By Natalie Neysa Alund
News Sentinel
NEWPORT, Tenn. — A Cocke County Sheriff’s Department deputy is under investigation after allegedly selling drugs to a jail inmate.
George Trent, a corrections officer who’d worked with the department for just more than a month, was fired Friday following an undercover buy inside the Cocke County jail, according to Sheriff Armando Fontes.
The sheriff said his office received a tip Friday morning that Trent, 33, was selling prescription pills to inmates. Later that evening deputies gave an inmate bait money and he reportedly solicited Trent for drugs. Trent sold him one 30 milligram Roxycodine, officials said.
When sheriff’s investigators questioned Trent about the transaction, he reportedly confessed.
“He ultimately gave a statement after signing off on a waiver, admitting to selling it,” Fontes said.
Trent, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, was hired Nov. 15, as a part-time jail guard. At the time of his termination he was being evaluated for potential promotion to patrol.
It was unknown Tuesday how many other inmates he may have reportedly sold drugs to.
Although Trent was not arrested, his case will go before a grand jury next month, Fontes said. If indicted, he’ll likely face felony charges, including possession and distribution of narcotics and introducing drugs into a penal facility.
Trent is not the first Cocke County corrections officer to face charges for criminal activity in recent years.
Former jailer Derrick Lynn Cureton pleaded guilty to attempted money laundering in July 2005 and was sentenced to two years in prison. He was accused of conspiring in July 2004 with former deputy Larry Joe Dodgin, to smuggle $80,000 in cash they believed to be illegal drug money and $250,000 in counterfeit bonds.
Dodgin was later arrested after trying to buy $60,000 worth of cocaine from an undercover FBI agent in Dandridge. He pleaded guilty to that offense and was later sentenced to 8 years in federal prison.
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