The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is working on another investigation into drug smuggling at the Pitchess Detention Center, according to court records obtained by The Signal.
The documents obtained from search-warrant requests detail how investigators monitor calls, X-ray inmates and conduct surveillance on friends and family outside as part of their efforts to stem the flow of narcotics into the Castaic facility.
The latest target of their investigation: bindles of black tar heroin.
The Custody Investigative Services — Organized Crime Task Force is assigned to prevent and disrupt the narcotics trade in L.A. County jails, which has had several problems recently at North County Correctional Facility.
The heroin investigation began after jail deputies overheard a suspicious phone call between an inmate and what deputies refer to as a “street secretary,” an unofficial LASD term.
“These facilitators are often referred to as street secretaries who will assist the inmates with the collection of illegal proceeds, the passing of messages and the coordination of illegal drug trafficking into and inside the jails,” according to a warrant in court records requesting a search of the home of a “secretary.” “They will often obtain court dates and arrange visits to coordinate meetings amongst inmates for the passing of illegal narcotics.”
Deputies suspect during this most recent effort that an inmate — whose jail duty included cleaning the guest-visitor area of Pitchess, which allowed him to access drugs left behind by the secretaries — also was part of the illicit operation.
The inmate-guest conversations were linked in court documents to the investigation into another incident at Pitchess Detention Center that reveals the more lurid aspects of inmate smuggling: “contraband watch.”
On April 7, an inmate whose initial body scan at the jail-entrance security checkpoint revealed “an unknown object in his lower abdomen” was given this room assignment.
The inmate “was given the opportunity to defecate to prove or disprove the existence of contraband, which he declined,” according to the investigator’s account.
“Contraband watch is a process which involves placing an inmate who is suspected of possessing illegal narcotics and/or any contraband inside his rectal cavity and or stomach into a single-person dry cell,” according to court records. “The inmate is then continuously monitored by designated deputies until the inmate produces a bowel movement, at which time the fecal matter is inspected for illegal narcotics and/or other contraband.”
Sure enough, jail investigators received the answers they were looking for in the inmate’s feces: a large black latex bindle was recovered, according to court records.
Both incidents at the local jail were linked to the same “secretary,” a 24-year-old woman who was arrested two weeks ago, released the same day, and as of this story’s publication, she has not yet been charged.
New charges have not been brought against the inmates suspected of smuggling as of this story’s publication, based on L.A. County Superior Court records available online.
