CALIFORNIA OFFICERS CHARGED IN PRISON DRUG TRADE

SACRAMENTO -- The dealers traded in marijuana, methamphetamine,
cocaine and heroin, through inmate networks in San Quentin, New Folsom
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 a dozen suppliers in his ring.

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

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

Corrections officials did not have any statistics about institutional
drug-smuggling cases involving officers and other prison employees.

But they said the cases represent three of the more significant
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 last summer as a result of the legislative hearings
into alleged officer 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 Quentin cases.
``Somebody's going to get spanked behind this stuff.''

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.

An undisclosed number of arrests may follow, according to
investigators.

``I don't think you could count them on one hand,'' Terhune said,
although 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.

In the New Folsom case, a Department of Corrections sting resulted in
the May arrest of veteran Officer Michael Laurin, 54. He was taken
into custody after buying a pound of marijuana from inmates' relatives
who were working undercover for the prison system, authorities said.

Officials seized $19,000 in cash and bank deposits that they said
represented prison drug profits. Laurin's trial is pending in Placer
County Superior Court. He could not be reached for comment.

Two separate investigations at San Quentin put an officer, two cooks
and a parolee with a violent past in custody.

The officer, April Reynolds, in her mid-to-late 20s, was arrested Nov.
22 in Contra Costa County after she bought a gram of heroin with the
intent of smuggling it into San Quentin, according to authorities. At
the time of the bust, she was accompanied by Terry Clay, 27, a
parolee-at-large with convictions for assault with a firearm, and drug
possession and other property crimes, officials said. He was arrested,
too.

An investigation into a San Quentin cook, Sherwood Coleman, 25, led
authorities to Reynolds and Clay. Investigators arrested Coleman the
day after the other two. Coleman's offense: buying an ounce of cocaine
from a Corrections operative, also with the idea of taking it to
prison, authorities said.

Reynolds, Coleman and Clay have been indicted by a Contra Costa County
grand jury, Corrections officials said. None of the three could be
reached for interviews.

Another San Quentin cook, Daniel O'Callaghan, 27, was arrested July
6.

Investigators said he obtained an ounce of methamphetamine from a
parolee in Ukiah, then smuggled half of it into San Quentin. He is set
for a preliminary hearing next week in Napa County. He was not
available for comment.

Office of Internal Affairs investigators described the Ironwood, San
Quentin and New Folsom cases as important busts.

``There is a high price on drugs in prison,'' said Mark Gregson,
senior special agent in charge of the OIA's Northern California
operations. ``A small amount of drugs is not so significant on the
streets, but they become significant in the institution.''

Although investigators believe most drugs get into prison through
inmate visits with friends and relatives, they said the larger
quantities almost always are smuggled in through prison employees,
including sworn officers.

``In instances where there are substantial amounts, it appears to be
more of an employee problem,'' said agent Mansfield.

Officials said that employees who bring drugs into prisons usually
work through one or two inmate contacts. The inmates, then, run their
own distribution networks through the prison.

Robert Johnson, a parolee with a history of drug convictions,
identified himself in an interview with The Sacramento Bee as a former
member of the La Nuestra Familia prison gang whose mob ``job'' at San
Quentin was to cultivate officers and other employees for stash smuggling.

``Check this out,'' Johnson said. ``In prison, you can make a thousand
dollars off a gram of heroin. I used to walk through the institution
with a thousand dollars in my pocket or in my mattress. I would go to
the visiting room and slip it out, or have a guard take it out. That
was my job.''

Johnson said prison employees brought in drugs to him no less than 18
times during his 18 years in various institutions.

Don Novey, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers
Association, said the three cases in the relatively short time frame
is a relatively high number. He characterized officers who smuggle
drugs into prison as ``stupid.''

``Out of 28,000 (sworn correctional officers), you're going to have
five or 10 who are ignorant enough to do something like this,'' Novey
said. ``It all gets back to (the prison system) having better
background investigations and psychological screening (of officers).''