LEBANON, Ohio -- A former corrections officer at the Warren County Correctional Institute was Thursday sentenced to nine months in prison for smuggling drugs to inmates in exchange for money.
According to a news release the Warren County prosecutor’s office, Travis Caudill, 36, was caught bringing a package of marijuana wrapped in duct tape into work April 15, 2016.
Caudill confessed that he was being paid to bring the drugs to an inmate and pleaded guilty to a third-degree felony charge of conveying prohibited items into a detention facility, authorities said.
"We have a significant problem with drugs getting into our prisons," said Warren County prosecutor David Fornshell in a news release. "It’s bad enough when family members and friends of the inmates sneak them in. But when individuals we trust to maintain the safety and security in our prisons immediately convey drugs to the inmates, we have zero tolerance for that."
Drug smuggling in prisons has been a persistent problem for Tri-State correctional authorities. In November, four Boone County inmates were arrested and charged with smuggling deadly drugs into the Boone County Jail. A fifth inmate, Timothy Marcum, overdosed on carfentanil in jail and died as a result, according to the Boone County Sheriff’s Office.
