The Succession Battle For A Prison Empire

[Passages]

Luxury cars, mansions, a superyacht called Convict, and wined-and-dined sheriffs — a legal war is exposing the big business of extracting profits from prisoners.

March 12,2025
Katya Schwenk


The yacht is moored at the mouth of the Miami River, in the long shadows of the city’s luxury hotels and high-rises. It is of Italian design: sleek, imposing, with a flybridge and sundeck and five cabins, and a price point of about $10 million. On the hull, bold silver lettering declares its name: Convict.

The Convict is the crown jewel of prison technology company Smart Communications, whose CEO, Jonathan Logan, has a reputation for flaunting the millions he has made in the business of prisons and jails. There is also Logan’s $300,000 Lamborghini, with a license plate that reads “INMATE.” There are the photos he posts dressed in garish suits, posed in the driver’s seat of his Rolls-Royce.

The yachts, the cars — they all form part of Smart Communications’ “empire,” as insiders refer to it. The company rakes in tens of millions in revenue each year from its prison communications tech, a business model that mostly involves charging people incarcerated in the U.S. prison system to send emails (50 cents a pop) or make phone calls (7 cents a minute) or leave 30-second voicemails ($1 each).

It is an empire over which Logan is now battling for control.

https://www.levernews.com/the-succession-battle-for-a-prison-empire/

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