Prosecutors: Probe helped to trip up Safe Streets worker

Investigation targeted drugs smuggling at federal jail

Federal prosecutors told a judge Friday morning that a drug conspiracy case involving a Safe Streets outreach worker began with an investigation of drug smuggling into Baltimore’s federal jail.

The Drug Enforcement Administration conducted a three-month wiretap investigation on 50-year-old Ronald Alexander, in which they say they listened to him conduct drug transactions and describe his role as a Safe Streets worker as helping buffer him from law enforcement.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew DellaBetta told Judge David Copperthite that the case began when Alexander was picked up on a wiretap “helping smuggle substances to incarcerated inmates” at the Chesapeake Detention Facility through a “corrupt corrections officer at that facility.” A wiretap of Alexander’s phones began in May.

“From that, Alexander was identified as an active drug distributor in the Baltimore metropolitan area,” DellaBetta said.

The criminal complaint filed against Alexander does not mention the jail incident, and there is no such known case pending.

Copperthite ordered Alexander charged along with four others, one of whomhas not been taken into custody.

Among those charged is a man named Thomas Corey Crosby, who federal authorities say was supplying Alexander. At his detention hearing, prosecutors noted that Crosby had been working as a house manager at a Gaudenzia drug treatment center.

DellaBetta told Copperthite that Alexander was recorded saying that he could get one of his drug-dealing associates hired by Safe Streets, and that it could be used as cover for drug dealing. Alexander told the man that if he got pulled over, he would tell police that he worked for Safe Streets and that he was calling the mayor’s office.

Alexander said that “Safe Streets had saved him, by using the Safe Streets brand as a shield, he was able to escape arrest,” DellaBetta said.

City officials said Alexander worked at the program’s Franklin Square site, administered by Bon Secours Mercy Health, since April and was fired after his arrest.

“As a program that employs and relies heavily upon individuals with criminal histories, recidivism is an adverse risk of this strategy,” said Tamika Gauvin, director of the mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice, in a statement. “Upon learning that a member of the Safe Streets Baltimore team had been engaged in illegal activity, the office took swift action to separate him from the program.”

Safe Streets is a program run through the city’s Office on Criminal Justice — formerly through the Health Department — that employs ex-offenders to use their street credibility and experiences to mediate conflicts and reduce violence. Alexander was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison in 2002 and was released in 2017, court records show.

The program’s employees explicitly do not work with police or share information, as part of offering a safe space for people who may be engaged in crime. The goal is to reduce violence. The outreach workers are instructed to steer clear of crime.

Over the years, the program has been associated with crime declines where it’s been deployed, as well as run afoul of police.

While Alexander allegedly said Safe Streets helped him avoid law enforcement, others have said that police have targeted the program’s employees in the past. Members of the Gun Trace Task Force were recorded on body camera stopping one Safe Streets worker in 2016, and searching his home without a warrant. The body camera of Detective Daniel Hersl recorded him saying Safe Streets workers were “dirty.”

The DEA alleges Alexander ran a drug shop in the area of Spaulding and Palmer avenues near Pimlico Race Course. They recorded him discussing drug trafficking as well as firearms.

Alexander’s defense attorney asked Copperthite to allow Alexander to be released pending trial, citing health concerns due to COVID-19.