Corrections1 Staff
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Eighteen corrections officers and a drug counselor are accused of trying to run a drug ring out of two South Florida prisons.
According to the FBI, the officers allegedly agreed to protect drug shipments and use there badges transport multi-kilo loads of cocaine from Miami-dade to West Palm Beach. Now they face federal drug, bribery and unlawful compensation charges.
The arrests were the result of a 2-year sting involving undercover FBI agents. In what was dubbed “Operation Blind Justice”, undercover agents paid 13 corrections officers to traffick the cocaine. The officers thought they were working for a major drug transporter.
In total, the group made about $150,000 for their exploits.
Some of the officers were employed by the Department of Corrections at the Glades Correctional Institution and others by the privately run South Bay Correctional Facility. Both are in Palm Beach County.
“When you work in the prison environment, there is always opportunity to turn to the dark side,” said state Department of Corrections Secretary Walter A. McNeil at a news conference. “They succumbed to temptation.”
The initial tip came from a former warden at Glades Correctional, said McNeil, who reported that things just “didn’t look right.”
Warden Christopher Douglas noticed the drug peddling and dropped a dime in 2007 to the Florida Deparement of Corrections Inspector General’s office. The FBI soon swooped in and after 26-months, collared the badge-wearing drug dealers.
It’s unclear how long the prison drug ring had been operating, but some of the officers had been working in the system for as long as 12 years.