Corrections Officer Arrested For Trying To Smuggle Items Into Jail
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A corrections officer was arrested Friday for allegedly trying to smuggle cell phones and drugs into the Miami-Dade County Jail.
The items would be exchanged for cash.
CBS4 News Partner, The Miami Herald, reports Officer Lavar Lewis, 27, was taken into custody after a 19-month investigation into smuggling problems at the jail.
According to the paper, at least three other corrections officers have been under the microscope during the probe.
Lewis, known by inmates as "The Love Doctor", is considered another black eye for the jail system that has been criticized recently for shoddy conditions and poor medical care.
"When any law enforcement official, in this case a correctional officer, betrays his position of trust, our entire community suffers," Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle told the paper.
At least one inmate found with a cell phone is part of a notorious gang known as the Terrorist Boys, whose members are facing trial and the death penalty for a dozen murders and other shootings.
Lewis, a day shift officer since his hire in November 2008, has been suspended since September 2013.
He was charged with unlawful compensation and conspiracy to introduce contraband into a jail and was being held Friday night at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in West Miami-Dade.
Public correction prosecutors and jail internal affairs investigators claim to have discovered the scheme while pouring through cell phone records and convincing inmates to provide information on Lewis.
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