Jail drug smuggling ring busted

Last month, 22 female inmates at the St. Johns County Jail tested positive for an illegal drug, leaving authorities scratching their heads at just how the drug, an opiate used to treat heroin addiction, got into the locked-down facility.

Sgt. Chuck Mulligan of the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office said his agency launched an investigation Sept. 21 after one inmate showed signs of being under the influence of narcotics.

“Obviously, the first thing we had to find out was how she got it,” Mulligan said. “We knew it either had to walk in here with somebody or it came in some other way.”

The answer turned out to be an ingenious method of delivering the drug through the U.S. mail.

Mulligan said the inmate was given a urine test at the jail, which he called a “presumptive test,” and the results came back positive for the drug, called Suboxone. After they tested other inmates, investigators determined that the usage was isolated to the female population of the jail, which is segregated by gender.

“A total of 22 female inmates in one block presumptively came up positive for the drug,” Mulligan said. “After we conducted cell block searches and interviewed several of them, we discovered that it all went back to one particular inmate, who had received it and distributed it to the others.”

That inmate was Hana Marie Colson, 29, who was in jail serving sentences for drug possession and fraudulent use of a credit card charges, Mulligan said. Before her new charges, she was due to be released in about a month. She also now is charged with receiving and distributing contraband, both felonies.

The cell searches turned up remnants of the drug in an unusual form: small, almost invisible pieces.

“Suboxone actually is available in strips similar to the Listerine strips that you place on your tongue,” Mulligan said.

The next question was how Colson had obtained the pieces in the first place, Mulligan said.

He said the month-long investigation revealed that the strips were hidden in mail to Colson.

“What happened was that the strips were cut into smaller pieces and then placed under stamps and in the envelope seals,” Mulligan said.

The mail came from Chelsey Marie Camerone, 21, of St. Augustine, Mulligan said.

Camerone was taken into custody on Wednesday and booked into the jail on a charge of smuggling contraband.

She was also charged with possession of methamphetamine, production of methamphetamine and two counts of violation of probation, all felonies.

She was out on bond in connection with her arrest on Sept. 14 as part of a Sheriff’s Office raid on a home meth lab at 2599 A1A South in St. Augustine Beach. Because she violated the terms of her release, she is being held without bond.

Mulligan said jail officials have always inspected mail, but until now, they didn’t know to look for that kind of material.

He said mail inspection efforts have been “greatly stepped up” as a result of this investigation.

“We believe this was a short-term thing,” Mulligan said. “It was pretty clear, once we discovered the strips, that it came through the mail and was not brought in in any other way.”

Cpl. Catherine Payne of the Sheriff’s Office confirmed that a concurrent investigation from the meth lab bust on Sept. 14 also linked Camerone, who initially was listed as a witness in the offense report, to the possession and production of the drug, but it took longer to build a case to charge her. Those charges were included in her warrant for arrest for the mail scam.

“She’ll be with us for a while,” Payne said.

http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2012-10-17/jail-drug-smuggling-ring-busted#.UH_jpMXA9dA