Jason Harry Robb was born on June 15, 1967. While few details are publicly available about his early life, what is clear is that by the early 1990s, Robb had become deeply involved in prison gang activity and was a known member of the Aryan Brotherhood while incarcerated at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio.

Within the racially segregated and gang-dominated ecosystem of the prison, Robb's alignment with the Aryan Brotherhood positioned him as one of the group's key leaders. 

On April 11, 1993, Easter Sunday, tensions erupted into a full-scale riot inside the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. Over 450 inmates took control of the prison, forming a leadership council across racial and ideological lines, uniting the Aryan Brotherhood, Black Muslims, and Gangster Disciples. The causes were varied: overcrowding, poor management, and Muslim resistance to mandatory tuberculosis testing involving phenol, which violated their religious beliefs.

Jason Robb was one of the recognized leaders during the riot. Authorities alleged that Robb, as a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, was directly involved in orchestrating acts of violence and maintaining the fragile alliance between the factions. Among the most notorious outcomes of the riot was the murder of Correctional Officer Robert Vallandingham and several inmates suspected of being informants.

Robb was convicted for the murder of David Sommers, an inmate believed to have been labeled as an informant, and for the death of Officer Vallandingham, who was held hostage and later strangled on April 15, 1993. Though accounts vary regarding exactly who was responsible for the officer’s death, Robb was among those held accountable for sanctioning and enabling the murder as part of the leadership council.

He was tried and sentenced to death in 1995 for his role in the killings.

Nearly two decades after the riot, Robb, along with fellow Lucasville Five members Siddique Abdullah Hasan and Bomani Shakur (Keith LaMar), initiated a peaceful hunger strike while held in solitary confinement at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown.

On January 4, 2011, one day after LaMar and Hasan began the protest, Robb joined them in their demand for equal treatment as other death row inmates. At the time, the trio was confined 23 hours a day without access to contact visits, regular phone calls, or commissary privileges. They called for daily phone time, family visits with physical contact, and the ability to buy basic necessities from the prison store.

Public support for the hunger strike swelled, drawing attention from the ACLU, human rights advocates, and legal scholars. Under pressure, the prison administration agreed to implement the policy changes. On January 15, 2011, the three men ended their strike after receiving formal assurances.

Since the 1993 riot, Ohio’s death row population has shifted between several facilities. While most inmates were relocated to the Chillicothe Correctional Institution and later the Ross Correctional Institution in 2024, Jason Robb remains at the supermax Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP) under high-security conditions, along with Siddique Abdullah Hasan and Bomani Shakur.

Robb continues to serve his sentence while maintaining his innocence in some of the charges brought against him, particularly surrounding Officer Vallandingham’s murder.