|
|
| 7 prison officers charged with smuggling drugs |
| By The Patriot-News |
| Published: 04/15/2004 |
|
Seven officers have been accused of smuggling drugs and other items into the Northumberland County (Pa.) Prison. Two of them also are charged with assaulting an inmate, causing him to become blind in one eye. Three of the officers were arrested yesterday while on duty and arraigned before District Justice Robert Bolton. The other three, plus a fourth who had the day off, have been suspended without pay by the prison board. The other three no longer work at the prison. Another former corrections officer was charged with institutional sexual assault of a female inmate. He was not charged with smuggling items to inmates. In connection with the arrests, Attorney General Jerry Pappert made public a report of a statewide grand jury that details lax security practices at the more than century-old prison in Sunbury. The grand jury found: -Officers were not being searched. -Bundles containing controlled substances were thrown over the perimeter walls into the prison yard where they were retrieved by inmate orderlies. -A gap at the bottom of the prison's rear gate was large enough to allow someone on the outside to stuff contraband under it. Pappert said inmates and employees told the grand jury the bundles of contraband often were marked with a symbol or color identifying which inmate was to receive the contraband. The arrests followed a two-year investigation by the attorney general's office, state police and Sunbury police that grew out of an unrelated stolen guns case, Pappert said. The charges allege between 2000 and 2002, corrections officers brought marijuana, cocaine, tobacco, methamphetamine, cigarettes and other contraband into the prison in return for payment by inmates or their relatives. The prison board, meeting in emergency session, ordered Warden Ralph R. Reish to implement any recommendations not requiring board approval. He is to update the board at its May 5 meeting. Reish, who has been warden since February 2003, said many of the recommendations had been implemented. |
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think