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Five busted for drug smuggling at jail
Sheriff Ray: Many illegal substances coming from court appearances
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Several cited and/or arrested this past week. - photo by Duane Sherrill

 

It’s come a long way from hiding a file inside a cake as smugglers are resulting to extreme measures to sneak drugs inside the jail, using their own bodies to mule contraband behind bars.

“We work hard to keep things out of the jail especially drugs,” said Sheriff Patrick Ray after correctional officers at Dekalb County Jail caught a rash of smugglers slipping drugs into the facility. “From time to time we see inmates that are being booked into the jail come in with different kinds of medication or illegal substances in their body cavities as a means of trying to hide those drugs from the correctional officers in order to get them into their cell. When we find an inmate in possession of drugs in jail we arrest them again for that.”

The sheriff said body cavity smuggling is one of the most pervasive ways inmates are getting illegal substances into their jail cells to either ingest themselves or to sell for profit to the rest of the prisoner population, many of which are locked up on drug charges.

Sheriff Ray said five female inmates were busted just this past week for having drugs in the county jail. The source of a lot the smuggled drugs is coming from just across the street, he noted, as inmates are being passed illegal substances while in court and then smuggling them back into the jail. Sheriff Ray has asked the county commission for more manpower to help with court as his current staff is overwhelmed with the numerous court appearances and the specter of smuggling associated with those short trips outside the jail.

“Our court officers do their best to secure the courthouse and keep it free of contraband but for the last three weeks there have been several days in which we have had up to three courts ed at the same time including two on the third floor with the General Sessions and Criminal Courts and another in the first floor courtroom,” the sheriff noted. “Under those circumstances it is hard to get inmates from the jail to the different courtrooms without them picking up things (contraband) left by others on the ground or courthouse stairwells.”

While fighting an uphill battle at this point, the sheriff said the recent round of busts inside the jail may serve as a warning that the jail is determined to crack down on drug smuggling.

Among those busted this past week was Amy Lynn Hall, 41, of Sparta who had been recently arrested for being a fugitive from justice. She was caught on a jail surveillance camera removing something from her body cavity and then flushing it down a toilet before putting something else back in her body. She was then strip searched by a female correctional officer. The search netted a glass pipe. She was charged with introduction of contraband and tampering with or fabricating evidence.

In another, unrelated bust, Michael Pieree Rose, 24, also an inmate at the jail, was caught with two oxycodone pills on April 20.

Three cellmates were also busted this past week including Laura Beth Farris of Lebanon, Sherry May Evans, 40, of Liberty, and Tammy Denise Currie, 47, of Toad Road. They were hit with charges this past Sunday after female correctional officers noticed suspicious activity in the women’s cell and began to investigate. During a strip search, Farris produced from her body cavity two plastic baggies, one containing a white powdery substance believed to be Neurontin. The other baggie held a crystal like substance believed to be methamphetamine. The investigation revealed that Farris was trying to hide the drugs for Evans who had given her the Neurontin and Currie who had passed her the methamphetamine.

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Amy Lynn Hall

 

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Laura Beth Farris
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Sherry May Evans
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Michael Rose
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Tammy Denise Currie