On December 6, 2025, federal prosecutors dismissed their case against Jeffrey Scott Wells, 54, a former Vice President of private prison medical contractor Centurion Health caught colluding with a former Tennessee Department of Correction (DOC) official to rig bidding for the prison system’s healthcare contract in the firm’s favor.

The decision to drop Wells’ prosecution followed the death of his co-defendant, former DOC Deputy Commissioner and Chief Financial Officer Wesley O. Landers, 55, on September 30, 2024. Felony conspiracy and perjury charges against the two had been filed in federal court for the Middle District of Tennessee less than two weeks earlier, on September 17, 2024.

As PLN reported, the DOC rebid its contract for behavioral healthcare services in 2019, receiving offers from Corizon Health, Centurion Health and several other for-profit vendors. After Centurion won the five-year $123 million contract, Corizon—now known as YesCare—filed suit, alleging improprieties in the bidding process. [See: PLN, Oct. 2021, p.32.]

Landers left the DOC in March 2020 while that case was pending, and he was promptly hired by a Centurion affiliate in Georgia. The executive-level position was created just for him, and he reported to Wells. Meanwhile, Corizon attorneys presented evidence in their suit that Landers and Wells communicated for more than a year using personal email accounts and WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging platform, with Landers sharing confidential details about the state’s contracting process with Wells—including draft copies of the state’s original and revised Requests for Proposal.

Depositions followed, during which Wells and Landers denied under oath that they had communicated or shared information about DOC’s healthcare contract. But prosecutors later learned that the day before those depositions, both obtained new cell phones which they used to discuss “the need to hide information in response to . . . subpoenas and deposition notices,” according to their subsequent indictment.

However, long before that, when Centurion filed its suit, Centurion corporate leadership was aware of evidence that the two colluded to obtain the contract. Both were fired from Centurion in February 2021.According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee, Wells and Landers then deleted their emails and messages. Landers also reportedly visited Quora, a question-and-answer website, to research “how do I delete WhatsApp chats permanently?” In another query, he asked, “if the police seize my phone can they still recover all of my WhatsApp messages even if I deleted the app?”

If convicted on the now-dismissed charges, the two disgraced executives faced up to five years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. See: United States v. Landers, USDC (M.D. Tenn.), Case No. 3:24-cr-00169.

After Centurion fired Landers, he was apparently hired as a district manager by Aramark, the private food service provider that contracts with the DOC to provide prisoner meals. Corizon has since filed for bankruptcy, though it’s unknown whether losing the DOC contract contributed to that. The company settled its suit against Centurion in 2022 under undisclosed terms. See: Corizon, LLC v. Wainwright, USDC (M.D. Tenn.), Case No. 3:20-cv-00892.  

Additional sources: Nashville Tennessean, Tennessee Lookout