In Rutland, Vermont, a former Vermont state prison guard was sentenced August 20 to seven months in jail on drug charges. Former guard Sheri Ann Fitzgerald, 44, had pleaded guilty in March to felony possession and sale charges involving cocaine as well as a misdemeanor charge of possessing a narcotic. Fitzgerald had been a prison [...]
In San Francisco, a senior Coast Guard officer who supervised anti-drug trafficking efforts in the Western Pacific was arrested August 20 on cocaine charges. Capt. Michael Sullivan, a 26-year veteran, was charged under military law with wrongful use of cocaine and obstruction of justice, a step that sets up an evidentiary hearing and could prompt [...]
In Clovis, New Mexico, a Curry County jail guard was arrested and fired August 7 for trying to smuggle drugs into the county jail. Former jail guard Julian Patrick Garcia, 36, is charged with possession with intent to distribute cocaine, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, bringing contraband into a jail, conspiracy to distribute controlled [...]
In Wytheville, Virginia, the Smyth County sheriff has launched an internal probe after sworn affidavits for search warrants in a federal drug case linked two deputies to the subject of those warrants. Sheriff David Bradley would not confirm reports that one deputy had been fired and another suspended, nor were the deputies named. According to [...]
In Charlotte, North Carolina, two former Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers have cut a plea deal with federal prosecutors in the case against them for conspiring with a drug dealer and an informant to sell crack cocaine. Ex-officers Gerald Holas Jr. and Jason Ross agreed to guilty pleas in return for a prosecutorial recommendation they be sentenced [...]
In Newark, New Jersey, a veteran Newark prison guard was charged July 24 with leading a cocaine trafficking ring that bought the drug in Texas and Florida and sold it in New Jersey. Senior corrections officers Eugene Braswell, 29, worked at Northern State Prison. He first came under scrutiny last August, when he shot and [...]
In Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Texas prison guard was arrested Monday night after Louisiana state troopers found 1.2 pounds of cocaine in her vehicle during a drug dog search after a traffic stop. LaQuatta Felder of Houston works at the Darrington Penitentiary in Rosharon, Texas, and was traveling with a former Darrington prisoner, Joseph Harris. [...]
In Boston, a former Swampscott police officer pleaded guilty June 12 to federal charges he sold oxycodone and cocaine. Thomas Wrenn, 38, was arrested in March after buying 50 pills from a police informant, but his colleagues had been watching him since they were tipped off to his drug use last year. Federal prosecutors alleged [...]
In McAllen, Texas, a US Border Patrol agent was arrested Monday and accused of smuggling 11 bricks of cocaine into the country. Agent Reynaldo Zuniga, 34, faces charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Zuniga allegedly picked up a Mexican drug courier at the border and drove him to meet another man in Hidalgo. Those two [...]