By Adam Ferrise
Advance Ohio Media
CLEVELAND — A Cuyahoga County Jail officer was fired after he admitted to investigators that he smuggled drugs and cigarettes into the jail for inmates.
Cuyahoga County officials fired Terrell Greer Dec. 24, county spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan. Greer was hired July 20, which means the county had more discretion over whether to fire him because he worked at the jail for less than a year.
Jail officials placed Greer on administrative leave with pay in November after launching an investigation alongside the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department.
Greer told investigators he smuggled marijuana and cigarettes into the jail, according to a letter from county human resources director Eric Myles informing Greer of his firing.
Greer has not been charged with a crime. Madigan said no other information on the case was available on Monday, and records of the case requested on Monday have not been released.
The incident is the latest at the jail involving officers smuggling drugs for inmates.
Drug incidents ranging from officers bringing drugs in the jail to arrestees with found with drugs in their pockets during booking are not he rise. Such incidents quadrupled between 2017, when there were 22 incidents, to 83 in 2019. There were 73 drug incidents at the jail as of Nov. 17, 2020.
Five of the 12 inmates who died in the jail since June 2018 died of drug overdoses.
Former jail warden Eric Ivey in 2019 interviews with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and FBI said that he believed corrections officers were mostly responsible for inmates obtaining drugs in the jail.
___
(c)2021 Advance Ohio Media, Cleveland