By Brett Hambright
Intelligencer Journal/New Era
LANCASTER, Pa. — An inmate smuggled drugs into Lancaster County Prison at intake last month, then used some of the stash with a cellmate, according to officials.
Jay Allen Brubaker, 27, of Ephrata, and Devin Kyle Ramsey, 22, of Stevens, are now facing new felony drug possession charges, officials said.
Investigators allege Brubaker brought the drugs into the prison after being arrested by Ephrata police and committed on Jan. 13.
He concealed the drugs from guards during a mandatory search of new inmates, officials said.
Once placed in a temporary cellblock, officials said, Brubaker shared the drugs with Ramsey.
Guards found 39 bags of heroin, pills and two hypodermic needles, according to officials.
Both men tested positive for illegal substances.
“They used a little bit of what he got in,” Prison Warden Vincent Guarini said on Wednesday.
Lancaster County Detective Christopher Young on Wednesday morning filed three felony charges against Brubaker and two against Ramsey.
“We have two issues here,” District Attorney Craig Stedman said on Wednesday. “Obviously, we have the criminal charges to deal with, and we will deal with them. However, there is the broader significant concern of how someone could get this amount of drugs, as well as needles, past processing and into the cellblock.”
Prison officials didn’t disclose the method Brubaker used at intake. There was no word Wednesday on potential discipline to any prison guards or officials.
After arraignment in the morning, bail was set at $50,000 for Brubaker and $30,000 for Ramsey.
Both men were in prison for previous drug charges.
Brubaker was arrested for having drug paraphernalia and on a public drunkenness charge.
Ramsey was serving a sentence after pleading guilty last year to several misdemeanor possession charges.
Both are now looking at longer stints behind bars.
After finding the stash, prison officials contacted the county Drug Task Force, and detectives tested the substances.
It wasn’t immediately clear how Brubaker kept the drugs concealed from the police officers who arrested him.
Scott Martin, chairman of the county commissioners, noted that while police officers conduct pat searches over clothing, they don’t have authority to perform strip searches.
Prison officials do for cases like this one, Martin said.
“This is the reason why,” said Martin, a former director of the county’s Youth Intervention Center. “We’ve had (inmates) that tied baggies to their teeth” in attempts to smuggle drugs.
Martin, a prison board member, didn’t comment Wednesday on this case because he hadn’t been fully briefed on it.
The drugs were discovered after guards received “intelligence,” Guarini said.
Copyright 2012 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.