A Nashville prison reform advocate has been sentenced to 40 years for planting weapons inside the Davidson County jail. District Attorney Glenn Funk says that’s the maximum sentence Alex Friedmann could’ve received.
Alex Friedmann has been sentenced to 40 years in prison. He was found guilty this summer of planting guns and other weapons in the downtown jail as it was being built in 2019.
Today’s maximum sentence is a credit to all involved, from investigation to prosecution. pic.twitter.com/FICn04n1fb— District Attorney (@DavidsonCoDA) October 6, 2022
Friedmann and his attorneys did not deny that he planted the weapons in 2019 while the jail was under construction. That delayed the opening of the the new 762-bed jail in early 2020.
Prosecutors allege that Friedmann had been planning a jail break, but his defense argued he never intended for the weapons to be used. Attorneys for Friedmann claim he was repeatedly sexually assaulted as an 18-year-old in the prison system and placed the weapons there for personal defense.
Since his incarceration as a teenager, Friedmann has been a prominent advocate for prisoners’ rights in Nashville. He sued the Tennessee Department of Correction last year over the conditions of his cell while being held pretrial, claiming it was “one of the most restrictive cells in the most restrictive unit” of the Riverbend Maximum Security prison.
As part of the settlement, the Correction Department has agreed to make a case-by-case decision on who is detained pretrial and to allow them to appeal that decision.
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