Texas inmate wants to serve time in NH

[NHRes2004]

Folsom's prison blues
By MARK HAYWARD
New Hampshire Union Leader
Friday, Oct. 5, 2007

Hoping to serve his next sentence in New Hampshire, a prison aficionado in Texas wrote letters to New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte with alleged death threats serious enough to get himself charged with two felonies, officials said.

Jailhouse connoisseur Jimmy Dale Folsom Jr., 43, was indicted this week by a U.S. District Court grand jury in Concord, charged with two counts of mailing threatening communications. Each carries a five-year prison term.

Ayotte yesterday said she had never heard of Folsom until she got the letters earlier this year. An investigation found out that Folsom had served time with a prisoner from New Hampshire, who told him it was better to do time in New Hampshire than Texas.

For Folsom, time keeps draggin' on, and he liked the idea of doing some of it in New Hampshire, according to Ayotte.

"It's still prison, no matter what state you're in," said Jeff Lyons, spokesman for the New Hampshire Department of Corrections. Any state has restrictions, rules and classification of inmates, he said.

Unlike many states, New Hampshire doesn't have time off for good behavior. But Texas is very experienced at the death penalty, he pointed out.

Ayotte said the threat surprised her.

"It's something that, when I received it, I thought it was odd because it didn't involve anyone I was familiar with," Ayotte said. Ayotte said people in public office often get angry and threatening letters, but few that rise to the level of a crime.

In 2004, Ayotte received a threat initially deemed to be criminal. Charges were brought against Boscawen resident Joe Haas but dismissed after the state law that prohibits threats against public officials was found unconstitutional.

Folsom has been stuck in prison. He was convicted in 1985 of aggravated sexual assault with a deadly weapon on a child, according to the Web site of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Three years later, time was added for aggravated assault on a corrections officer.

He was eligible for parole 13 years ago and will max out in 2010. He is serving time in the 2,900-bed Mark W. Michael Unit in Tennessee Colony, Texas. For comparison, the entire New Hampshire system, which comprises four prisons and three halfway houses -- houses about 2,800 inmates, Lyons said.

"At some point, he'll have to come here (for trial)," said Tom Colantuono, the U.S. Attorney for New Hampshire. Given Folsom's incarceration, Colantuono was unsure how fast the case will proceed.

But if he's eventually convicted in New Hampshire, Folsom may end up singing the prison blues. As a federal convict, he could end up in a federal lockup anywhere in the country, Colantuono said.

"We don't have one; yet," Colantuono said.

But one is rollin' round the bend. Land clearing could begin this fall for a federal prison in Berlin, which is expected to take about three years to build.