By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
An Atmore man, sentenced two years ago to a prison term but still in the Escambia County Detention Center awaiting transfer, was denied parole during recent hearings by the Alabama Board of Pardons & Paroles.
Emmanuel Mandella Johnson, 31, is technically serving a 97-month sentence after his 2019 conviction on charges of first-degree marijuana possession. He is also awaiting trial on his March 2021 arrest for possession of a controlled substance, domestic violence – strangulation, and obstructing a government operation.
Johnson served all but three days of a two-year, three-month sentence in 2014 after his conviction on charges of first-degree marijuana possession and possession of a controlled substance.
The board granted parole to an Andalusia woman who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2017 after her conviction in Coffee County for obstructing justice by using a false ID, and her conviction in Escambia County on a charge of third-degree burglary.
Tonya Eloise Piland, 34, had served almost three years of the sentence when she was ordered released from Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women.
The board also denied early release for a Mobile man who is serving a life sentence (with the possibility of parole) for the 1981 murder of a Mobile County teen.
Wilbert Conrade Swann, 63, is also serving time, concurrently, for crimes he committed while incarcerated.
Currently housed at Elmore Correctional Facility, Swann was convicted in 1987 for third-degree robbery while an inmate at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, and twice convicted — in 2000 and 2003 — in Escambia County for second-degree assault while behind Fountain Correctional Facility bars.