MOBILE, Alabama – A Prichard man who admitted to giving a ride to a pair of kidnappers who had abducted a Chickasaw woman two years ago will spend more than seven years in prison, a federal judge decided today.Roderick Levar Jones, 33, pleaded guilty January to being an accessory after the fact. U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose accepted the recommendation of prosecutors for a prison term of seven years and three months, followed by three years of supervision by the U.S. Probation Office.DuBose said she would leave it to state officials to determine whether the sentence will run at the same time as a prison term he faces on a parole revocation from a 2000 robbery conviction from Auburn, where he recently had been dismissed form the football team.Addressing Jones about the 2011 kidnapping, the judge said it was “a horrific crime you found yourself in at the tail end.â€Jones said he had no inkling he would find himself caught up in the November 2011 abduction when he woke up that day.“I never could have known that someone was going to call me and ask me to give him a ride,†he told DuBose. “I made a few bad decisions. … It’s only my second time in handcuffs in my entire life.â€Jones has admitted that he drove to the home of co-defendant Miller Jerrell Griffin’s grandmother in the early hours of Nov. 26, 2011, at the request of Brandon Jarrod Nobles. After finding the home empty, Jones called Nobles and got directions to an abandoned house in Prichard.Nobles and Griffin came out of the bushes, with the woman they had abducted at gunpoint earlier in the morning, according to law enforcement authorities. Jones then drove them to the home of Griffin’s grandmother and stayed with the woman while the other two men attempted to collect ransom money.According to court records, masked men took the naked woman and her husband by surprise, shooting the man and forcibly removing the woman from the home at about 3 a.m. The assailants forced the woman to use her cell phone to make calls in an attempt to round up several thousand dollars in ransom money. At least one of the men sexually assaulted her, according to court documents.Eventually, the kidnappers let the woman go.The victim told DuBose today that Jones cooperated in the kidnapping even if he was not involved from the beginning. She said they were alone for about an hour.“I feel like he could have called the police,†she said.Defense attorney Jan Jones pointed to the “lovely letters†that pastors, family members and other had written on the defendant’s behalf.Jones, who is not related to the defendant, said her client had been working steadily as a welder.“He has potential,†she said. “He is an educated person.â€Jones went to Auburn on a football scholarship to play linebacker but had been dismissed from the team prior to his redshirt freshman year. A little more than a week before Christmas in 1999, he and two others went to the home of an Auburn resident, tied up the victim with duct tape and took $370, a 14-karat gold rope chain and a diamond earring.After a Lee County jury convicted him of first-degree robbery, a judge sentenced him to 40 years in prison.In the Chickasaw kidnapping case, DuBose sentenced Nobles to 22 years in prison last month. Griffin awaits sentencing in June.Updated at 2:45 p.m. April 29, 2013, to update headline regarding the defendant's role with the Auburn football program.
A little more than a week before Christmas in 1999, he and two others went to the home of an Auburn resident, tied up the victim with duct tape and took $370, a 14-karat gold rope chain and a diamond earring.
They changed the article title. It originally read "Former Auburn Football Player..." and not "Prichard Man." Check the comments.
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