedings who seek to get a conviction at all costs. Sensationalizing 17-year-old, DeShon Thomas, knowing that DeShon did not commit the murders of Laqecia Herring and her brother, Sterling Conner Jr., will only create more hype and boldness in the minds of the real murderer, as well as other criminals who the Leon County Sheriff’s office and the State Attorney’s Office have pacified and financially supported—a s it did with Dawuan Williams and Walter Cole Rayborn, both who State Prosecutor Jack Campbell and State Attorney Jason Newlin utilized to entrap DeShon.
A trial of innocent lives lost, wrongful convictions, and families with broken hearts—is all the damage that the late Leon County Sheriff Larry Campbell and State Attorney Willie Meggs have delivered to Tallahassee citizens. Tallahassee is “Crippled by Corruption.” State Prosecutor Jack Campbell and Leon County Sheriff’s Sergeant Wiley Meggs are truly “Crippled by the Blood of their Fathers.”
#FREEDESHONTHOMASNOW
Mothers Against Unethical Laws (MAUL) 