By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
An Escambia County man who has been imprisoned for nearly 16 years and an Escambia County woman who has been in prison for nearly three years will each remain behind bars after they were denied parole during hearings by the Alabama Bureau of Pardons & Paroles.
Stacy Hawkins, 40, was sentenced in Escambia County Circuit Court to serve 20 years after his conviction on a 2011 first-degree sexual abuse charge. He was also sentenced to 10 years in prison for a violation of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), but that term was to be served concurrently with the other.
Hawkins, who has served 15-1/2 years (including 2,073 days in the county jail) also completed almost four years of a 5-year sentence after being convicted in 1990 of distribution of a controlled substance, also in Escambia County Circuit Court.
Currently housed at Limestone Correctional Facility, his minimum release date without parole or a pardon is December 20, 2026.
Also denied parole was Erica Lynn White, 36, who was convicted in 2019 of second-degree assault and possession or receiving a controlled substance. She was sentenced to 15 years on the assault charge, with a 65-month sentence on the drug charge to run concurrently.
White also served almost three years of a 5-year sentence she was handed in 2011 after her conviction for possession of a controlled substance. She was one of three people arrested when county sheriff’s deputies discovered a methamphetamine lab at her Manning Road residence.
White is currently housed at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka. Her minimum release date without parole or a pardon is January 30, 2023.