Five people have been charged in connection with drug smuggling that reportedly brought fentanyl and other substances into the Hamilton County Jail, court documents show.
A man incarcerated at the jail reportedly coordinated the smuggling by arranging for another inmate to bond out and then get arrested and taken to jail again after he received drugs on the outside, according to sworn law enforcement affidavits filed last week.
(READ MORE: Autopsy: Man’s death before release at Hamilton County Jail likely caused by drugs)
Officers at the jail listened to phone calls between the man, Brian Alex Stone Jr., 30, and people outside the jail in which Stone coordinated the buying, packaging and transfer of drugs to be brought into the facility, according to the affidavits.
Stone was arrested last year and charged with attempted murder after he allegedly carjacked a prisoner transport van and led police on a 30-mile chase from Marion County into Chattanooga. He was previously charged with having contraband inside a penal institution in December, court records show.
“You’re constantly battling this on every front,” Sheriff Austin Garrett said by phone Monday. “They figure something out, we figure a way to prevent it. If they would only use this ingenuity for a legal means, they would probably be wealthy people.”
What happened?
Officers listening to jail phone lines reportedly heard Stone talking to a woman, Kelsey Gray, 24, about buying drugs to be smuggled in, an affidavit states.
Gray reportedly told Stone she bought “toon paper,” paper strips sprayed with synthetic cannabis, from Wendy Hughes, 53. She later said she also picked up blue powder and pills, which detectives suspect to be fentanyl, from an unknown dealer, according to the affidavit.
Stone also allegedly coordinated with another woman, Diamond Smith, 29, to pay the bond of an inmate, Justin Finley, 27, and to package the drugs to be smuggled in, court filings stated.
Once Finley was released, he reportedly got the drugs and went somewhere to be arrested again. He was booked back into jail the next day, according to the affidavit. The day after that, Finley was bonded out again, court filings show.
After Finley left the jail a second time, officers pulled Stone for a strip search, and Stone handed over a package of drugs from his buttocks, according to the affidavit.
The drugs recovered included 35 strips of toon paper, 12 wrapped bundles of suspected blue fentanyl, 20 blue fentanyl pills, some blue powder suspected to be fentanyl and six suboxone strips, court documents stated. Suboxone is the brand name for a medication that includes buprenorphine and naloxone, used to curb cravings for opioids.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County developing medication assisted treatment program at jail)
All five people involved now face charges including bringing contraband into a penal institution and having drugs for resale, court filings show.
Drugs in jail
More than 90% of the offenses that land people in jail in Hamilton County appear related to drugs, addiction or dependence, Garrett estimated.
The drugs don’t always stop at the jail’s door, he said.
“We do have a lot of overdoses, every jail does,” Garrett said. “And through Narcan and our people being trained properly, we have saved a lot of people.”
Garrett acknowledged contraband can be brought in by people being booked in, jail staff, commissary vendors or attorneys. He said his office recently fired an employee who brought tobacco into the jail and shut down commissary sales for weeks after a vendor was found bringing in narcotics.
“We would be less than accountable if we didn’t recognize that employees are also a potential — human beings are susceptible to greed,” he said. “I won’t bat an eye to terminate an employee that I catch being involved in doing that.”
Detectives are also investigating attorneys suspected of using legal mail to send narcotics into the jail, Garrett said. Now, legal mail is scanned for substances before being given to its recipient, he said.
Garrett cited a similar incident to this smuggling scheme at the jail in 2021, when a woman staged a domestic assault to be arrested and bring suspected narcotics inside the jail.
(READ MORE: Silverdale jail construction project adds beds and offices, upgrades security and more)
Recent improvements at the jail include scanners for legal mail, automated door locks, an expanded fence and 365 new cameras that can move around and whose footage includes audio, unlike the jail’s old camera system, Garrett said.
The jail also plans to add a medication-assisted treatment program to help people get and stay off drugs. Part of the facility needs to be renovated first, putting the opening date for the program out at least six to nine months, the sheriff’s chief of staff, Ron Bernard, said by phone. For now, people in treatment programs — a population in the single digits — are transported to offsite treatment, Garrett said.
The office is looking at offering medications including methadone and suboxone to mitigate withdrawal and cravings, Bernard said.
Contact Ellen Gerst at egerst@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6319.