"Everyone knows I did it," Atlanta inmate says in live video filmed from prison cell

A 30-year-old prisoner held at Atlanta's Federal Penitentiary streamed a nearly hour-long video on Facebook live from inside his cell on Jan. 27, where he said "I did it" and referenced a murder in which another man was sentenced.

Joseph Fletcher, of Akron, Ohio, who is currently serving a 39-month sentence for weapons charges, went live for about 51 minutes, where he reminisced about his time in Akron.

He spoke to friends and claimed to "run Akron," saying he had "a lot of good things" in the area. But then he doubled down on what he said was his newfound goal of becoming a rapper in Atlanta.

In the video, he called himself a "motivational speaker for gangsters" and said he wanted to draw from his life on the streets to create music.

"I'm a rapper now, I'm done with the streets. I'm only rapping," he said.

In particular, he spoke about a man he called "Champy," otherwise known as Anthony Smart. Fletcher said he wanted to rap about Champy so people would know who he is and what he did.

Smart pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in a plea deal in 2011 after 19-year-old LaDonte Smith was found shot to death in Akron. He is currently serving a 17-year sentence, reported the Akron Beacon Journal.

'If it wasn't for Champy I'd have a life sentence right now," Fletcher says in the video. At another part of the video, he makes a gun-shooting gesture with his hand and says "Everybody knows I did that. Yeah, I did it. Free my n****r Champy!"

Former Akron police chief James Nice called Fletcher one of the city's "most dangerous criminals" in 2015, adding that "our city is safer today because of his federal conviction," reported Cleveland.com.

Prison officials told the Akron Beacon Journal and other outlets the video was under investigation, and would not answer questions about how Fletcher could have gotten a contraband smartphone to make the video.

Cellphone smuggling is a major problem in prisons, and particularly southern prisons. An NBC News investigation found that Georgia and other southern states were hotbeds of smartphone contraband in prisons. In Georgia, nearly 50 correctional officers were arrested in 2016 after a two-year sting found that guards and staff were smuggling contraband, including smartphones, into nine facilities across the state.

Now the mother of LaDonte Smith is questioning whether justice was done in the death of her son.

"It really hurt me. I sat at the table for like a half hour just sitting there, just staring, just watching the video over and over again because my thing is I can’t understand how you said you did it and in the same breath turn around and say, ‘I love 'Tay,’” Lashoane Andrus, mother of Smith, told Fox 8.

'Tay' was Smith's nickname, reported the Akron Beacon Journal.

“I want the person who did it," Andrus told the paper. “What more evidence do I need? He said he shot him.”

Fletcher is scheduled to be released in May, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

This story was originally published February 1, 2018 at 9:49 AM with the headline ""Everyone knows I did it," Atlanta inmate says in live video filmed from prison cell."