LEONARDTOWN — A sharpened shank found in a St. Mary’s County jail cell has added seven and a half years to the prison time facing a Lexington Park man who was already sentenced last month to more than 50 years for a 2024 shooting and assault.
Charles Henry Thompson Jr., 32, was sentenced to seven years and six months for possessing the weapon while he was held at the St. Mary’s County Detention and Rehabilitation Center, State’s Attorney Jaymi Sterling announced Oct. 20. The sentence will be served consecutively to the 50-year, six-month active sentence Thompson received in September for a domestic violence-related assault, meaning the new time does not begin until the earlier term is served.
The case is a reminder that the county’s jail, which houses people awaiting trial alongside those serving local sentences, is also a place where new crimes are charged and prosecuted. Sterling framed the prosecution as a matter of protecting the correctional officers who work there.
“Weapons have no place in a correctional facility, where they threaten the safety of both correctional personnel and detainees,” Sterling said in a statement. “My office will continue to stand behind our correctional officers and hold accountable those who put their safety at risk.”
Smoke led to the search
According to the State’s Attorney’s Office, a St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office deputy was called to the detention center on Oct. 7, 2025, to investigate a report of a concealed weapon. Correctional officers told the deputy they had searched Thompson’s cell after smelling smoke.
Among Thompson’s belongings, officers found a shank about six inches long that had been filed to a sharp point. Investigators suspected it had been made from a broken mop handle, prosecutors said.
Thompson went to trial in August 2026. After two days, a jury convicted him of possession of a weapon while detained in a place of confinement and possession of contraband in a place of confinement. Judge Kevin Hill presided over the case. The release did not say how the seven and a half years was divided between the two convictions or whether any portion was suspended.
What the law allows
Maryland treats a weapon inside a jail or prison as a serious felony. Under Criminal Law Section 9-414, a person detained or confined in a place of confinement may not knowingly possess or receive a weapon. The offense carries up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $5,000, or both.
Contraband in a place of confinement is a lesser offense. Under Section 9-412, knowingly possessing contraband there is a misdemeanor punishable by up to three years and a $1,000 fine. Thompson’s seven-and-a-half-year sentence falls below the 10-year maximum for the weapon charge alone.
An earlier 50-year sentence
The jail weapon case is separate from the case that has already put Thompson behind bars for decades. In September, the Chronicle reported that he was sentenced to 95 years and six months, with all but 50 years and six months suspended, for a 2024 shooting, assault and robbery in Lexington Park that also involved threatening his former girlfriend with a firearm.
The Oct. 20 announcement describes that earlier sentence as one for a domestic violence-related assault. The shank was found in October 2025, while Thompson was being held at the detention center, nearly a year before he was sentenced in the shooting case.
Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Lisa Ridge and Assistant State’s Attorney John Cardozo prosecuted the jail weapon case. Deputy Cody Donaldson of the Sheriff’s Office was the lead investigator.
Under Maryland’s rules, Thompson has 30 days from sentencing to note an appeal to the Appellate Court of Maryland or to ask a three-judge panel of the circuit court to review the sentence, and 90 days to file a motion asking the trial judge to modify it. The State’s Attorney’s Office did not say whether he plans to pursue any of those options.
