DRUG TRADE FLOURISHES BEHIND PRISON BARS, EVIDENCE SHOWS

When Joseph Lee Garrett went to prison 10 years ago, his life changed in
many ways. But one thing that didn't was his occupation:

Drug dealer.

For Garrett, 30, who is serving 52 years on marijuana and LSD conspiracy
charges, prison offered a captive market with a huge pent-up demand. Prison
also offered some surprising and powerful allies: guards.

At one lockup, prison guards are said to have furnished cell phones, a safe
place to transact deals, and all the drugs Garrett and other inmate dealers
could move. Sworn statements by Garrett, other inmates and prison
investigators tell of drugs flowing freely through some prison wards with
guards profiting from turning a blind eye or supplying drugs to inmate
druglords.

Virginia Department of Corrections officials say they do not tolerate drug
abuse in Virginia prisons and aggressively try to control it. The volume of
drug activity is difficult to quantify. But a Virginian-Pilot survey of 20
local prosecutors in counties with major state prisons indicates that in
many of them, illegal drugs are plentiful and accessible.

In the past five years, 232 state inmates have been charged with in-prison
drug offenses, according to Department of Corrections records. During the
same period, drug charges have been brought against 59 visitors and 56
prison employees.

At Greensville Correctional Center near Emporia, 25 people have been
prosecuted on drug charges since 1996. That's where Garrett claims to have
partnered with prison guards. At least five Greensville prison employees
have faced drug charges, according to court records.

In January 1999, 22 people were charged in U.S. District Court in Roanoke
in connection with a marijuana distribution ring in Bland Correctional
Center. Those indicted included inmates, their mothers, wives and
girlfriends, and four guards. All but two were convicted.

One of the inmates convicted, Michael Fulcher, is a former paid operative
for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He has been granted a new
trial in which he plans to argue that his involvement in the drug ring at
Bland was part of his work for the DEA.

In Richmond County on the Northern Neck, a special multi-jurisdictional
grand jury is hearing evidence of drug trafficking at Haynesville
Correctional Center, a knowledgeable source has told The Virginian-Pilot.

The Augusta County prosecutor reports trying as many as 25 prison-related
drug cases a year, and his counterpart in Sussex County says he sees such
cases weekly.

"It's a major problem," says Sussex County Commonwealth's Attorney E.
Carter Nettles Jr., whose office deals with drug cases coming out of the
state's two maximum-security Sussex prisons.

The Virginia Department of Corrections has a zero-tolerance policy on
illegal drugs, says spokesman Larry Traylor.

The department employs a team of internal investigators charged with
policing drug and other in-prison crime and staff misconduct.

"All investigations are forwarded to the local commonwealth's attorney,"
Traylor says. Inmates and employees found in violation of drug laws are
also disciplined internally.

Criminal penalties for in-prison drug crimes are stiffer than for those on
the outside. Simple possession of any quantity of marijuana, for example,
can bring an inmate an added 10 years in prison. A new law passed in 1999
allows the state to seize assets used in connection with delivering drugs
to prisoners.

Despite vigorous efforts, the state seems unable to stamp out the trafficking.

"To the extent that it's present in the society, it's going to get carried
over into the prisons," says Joe Mott, an assistant U.S. attorney in
Roanoke who has prosecuted four federal drug cases arising from state
prisons. "It would be difficult to totally weed it out."

The Department of Corrections performs random drug tests on 5 percent of
the general prison population each month. The testing is one of the
agency's main weapons to keep prisons drug-free.

A national survey of prison drug testing programs in 1997 found that 9
percent of the prison population had tested positive for drugs.

Virginia's rate is much lower. Last year, according to Department of
Corrections records, 1,058 of 52,669 samples collected tested positive for
drugs -- a rate of 2 percent.

That number understates the phenomenon, Garrett and other inmates say.
Prisoners have learned how to foil the drug test, which checks their urine
for illegal substances.

"It's so easy to beat," Garrett says. "You've got two hours to urinate. All
you've got to do is sit in your cell for 40 minutes and drink four or five
big 20-ounce cups of water. You could have just got done getting high, and
the liquid flushes you clean."

Flushing one's system with liquid can reduce the concentration of drugs in
urine below the threshold level set for a test, says Dr. John Morgan, a
professor of pharmacology at City University of New York Medical School. He
adds, however, that a sophisticated tester can detect excessively diluted
urine and might ask for another sample.

Keeping drugs out of prisons can be difficult -- but it's not impossible,
drug foes say. U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey blames inadequate control
over staff and visitors.

Female visitors are often a key supplier. They transport drugs in body
cavities and transfer them to inmates during contact visits.

Some prosecutors say one solution is to make the penalties even tougher.
Bland County Commonwealth's Attorney James Dudley advocates mandatory
minimum sentences for prison drug smuggling that would take away judges'
and juries' ability to show leniency.

"The only way to deter it is to scare the hell out of people," Dudley says.

Others advocate rehabilitating and treating users, something Virginia
prisons do very sparingly.

"Incarceration is not the way to go for nonviolent drug crimes," says
Lennice Werth, director of Virginians Against Drug Violence, a drug-law
reform organization. "Focus prison resources somewhere where it does some
good and take care of these problems another way."

But even the Virginia prison dedicated to drug rehabilitation, Indian Creek
Correctional Center in Chesapeake, is not immune to drug trafficking,
according to Robert Yingling, 39, who just finished serving a 14-year
sentence for heroin possession and grand larceny there.

"I could have gotten high every day if I'd wanted to," Yingling says.

Sworn statements and testimony from Garrett and other Virginia inmates
portray a prison system rife with demand for illegal drugs. They describe
drug dealing as a hazardous occupation, but one with huge payoffs.

At Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Buchanan County, Garrett was badly
beaten in a confrontation with a rival drug gang. After a week in intensive
care, he was shipped to Greensville.

In late 1995, he says, he was approached by another inmate and offered an
opportunity to join a drug ring there. He had promised his wife he'd get
out of the business after the blowup at Keen Mountain, but the potential
profits at Greensville were too tempting. Wholesale prices were low -- $100
to $125 for an ounce of pot, which he could resell for as much as $350.
Cocaine was also available.

For several weeks, Garrett assumed his fellow inmate was the drug-ring
boss. Then one night after recreation, he was summoned by a guard to a room
off the gym that had once been used as a band room. There, he says, he was
surprised to find five guards preparing to divide up the latest shipment.

The officers "started counting out ounces of coke and marijuana," he says.
"There was pounds of it."

After the business was done, Garrett says, he was treated to a party at
which the leftover pot was smoked. "I was brought into the family, so to
speak."

And it was made clear to him that it was one of the officers -- not any
inmate -- who was the boss.

In affidavits prepared for a civil lawsuit filed by Garrett, Virginia
prison authorities acknowledge investigating a guard-run drug ring at
Greensville. Guards "were making a killing," Garrett says. "They were
doubling their money on every pound."

Garrett alone moved as much as an ounce of cocaine and 8 ounces of pot a
week, he says.

"I was making good money. That's how I had all the amenities in prison."

The amenities included a cell phone, supplied by his drug-ring bosses for
$1,000 plus monthly use fees. "It was strictly for business," he says. "The
phones are all monitored in the prison. A cell phone was more secure."

Another amenity was sex. For $20, an officer once let Garrett and his wife
into a closet for a 15-minute tryst.

To make a drug purchase, an inmate would get a money order made out to a
fictitious name and send it to a post office box in North Carolina --
provided for him, Garrett says, by his drug-ring bosses. An accomplice on
the outside would pick up the payments.

The drug ring had its own internal security system. There was always an
outlook officer posted at the door who controlled access to the band room.
Whenever internal affairs investigators came to search the prison for
drugs, an officer would send out a warning from the master control room,
giving the traffickers time to scoop up the drugs and put them in a secure
place while the investigators were going through security checks.

On days when drug dogs were brought in to sniff out cars in the parking
lot, Garrett says, an officer inside the prison would alert incoming
officers by beeper. "A certain beeper code meant `Don't bring drugs in
today.' They could just put the drugs alongside the road and pick them up
later."

Garrett's drug-dealing career ended on April 7, 1996, when guards
strip-searched him and found a marijuana cigarette.

Garrett claims he was set up. He speculates that guards were trying to make
him a scapegoat. But a Greensville County jury convicted him of possession
and tacked seven years onto his sentence.

Two days after Garrett's arrest, a Greensville guard, Leroy Sykes Jr., was
charged with conspiracy to deliver marijuana inside the prison. He, too,
was convicted and drew a one-year term.

In the weeks after his arrest, Garrett met twice with internal affairs
investigators and described how the drug ring worked. He says he fingered
as many as 20 Greensville officers as participants. Special Agent T.F.
McAnally, one of Garrett's interrogators who testified at his trial, put
the number at "maybe five or six" officers.

At least five Greensville officers have been convicted on drug charges
since the Garrett bust, court records show. Sentences have ranged from
fines and probation to 2 1/2 years in prison.

But the word on the inmate grapevine is that drugs are still plentiful at
Greensville, says Garrett, who is now housed at Brunswick Correctional
Center, 20 miles away.

Efforts to stop the trafficking "haven't been successful at all," he says,
"because every time you take one dealer out, there's another one there."

(SIDEBAR)

DRUGS IN PRISONS In sworn statements, inmates and prison investigators say
some guards are profiting from the drug trade.

In the past five years:

56 prison employees have faced drug charges.

232 state inmates have been charged with drug offenses while in prison.

59 prison visitors have faced drug charges.