May.06, 2010
WACO (May 6, 2010)—Natalie Johnson, 22, a senior marketing and management major who’s scheduled to graduate from Baylor University later this month, has been caught up in an investigation of money laundering and drug smuggling involving several inmates at the Coffield Prison Unit near Palestine in East Texas.
On Tuesday, Texas Department of Criminal Justice investigators searched Johnson’s campus-area apartment at 1516 James Ave. as well as her car, and seized her laptop computer, cell phone, pill bottles containing white and pink tablets, baggies containing a green leafy substance, a glass smoking pipe, checkbooks, cards with money orders and dozens of CDs, according to court documents.
Johnson has not been arrested or charged, and has no criminal history.
According to affidavits filed for the search warrants, the TDCJ suspects that over the past several months, Johnson has been corresponding with inmates at the Coffield Unit, laundering money and delivering drugs and contraband.
According to the affidavits, an investigator became suspicious when he discovered Johnson was sending money electronically to several Texas prison inmates.
The affidavits say one inmate, Edwin Mann, told an investigator Johnson dropped off drugs at the prison.
Investigators have been monitoring Johnson's phone and e-mail conversations with inmates, according to the affidavits and for two days in April, they conducted a surveillance operation, following Johnson from her apartment to campus and nothing that the car that she drove was the same one she was driving when she visited the Coffield Unit.
TDCJ Inspector General John Moriarty says it's no secret that inmates are moving money and contraband in a network that's very complicated to investigate and track down.
"The release of that affidavit shouldn't have happened and this is a long term investigation," he said Thursday.
“It’s going to be several months before the investigation is completed because we are dealing with an historical, financial case,” he said.