Indictments and Guilty Pleas in Multi-Gang Prison Smuggling Conspiracy in Texas

by Matt Clarke

On February 26, 2013, a 23-page federal indictment was unsealed. It charged 32 people with involvement in a complex conspiracy to smuggle alcohol, tobacco, cell phones and drugs into a Texas prison. Leaders from two prison gangs allegedly cooperated in setting up and running the smuggling ring which also had a money laundering and racketeering-related financial component.

The indictment named 13 former Texas Department of Criminal Justice employees who were working at the McConnell Unit in Beeville. The charges included racketeering, bribery, accepting bribes for smuggling, possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, illegal financial activities and money laundering. The contraband smuggled into the prison included alcohol, tobacco, cell phones, marijuana, methamphetamine, ecstasy and cocaine.

The scheme involved leaders of two racial gangs with a strong prison presence cooperating, corrupt employees and facilitators, and financial agents outside the prison, some of whom were related to the three indicted state prisoners. According to the indictment, the employees accepted bribes to smuggle the contraband into the prison and sometimes recruited other employees for smuggling activities while the facilitators gave the employees the bribe money and contraband. The financial agents engaged in racketeering-related financial transactions and money laundering.

The indictment was the accumulation of a four-year investigation called Operation Prison Cell that started in 2009 when a Corpus Christi police officer made a routine traffic stop. The stopped vehicle was stolen and being driven by a member of the Ayran Circle gang.

According to Tom Roddy, Homeland Security Investigations group supervisor, the vehicle was being convoyed to Mexico along with other stolen vehicles for delivery to a Mexican drug cartel. Corpus Christi police alerted Brownsville police who were able to intercept the other stolen vehicles, discovering weapons inside them. Gang members arrested when the vehicles were intercepted told investigators that leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood and Baza Unida gangs inside McConnell Unit were coordinating the vehicle thefts as well as home invasions, murders and shootings using cell phones that had been smuggled into the prison.

"Raza Unida and Aryan Brotherhood were working together for monetary gain inside and outside of prison,” said Roddy.

On April 2, 2013, three of the former employees and four others entered guilty pleas to racketeering charges related to the smuggling of cell phones and drugs. Kimberly Marie Koenig said she hid them in her bra while Stephanie Deming, 23, cut holes in the soles of her boots to smuggle in the contraband. Christy Nesloney, 26, paid them the bribes and provided them with the drugs to smuggle in.

Deming admitted being paid $400 per smuggled cell phone and brought in a total of four phones to the prison. She also received $500 per quarter pound of marijuana she smuggled. She was caught in the act of bringing in two cellphones and chargers with the plugs cut off on October 28, 2009, when a guard searched her and reached inside her boot.

Nesloney got pregnant by a prisoner when working as a guard. She quit that job, but kept in touch with the prisoner whom she later married. She eventually became a facilitator, recruiting Deming and Koenig by telling them they could make a lot of money smuggling.

Koenig held a master's degree in counseling psychology and was providing mental health services to prisoners on April 9, 2010, when a metal detector alerted as she walked through. Subsequent investigation revealed a cell phone battery and memory chip wrapped in electrical tape hidden in her bra. She admitted having smuggled marijuana and ecstasy into the prison and significant quantities of both drugs were found in her prison office. She told federal agents that she knew about the corruption at McConnell and thought she could make some easy money, too. She said Nesloney had given her drugs and cell phones to smuggle on various occasions.

A search at a checkpoint turned up four cell phones, a bag of tobacco and marijuana in the possession of former guard Jamie George Garza on May 23, 2010. He told agents he had received $2,500 from Melissa Lozano, another indicted conspirator, to smuggle 14 cell phones and several pounds of marijuana over the course of four months. He said that he had been pushed around and bullied but his supervisors ignored his complaints about the maltreatment and told him to deal with it.

”I took it as, ’Get tough,' and I got weak,” said Garza. “When I got caught at the checkpoint I was relieved. I was glad it was over.”

Yvonne Sandoval, 34, Jamar Tremfyne Green, 29, and Justin Leonard, 23, also pleaded guilty to racketeering charges related to facilitating the smuggling. Former guard Autro Salas, 22, alleged financial agent Juanita Beltran Mendez, 49, and alleged facilitator/financial agent Maria Rose Rodriguez, 34, are expected to plead guilty as well.

Also named in the indictment were former TDCJ employees Emmanuel Cotto, 32, Lela Ysolde Hinojosa, 51, Oscar Juraidini, 24, Megan Brook Morales, 23, Lakeisha Jeanette Reid, 34, Desiree Silguero, 42, and James Randal Standlea, 24; alleged facilitators Maria Fernanda Hildago, 31, Melissa Lozano, 29, and Lindsey Elaine Savage, 29; alleged co-conspirators Donte Aubry Jones, 31, Nancy Star Onega, 26, Craig Owens, 29, Karla Sanchez, 25, Casey Simmons, 24, and Donna Sorise, 56; and TDCJ prisoners Juan Ledezma, 39, Christopher Karl Owens, 32, and Aaron Trevino, 37.

The McConnell Unit was placed on a lengthy lockdown after the indictment was unsealed. During the lockdown, TDCJ installed equipment at the McConnell Unit that blocked service on unauthorized cell phones except to call 911.

The defendants named in the federal indictment, who entered guilty pleas, were sentenced by November 2013. See: United States v. Deming, U.S.D.C. (S.D.Tex.), Case no. 2:13-cr-00130.

Additional source: www.caller.com

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