DRUGS IN PRISONS

SACRAMENTO -- The dealers traded in marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine and
heroin, through inmate net-works in San Quentin, New Fo1som and Ironwood
state prisons.

One of them pocketed nearly $20,000, investigators believe. Another worked
in concert with a parolee on the run, they say. A third may have been one
of as many as a half dozen suppliers in his ring.

And to the consternation of the Department of Corrections, three of the
accused drug king-pins were their own officers.

"It looks at this point like we're going to be able to take care of a
pretty good-slzed cancer," Corrections Director Dal Terhune said. "We don't
like to find It, but when we do, we want to root it out"

Smuggling `significant' Corrections officials do not have any statistics
about Institutional drug-smuggling cases involving officers and other
prison employees.

But they said the cases rep-resent three of the more signifi-cant employee
drug-smuggling operations they have unearthed in recent years. They also
said the uncoverings account for some of the most fruitful work to date of
the Department's fledgling Office of Internal Affairs., created 1ast summer
as a result of the legislative hearings into abuses at Corcoran State Prison.

"We're trying to send a message," said OIA Special Agent Dave Mansfield,
who worked the New Folsom and San Quentln cases. "Somebody's going to get
spanked behind this stuff."

Big case in Mojave

OIA Investigators culminated their biggest employee smuggling case this
week In the Mojave Desert. At Ironwood State Prison near Blythe, In
Riverside County, some 50 officers under the direction of the
Sacramento-based OIA swept through 130 cells looking for drugs, finding
unspecified quantities of unidentified narco-contraband, officials said.

They identified the source as Correctional Officer Richard Melendez, 28. He
was arrested Dec. 30.

More Arrests may Follow

An undisclosed number of arrests may follow, according to Investigators. "I
don't think you could count them on one hand," Ter-hune said. He added that
some of the suspects are non-sworn staff. Nothing In the Ironwood
Investigation has been turned over yet to prosecutors. according to the
Riverside County District Attorney's Office.

The Ironwood case followed other officer busts involving inmate drug
operations in California State Prison, Sacramento also known as New Folsom
and San Quentin Prison.