FORMER JAILERS FACE CHARGES OF GIVING DRUGS TO INMATES

Two former Lubbock County jailers were indicted Wednesday on charges
of supplying inmates with drugs.

Jerry Montemayor, 32, is accused of receiving marijuana and cocaine
with the intent of delivering it to inmates last December.

Thaddeus Diaz, 27, was arrested last June on charges of buying
marijuana he had planned to sell to inmates, sheriff's officials said.
He was charged Wednesday with attempting to take a controlled
substance into a correctional facility.

Both crimes are state jail felonies, punishable by probation for a
first offense or up to two years in a state jail.

An informant had told sheriff's officials that a jailer was
transporting drugs for inmates, and Montemayor was arrested in a sting
set up by the Sheriff's Office and the Drug Enforcement
Administration, officials said.

Montemayor was arrested at a rental house owned by his parents in the
2000 block of Avenue M. Friends or relatives of inmates dropped off
the drugs and $50 in the mail box, and Montemayor would pick up the
package, according to court records.

Montemayor was arrested pulling out of the driveway at the house. A
package was in his vehicle, records showed.

Montemayor started work with the Sheriff's Office in July 1999, but he
hadn't yet become a certified peace officer. He had been released from
jail on $12,000 bond.

Subsequent to Montemayor's arrest, jail administrator Clint Galloway
said that in the year, the Sheriff's Office would record inmate
telephone calls in an effort to prevent a recurrence of drug smuggling
into the jail.

Diaz had also been arrested in an undercover sting operation. A jail
informant told an internal affairs officer that a drug dealer was
within the ranks about two weeks prior to Diaz's arrest, sheriff's
officials said.

Diaz had been released in June on $2,500 bond.