By Tim Prudente
The Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE — Four people have pleaded guilty in a scheme to smuggle drugs inside a Maryland prison after guards found a balloon with thousands of dollars worth of Suboxone strips hidden in the waistband of a woman’s underwear, prosecutors say.
Prison guards found the balloon hidden on a visitor to the Patuxent Institution in Jessup last October. Two Baltimore women and two prisoners have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute the contraband.
Joquitta Ferguson, 23, and Bishea Lacruze, 24, are scheduled for sentencing Oct. 25. Prisoners Andrew Dicks Sr., 46, and Michael Brock, 25, were both sentenced to three additional years in prison.
A mixture of Buprenorphine and Naloxone, the 100 strips are as small and thin as postage stamps and worth about $10,000 inside the prison, prosecutors say. They say guards checked the surveillance cameras and saw Ferguson pass a balloon to Dicks twice previously in September 2017.