LANSING− State prison drug overdoses have skyrocketed during the pandemic, and there is strong and growing evidence that points to corrections officers or other prison staff as significant suppliers.
Last year, 252 state prisoners overdosed on drugs — nearly quadruple the number in 2019.
That's despite the fact in-person prison visits— long pointed to by Michigan Department of Corrections officials as a major source of smuggled drugs— were halted in most of 2020 and 2021 to curb the spread ofCOVID-19. Even before the pandemic started, officials took steps to eliminate prison mailas an illicit source.
Officials acknowledge that removing visits and mail as major sourcesof prison drugs leaves only two possibilities— drugs coming "over the fence" by methods such as packages dropped by drones or drug-filled basketballs thrown into prison yards; and drugs smuggled in by corrections officers, or other staff or contractors.
A monthslong Free Press investigation found:
- Recent state and federal investigations point to prison officers as participating in lucrative schemes to deliver drugs to inmates;
- It is relatively easy for officers to bring drugs inside prison, partly because of a significant weakness in the way the department staffs the "gate" where employees enter prisons, and partly because already weak gate policies are frequently ignored or undermined by supervisors;
- The Michigan State Police, the outside agency that most frequently investigates prison drug smuggling and overdose deaths, defers to Michigan Department of Corrections officials in the handling and processing of evidence, frequently describing its role as "assisting" prison officials, rather than investigating them.
- Prison personnel and Freedom of Information Act policies both obscure and contribute to the scope of the problem by shielding employee discipline records from public scrutiny.
“They keep coming up with these explanations that don’t make any sense, and frankly, it’s offensive," said Solomon Radner, a Southfield attorney whose 2019 lawsuit over a prisoner's drug overdose death at Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, which accuses some prison officials of complicity in drug trafficking, was recently revived by a federal appeals court.
“The reality of this is, the only way they’re (drugs) getting in is with certain guards allowing it in. If they were serious about not letting it in, it wouldn’t get in."
Overdoses increased as outside contact fell
Late in 2017, the department began photocopying all mail not sent from law offices before prisoners received it as a way of stopping the delivery of drugs that can be distributed through clear plastic strips and even hidden behind stamps. Prison visits were banned completely for a solid year, from March 2020 until March 2021. When visits resumed, they were through plexiglass until September of last year. Though contact visits are again permitted, they are under continued restrictions, with only one embrace allowed at the start of the visit and another at the end.
Meanwhile, the number of prison overdoses more than doubled in 2020, to 136 from 64 in 2019, records show. In 2021, overdoses nearly doubled again to 252.
Chris Gautz, a spokesman for Department of Corrections Director Heidi Washington, said the increased overdoses during the pandemic don't necessarily point to employees as a primary source; but he said he does see a connection with the more than $27 million in federal stimulus funds state prisoners received from the federal government. Also, there has been a big increase in "fake" legal mail, which is not subject to being photocopied, and increased prison use of Narcan, the opioid overdose drug, with each dose generally counted as an overdose, even if officials later learned the unconscious prisoner was in fact suffering from low blood sugar, not an overdose, he said.
"The smuggling of contraband, in all its forms, is a threat to our facilities and a danger to prisoners and staff and is taken with the utmost seriousness," Gautz said. "Anyone who comes into our prisons presents the potential for contraband introduction and we are constantly assessing all vulnerabilities."
Corrections officers who reach the top of the pay scale are paid about $60,000 a year, not counting overtime. But the strong demand for drugs inside prison walls, combined with limited supply, means they can make thousands more through smuggling.
Thomas Daugherty, 47, worked as a corrections officer at Parnall Correctional Facility near Jackson until December 2021, when he was caught smuggling 150 strips of suboxone — a drug used to treat opioid withdrawal that is frequently abused as a painkiller — to an inmate.
Daugherty, who pleaded guilty to a five-year felony in July and is expected to be sentenced Oct. 25,told investigators he was paid $5,000 per delivery and had made five or six deliveries in the six months prior to his arrest, according to Michigan State Police records the Free Press obtained through the state Freedom of Information Act.
A federal grand jury on April 6 indicted Brandon Keith McGaffigan, 30, of Flint, who was a corrections officer at Thumb Correctional Facility in Lapeer when he allegedly possessed methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin with the intention of selling the illegal drugs inside the prison, in January.
But state and federal smuggling charges against prison employees are relatively rare. Prison employees suspected of smuggling drugs or other contraband are issued "stop orders" intended to prevent them from working inside the system again. Sometimes, local prosecutors decline to bring charges, Gautz said.
Both prisoners and officers who have come forward with information about drug smuggling by prison staff have said they quickly became targets for retaliation.
When Ventron Lott was found dead at Macomb Correctional Facility on Dec. 9, 2021, Lott's mother, Joan Johnson, thought his death resulted from a seizure. Her son had just called her to tell her he was not receiving his required anti-seizure medication, she said. Before she could follow up on that, a prison official called to tell her Lott was dead.
A few weeks later, Johnson received a phone call from another Macomb prisoner, Marshall Forrest. He told Johnson her son, who was housed in the prison's residential treatment facility, died from an overdose. The drugs, Forrest said, were supplied by the prisoner who bunked with Lott, who in turn received the drugs from a corrections officer.
Johnson then obtained her son's autopsy report and was shocked to learn he died from an overdose of fentanyl and heroin. Prison officials never told her that, she said.
Gautz said prison officials often don't know the cause when they inform family members of a prisoner's death.
Forrest, 60, who is serving a life sentence for a 1998 murder in Berrien County, has since written a series of letters, backed by a sworn affidavit, to Johnson and to investigators with the MSP, the U.S. Attorney's Office and others. Forrest alleges widespread prison drug dealing, controlled by gangs and certain prison officers, and the use of smuggled cellphones and mobile platforms such as Cash App to make and receive payments.
Forrest, who in some of the letters identifies corrections officers by name, said he was stabbed in the face in an April 4 chow hall prisoner attack he believes was orchestrated by prison staff.
"Not one MDOC staff of the four present inside the kitchen stopped this prisoner ... from continuing on with stabbing me," Forrest said in a sworn and notarized July 6 affidavit Forrest provided to the Free Press.
Gautz denied Forrest is being harassed and said prison video shows officers came to his aid within five to 10 seconds.
A Free Press reporter met with Forrest for two hours at Earnest C. Brooks Correctional Facility near Muskegon.
"I want to speak out. I almost lost my life already. I might get lucky and someone is going to look at this," said Forrest, whose cell at Macomb Correctional Facility was across from Lott's.
Forrest said Lott approached him on the night of his overdose, looking sick and disheveled.
Lott said he'd snorted drugs given to him by the prisoner he bunked with. Lott thought he was snorting Wellbutrin — a prescription anti-depressant — but later learned he was given a mix of heroin and fentanyl. Lott also named a corrections officer he said gave the drugs to the prisoner he bunked with, Forrest said. The Free Press is not naming the officer, pending further verification.
Lott gave Forrest his mother's phone number and asked him to contact her if anything happened to him, he said.
Forrest said he did not place that call for about five weeks because he felt intimidated by corrections officers who he said prevented him from speaking to Michigan State Police officers investigating Lott's death. He said he decided to come forward once he concluded the incident was going to be swept under the rug.
He said he was interviewed by an MSP investigator in March, but has had no follow-up.
Shanon Banner, a spokeswoman for the MSP, would neither confirm nor deny whether an investigation into Forrest's allegations is underway.
Since meeting with the Free Press, "I am being harassed continually," Forrest wrote in a Sept. 22 email from prison.
Officers, too, have complained of harassment after speaking out about suspected drug dealing by prison staff.
Brent Rohrig was a resident unit manager at the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility near Jackson when he spoke up about a corrections officer he suspected was smuggling heroin to prisoners.
The Corrections Department opened an investigation — into Rohrig, alleging he had misused the email system. The internal affairs investigator the department assigned to comb through Rohrig's emails was the ex-wife of the officer he accused of smuggling. Rohrig said that move endangered both him and the prisoners who had confided in him about the illegal drugs.
The department fired Rohrig in 2017, while the other officer remained on the job. Only months later, after Rohrig went public, did the department fire the officer, accusing him of smuggling unspecified contraband, overfamiliarity with prisoners, and "conduct unbecoming" a corrections officer. He was never criminally charged.
In 2018, a civil service hearing officer blasted the department and ordered Rohrig reinstated with back pay, saying the trumped-up allegations against him were "the essence of disparate, arbitrary, disproportionate discipline."
Rohrig also sued the department and received a $50,000 settlement and was allowed to retire early, said his Detroit attorney, Jonathan Marko.
Rohrig told the Free Press that after his firing and reinstatement received media attention, he heard from numerous prison employees who felt the department had retaliated against them for speaking out about prison issues.
Lax front gate practices
How do officers bring drugs into prisons, since they pass through metal detectors and are subject to inspection of their bags and random pat-downs when they arrive for work?
Three current or former corrections officers assigned to three different prisons, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of prison security issues, told the Free Press corrupt officers can take advantage of a significant and long-standing weakness in the way the gate is staffed.
More:Drugs and cellphones arrive at Michigan prison aboard waste hauler's truck
More:Lawsuit over Michigan inmate's overdose death may continue, federal appeals court says
Though an officer is stationed at the gate to check bags and perform random pat-downs for more than 16 hours out of every day, many facilities do not assign a full-time gate officer during "third shift," which is typically from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Officers are subject to search upon arrival for that shift, but once the shift begins, until near the end of the shift, only the "bubble officer" — so named because he or she typically works inside a compartment shielded by transparent glass or plastic — is present at the gate. That officer, who unlike the gate officer actually controls the opening of the gate, can attempt to view the inside of an officer's bag through the window but can't perform pat-downs because of standing instructions not to leave the bubble, the sources said. Officers who leave the prison to grab lunch or go to their vehicles during a break, midway through that third shift, can be confident they are unlikely to be subjected to a pat-down upon their return, the sources said.
Gautz said it is prison policy for an officer to be called to the gate whenever an employee enters. He could not say whether that policy is always followed.
Earl Booth, a corrections officer at the Charles E. Egeler Reception and Guidance Center near Jackson, has worked frequently at the front gate, including more than two years as the full-time front gate officer, between 2013 and 2015. Booth says a minority of supervisors repeatedly violate front gate security rules. Officers rightfully fear retaliation if they try to insist the rules be followed, he said.
Between 2013 and 2017, Booth documented and reported at least 10 incidents in which five sergeants and lieutenants tried to enter the prison in violation of MDOC rules. Most involved supervisors who refused to take off their belts or empty their pockets before passing through the metal detector, instead just setting off the detector and demanding a pat-down.
Booth has complained in writing, not only about the supervisors who violated gate policy, but about the supervisors of the supervisors, for failing to investigate the incidents and impose discipline. Nearly every supervisor Booth has complained about has since been promoted, records show.
Booth meanwhile, who had no discipline on his record from when he joined the department in 2000 until 2012, when his harassment complaint against a lieutenant was upheld, has been subjected to a series of investigations and discipline he believes are retaliatory.
In 2017, Booth reported a different lieutenant for screaming at him to open the gate, when there was no gate officer present and Booth was working in the bubble; and for repeatedly failing to present his identification card at the gate, as required. Records Booth obtained through FOIA show a captain then tipped off the lieutenant about Booth's complaint. Booth's complaint was not investigated, but the lieutenant brought his own complaint against Booth for doodling on a piece of paper while working. Booth was found guilty of three work rule violations, including dereliction of duty, and suspended for three days without pay.
Booth later obtained records that show that in 2019, the captain who tipped off the lieutenant was twice caught trying to enter the facility with his cellphone. That's a serious infraction that can bring discipline up to and including dismissal. But that captain, who by 2019 had been promoted to inspector and has since been promoted again to a position in internal affairs, received only a written reprimand for the first offense and a one-day suspension for the second offense, records show.
Gautz said those punishments are standard for someone with no discipline on their record. "Mistakes happen; we understand that," he said. Officials do not believe the lieutenant screamed at Booth, and the captain was notifying the officer in charge of the shift, who happened to be the lieutenant, that a front gate incident had occurred, not intentionally tipping anyone off, he said. Gautz declined to comment on the other incidents Booth cited.
"Staff are flat-out intimidated and afraid to report arrogant and privileged supervisors that feel they can do whatever they want, and burn us when we report them," said Booth, who in January, after he was contacted and interviewed by the Free Press, sued the department in federal court over discipline-related issues.
The Free Press has reviewed documentation related to all of the incidents Booth complained about, but is not naming the supervisors, partly because Booth is not accusing those supervisors of smuggling drugs or other contraband. Still, Booth said such disregard for the rules — and reprisals against those willing to enforce the rules — undermines overall security.
"People are afraid to report it — they're afraid to do anything," Booth said. "That's how stuff gets in."
Department investigates itself
When overdose deaths or discoveries of significant amounts of smuggled drugs inside the prisons result in the police being called, Corrections Department officials and employees are not treated as potential suspects. Instead, they help run the investigation.
On Aug. 26, a sharp-eyed officer noticed several packages attached to a trash compactor being delivered to Lakeland by Waste Management Inc., the prison's trash contractor. The packages contained marijuana, tobacco, suboxone and three cellphones and chargers. In an Aug. 31 email to the Free Press, MSP Detective Sgt. Matthew Berry described the department's role as "assisting the Michigan Department of Corrections with an investigation" of the incident.
That's despite the fact officials at Lakeland specifically, and the Michigan Department of Corrections more generally, had already been publicly accused of involvement in drug smuggling at Lakeland, located in Coldwater in south-central Michigan, in a 2019 federal lawsuit related to the overdose death of 21-year-old Lakeland prisoner Seth Zakora. Although that suit, which initially included allegations against the MSP, had been dismissed in 2021, the allegations against some Lakeland prison officials had been revived just two weeks earlier, by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a development that had been publicized in the Free Press.
Also, there were earlier drug smuggling incidents involving Waste Management trucks both before and after the MSP investigation into another drug overdose death at Lakeland — that of 49-year-old prisoner Charles Foresi on Jan. 1 of this year, according to an MDOC spokesman and records the Free Press obtained using FOIA.
Despite all of that, Gautz said Aug. 31 that prison officials do not believe the waste hauling company is involved in the smuggling.
Given the logistical difficulties of arranging such a delivery, the involvement of someone inside the prison who is not a prisoner cannot be ruled out.
Yet giving Corrections Department officials significant roles in such investigations is standard MSP practice.
MSP's Berry, who also investigated Foresi's death, wrote in a Feb. 2 report that an unauthorized cellphone discovered inside the prison during the death investigation "was given to the MDOC intelligence unit to be forensically examined," and said in a Jan. 12 report that prison officials were "going through video evidence, phone calls, and JPay (prisoner email) records."
Banner said her agency assists the Corrections Department because its criminal investigation capabilities are limited.
"MSP is utilized to investigate and present the case to the prosecutor," she said. "Our ability to work cooperatively together in the investigation increases both the effectiveness and timeliness of investigations."
While the MSP and Corrections Department work closely on investigating potential criminal wrongdoing inside the prison system, the transparency each provides related to transgressions by their own employees is vastly different.
When a state trooper is investigated by internal affairs or gets fired, the Free Press can use FOIA to obtain reports of interviews and other actions related to the internal affairs investigation, as well as records documenting why the trooper was fired.
Those records are not available from the Corrections Department, making the scope of actual or suspected drug trafficking by its employees difficult to track.
The department cites a section of state law that declares "personnel records" exempt from FOIA in refusing to release records of internal affairs investigations, even in cases where the investigations uphold accusations of wrongdoing. The department takes that position even though internal affairs is an entirely different section of the department from human resources and maintains its own records separate from personnel files.
Last year, the department also used the "personnel files" exemption to refuse to release copies of "stop orders" banning suspended or fired corrections officers from entering state prisons, even though "stop orders" are a form of semi-public notices, in which the names and photos of employees are circulated to the front gate, about a dozen prison officials, and even sometimes officials at neighboring prisons, to alert everyone to bar entry.
Johnson, who almost didn't learn her son died from a prison overdose, said she wonders how many other moms are similarly kept in the dark. "None of it makes sense," she said.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.