Maricopa County correctional officer planned to smuggle drugs into jail, court records say
A Maricopa County correctional officer, who was arrested and charged with coordinating the smuggling of drugs to inmates on Wednesday, admitted wrongdoing to investigators in November 2022, court documents showed.
On Wednesday, deputies with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office arrested officer Andres Salazar, 27, after a department investigation looked into communications between incarcerated individuals with outside sources in which they discussed drug smuggling efforts.
According to an arrest report obtained by The Arizona Republic, the investigation found evidence linking Salazar to an intent to smuggle 100 fentanyl pills, heroin, meth and wax marijuana into the Lower Buckeye Jail. The investigation started June 1 and monitored chat conversations, video visits and phone calls that found inmates were coordinating with Salazar in the smuggling of drugs, court documents state.
Salazar was detained on Nov. 17 at the Lower Buckeye Jail.
According to the arrest report, he told investigators he had accepted $1,000 in cash for coordinating with inmates and taking a package of drugs from an outside source with the intent to introduce them into the jail, all items he said were in his car parked at the jail. Investigators found a baseball duffel bag in the trunk of his car with drugs and $900 cash, court documents detail. Salazar told investigators he spent $100 of the $1,000 of smuggling money on food and fuel, according to charging documents.
On Dec. 15, an Arizona Department of Public Safety drug analysis found the blue pills and crystalline substance that were found in Salazar's package tested positive for fentanyl and methamphetamine, according to court documents.
Salazar was arrested Wednesday and charged with promoting prison contraband, dangerous drug transport for sale and narcotic drugs transport for sale, all class 2 felonies. He is also facing a class 3 felony charge of theft that is related to logging work hours when he wasn't working, the arrest report states. He was released on a $20,000 bond on Wednesday, and his next court hearing is scheduled for Jan. 18, court records show.
Penzone plans to add body scanners to jails
In 2022, the Maricopa Medical Examiner’s Office determined that at 17 in-custody deaths were a result of an overdose or where drugs were a contributing factor, according to MCSO data. That same year, at least 172 incarcerated people were hospitalized due to an overdose or drug-related incident.
According to data from the Arizona Department of Corrections, in fiscal year 2022, there were 219 incidents involving inmates that included overdoses, insertions and other ingestions. The ADCRR includes the swallowing of foreign objects in their totals, not just drug-related incidents.
During a Wednesday news conference, in which Sheriff Paul Penzone announced the arrest, he shared his plans to add body scanners to Maricopa County jails that anyone who enters — including correctional staff — would need to go through. Penzone included millimeter-wave scanners often used at airports as an example of what the department might use.
Penzone acknowledged that the strategy remained in the planning stages as he and others deliberate what kind of scanners would be the most effective at identifying contraband with the least disruption in operations. Penzone said the agency would have to hire additional staff to operate the scanners and suggested possibly staggering correctional officers' shifts to avoid a long line of people waiting to be scanned.
The sheriff said MCSO is looking at scanners that cost between $150,000 to $250,000 and was still deliberating over how many it would need to install across its five jails. Penzone said the money would come from the agency's detention fund but has spoken to county officials about potentially receiving additional funding.
Republic reporter Perry Vandell contributed to this article.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: MCSO guard planned on smuggling fentanyl, meth into jail, records say
