Jackson County jail guards took bribes to smuggle contraband, feds allege

Guards accepted hundreds of dollars in bribes for smuggling contraband cellphones, cigarettes and drugs into the Jackson County Detention Center, according to federal charges unsealed Monday in the wake of an early morning raid at the jail.

Two guards, a jail inmate and an alleged fixer on the outside were charged in two separate schemes. The cost of smuggling cellphones into the downtown Kansas City jail ranged from $100 to $500, according to court documents. Cigarettes: as much as $25 a pack.

In the first scheme, one guard allegedly smuggled in a phone and offered to grant a detainee who was acting as a government informant the exclusive right to receive smuggled narcotics, cigarettes and phones on his floor. The guard’s proposed fee was $2,500 a month, authorities allege.

In a separate scheme, a guard and the inmate arranged with the alleged fixer to smuggle in contraband, prosecutors said. The guard was pregnant with the inmate’s child at the time.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article158215839.html