Correction officer pleads guilty to smuggling drugs into Brooklyn federal jail
A former federal correction officer has pleaded guilty to accepting $10,000 to smuggle drugs into the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Jeremy Monk, 32, pleaded guilty Monday to in Brooklyn Federal Court to a bribery charge, and could face three years behind bars.
Monk brought contraband into the Sunset Park jail several times, and on April 15, he tried to hide to more than 9 ounces of weed in a staff bathroom, according to the feds. He resigned three days later, telling human resources staff he was quitting over “some stupid investigation,” federal prosecutors said.
He was arrested in August.
Monk smuggled in contraband starting December 2020 — just seven months after he started the job. On Dec. 5, 2020, jail staff found a cell phone while searching the cell of a racketeering suspect after smelling marijuana, and the inmate told investigators about Monk, according to a criminal complaint.
Three days earlier, the prisoner’s romantic partner made seven payments to Monk through a mobile cash app account, ranging from $750 to $4,000, but the transactions were blocked.
On April 14, federal jail officials got a tip that Monk had been paid $10,000 to smuggle drugs, alcohol and tobacco into the detention center in a black bag, according to a criminal complaint. He was supposed to leave the drugs in a staff bathroom, then leave the door unlocked.
The next day, he walked into the bathroom and left about four minutes later, and when jail staff searched the room they found two vacuum-sealed bags of pot hidden below two floor buffing pads on a shelf, the feds said.
Though Monk faces a maximum of 15 years behind bars, federal sentencing guidelines will likely put his potential prison sentence at 30 to 37 months.
“The defendant has admitted to violating his duty as a federal correction officer by taking bribes in exchange for smuggling contraband into the Metropolitan Detention Center, a serious betrayal of his fellow correction officers and staff, incarcerated individuals, and the trust placed in him by the government,” United States Attorney Breon Peace said.
Monk’s sentencing date has not yet been set.
The Metropolitan Detention Center has housed several well-known inmates, including sex-trafficking R&B superstar R. Kelly, Jeffrey Epstein enabler Ghislaine Maxwell and Frank James, who pleaded guilty to terrorism charges after shooting 10 people on a crowded N train last year.
The feds launched emergency searches for a gun smuggled into the jail at least twice since October 2021. One of those searches turned up numerous contraband cell phones, a source familiar with the lockdown said.
