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2 COs among 36 charged in drug trafficking scheme tied to Fla. jail

Operation Killing Time uncovered synthetic drug trafficking in the Orange County Jail, leading to the suspension of two corrections officers

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Signs outside the Orange County Jail and Booking and Release Center, on Friday, January 31, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)

Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/TNS

By Silas Morgan
Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, Fla. — A six-month law enforcement operation at the Orange County Jail dubbed “Operation Killing Time” swept up three dozen people on racketeering and drug charges, including two corrections officers and an attorney.

The Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, a multi-agency Central Florida task force, said Friday that the charges resulted from an investigation that began in the spring, after corrections officers noticed inmates at the jail appeared to be on drugs.

Twenty two of those charged were inmates at the time of the alleged offenses. The attorney who was charged brought drugs into the jail while acting as an inmate’s lawyer, the bureau said. It did not identify which of the suspects was the attorney.

Louis Quinones, chief of the Orange County Corrections Department, condemned the alleged involvement of the two corrections officers, both women. The pair have been relieved of duty without pay while the MBI continues its investigation.

“Such misconduct is not in line with the more than 1,600 men and women performing honorably within the agency,” he said in the release.

Among the charges brought in the case are racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering, trafficking in synthetic cannabinoids, conspiracy to traffic in synthetic cannabinoids and introduction of contraband into a county detention facility.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Orange County Sheriff’s Office and the corrections department also participated in the investigation. The defendants will be prosecuted by the Florida Office of Statewide Prosecution.

The MBI requested that anyone with knowledge of the alleged crimes reach out to the bureau.

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