Bibb County jail inmate sentenced to 40 years for string of crimes while in custody

Jaives Fountain pleaded guilty August 17 to every felony count as charged.

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — A Bibb County jail inmate has been sentenced to 40 years after pleading guilty to felony charges stemming from nearly a dozen criminal cases involving incidents while he was in custody, according to the Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office.

Jaives Fountain pleaded guilty August 17 to every felony count as charged. He received an aggregate 40-year sentence, with the first 20 years to be served in confinement and the remaining 20 on probation.

According to the district attorney’s office, one case stemmed from a 2022 incident in which Fountain and several co-defendants dragged another inmate from his cell and beat him. The inmate fought back with a broom handle, and the group later returned and ransacked his cell. Prosecutors said Fountain stabbed the inmate multiple times when the inmate later approached the group.

A judge rejected Fountain’s claim of self-defense, and Fountain accepted a plea offer the weekend before trial. He received the maximum 20-year sentence for aggravated assault.

That sentence runs concurrently with sentences in four other cases stemming from his time in custody. The district attorney’s office said Fountain threatened a jail employee with a shank, joined a co-defendant in beating another inmate, was caught on camera holding a shank on two separate occasions and damaged his jail cell and another inmate’s cell.

Fountain also pleaded guilty to attacking two inmates in their cells, stabbing someone during a fight in the jail showers and inappropriately touching a female corrections officer. In another incident, prosecutors said Fountain set a rag on fire inside his cell and threw it at a control booth window after jailers denied him access to the day room during a headcount.

“Nearly a dozen separate criminal cases from inside a single jail tells you everything you need to know about this defendant. All of it caught on the jail’s cameras,” Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney Anita Howard said. “This sentence reflects who this defendant has repeatedly shown himself to be. Justice doesn’t always come from the case you expect. Forty years, with 20 to serve, holds him accountable for the danger he poses, and the people of this community are better protected from his violence.”