Librarian smuggled paper infused with synthetic marijuana in jail drug ring, Massachusetts sheriff says
A librarian is accused of smuggling sheets of paper infused with synthetic marijuana in a $65,000 drug ring at the Bristol County jail in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
She's one of five people charged in what the sheriff called the "largest alleged employee drug bust" in the jail's history.
The investigation began back in March after authorities discovered someone was smuggling synthetic marijuana, also known as K-2 or "spice," into the jail.
According to the sheriff, 25-year-old inmate Joseph Housley of Rehoboth was selling thousands of dollars' worth of the drugs to other inmates, and he had help from four people on the outside.
Papers allegedly infused with drugs
One of them, investigators said, was the jail's librarian, 46-year-old Ginger Hook of New Bedford. They said she had smuggled the drugs several times in sheets of paper that were infused with synthetic marijuana. Authorities then put her under surveillance in June.
They allegedly caught her attempting to deliver 13 pages of drug-laced paper to Housley. It was in a folder disguised as "legal work," according to Sheriff Paul Heroux.
"A sheet of K-2 is 8.5 by 11. On the street that'll go for about $50, roughly $50, but in jail, it's now going for about $5,000," Heroux said at a news conference Monday. He noted that the 13 sheets were worth approximately $65,000 when sold inside the jail.
Hook resigned a month later when she was confronted about the incident. She and Housley were indicted last month along with the three others, 31-year-old Brandin Barbosa-Mayo of New Bedford, 33-year-old Bestlee Vasquez of Somerset and 23-year-old Axel Hazard of Rhode Island.
"We are prosecuting people who are bringing drugs into the jail and if you're an inmate participating in this, we're going to prosecute you as well," Heroux told reporters.
Heroux said his office did a background check on Hook before she was hired a year-and-a-half ago and that she had no previous criminal record.
"K-2 presents a unique situation because the drug dogs can't detect it unfortunately, but there are other ways that it can be detected," the sheriff said. "We don't want to talk about ways we can detect K-2 because then people will try to bring it in."
Dartmouth, Massachusetts is about 57 miles south of Boston.