Jailbreak informer pleads guilty to false tax claim

BANGOR – A Somerset County man who blew the whistle on a planned 1997 jailbreak in Augusta and who currently is serving a prison sentence for a firearms conviction pleaded guilty last week to making a false tax claim.

Jason Stevens, 45, formerly of Canaan, appeared at a hearing at U.S. District Court in Bangor. U.S. District Judge George Singal presided.

Stevens claimed a $5,211 refund on his 1997 personal federal income tax return based on a fictitious W-2 form which stated he had received $10,920 in income from Maine Merchant Brokers, a business supposedly run by Stevens.

The claim was false, according to information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Court records reveal that Maine Merchant Brokers had never filed corporate or partnership income tax returns or made any payments to the Internal Revenue Service.

Stevens also is known as Clifford Whitt. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for the felony. He currently is serving close to 12 years in a federal penitentiary after being convicted in 1998 of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

He was at the Kennebec County Jail awaiting sentencing when he met fellow inmate Kenneth Meader of Franklin County.

Labeled a “snitch” by Meader, the man who masterminded the foiled jailbreak at the Kennebec County Jail, Stevens got close to four years cut from a recommended 15-year prison sentence after telling officials of the planned activity that was to occur on Columbus Day 1997.

In May 1999, Stevens asked a federal judge to reduce his sentence further because, his attorney said, the inmate’s status as an informant placed him in danger in a prison environment.

Meader, 50, was sentenced to five years in prison in 1999 for his role in the jailbreak plot. The time will be added to the 35-year sentence Meader is serving on state convictions for firearms and drug violations in connection with the 1995 kidnapping of his girlfriend,

“This isn’t the first time he’s set people up,” Meader said of Stevens at his April 16, 1999, sentencing at U.S. District Court in Bangor.

Meader’s son, Jody Meader, 25, was sentenced in December 1998 at U.S. District Court to six months of home detention and two years of probation for conspiracy and assisting an escape.

Jody Meader’s role was to acquire and throw a bag of guns over the recreational area wall at the jail and to position a getaway car a few streets away.

At his sentencing, Kenneth Meader said he was “sorry” for involving his son but claimed Stevens “was the one [who was supposed] to bring the gun in. It wasn’t my son.”