A former corrections worker received a three-year prison sentence after admitting to the smuggling of drugs, cellphones, and additional contraband into state prisons through food deliveries, The South Carolina Daily Gazette reports. Javaris Da’Sant, 22, pleaded guilty to charges of trafficking meth, furnishing contraband to a prisoner and possessing marijuana with intent to distribute. His sentencing, should serve as a warning for other employees bringing drugs, cellphones and other illegal items into jails, said Judge Daniel Coble. In recent years, the corrections department has put up 50-foot nets to prevent people from throwing packages over the fences and installed monitors to detect drones sent over the nets. South Carolina was the first in the U.S. licensed to use technology that detects cellphones used within prisons, allowing officials to report them to their carriers, which then shut off the service.
Da’Sant’s charges date to 2022. A manager at the department’s food services warehouse in Columbia, which packages food to ship to all the state’s prisons, noticed Da’Sant leaving the freezer wearing a backpack. Behind him the manager found an open box of frozen chicken containing vacuum-sealed packages of tobacco and marijuana, said prosecutor Margaret Scott. When agents with the Office of the Inspector General searched Da’Sant’s car, they found bags of methamphetamine and marijuana, as well as cellphones and chargers, Scott said. Da’Sant, who had worked for the department for about six months, admitted to attempting to smuggle in contraband for money twice before. Inmates had promised him $5,000 for this round of contraband, he told police officers. Inmates with access to phones can more easily set up ways to sneak more drugs, weapons, and other illicit items into prison, as well as order crimes conducted on the outside. Prisoners have coordinated contraband drop-offs and, in one case, ordered the shooting of a prison guard for interfering with a drop-off, using contraband cell phones.
Comments