Prosecutors: Gang ran ring with prison guards
Associates of CLEVELAND — the Heartless Felons gang ran a smuggling operation within the Cuyahoga County Jail that employed at least one corrections officer, investigators probing issues in the jail revealed in court filings last week.
Prosecutors with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office said they plan to file racketeering charges against Stephen Thomas, a corrections officer indicted in May on felony drug trafficking, bribery and other charges that accuse him of smuggling fentanyl, cellphones and vape pens into the jail.
“The State likewise notified the Court and counsel for the defense that it possess evidence that the smuggling operation that employed the defendant was operated by individuals associated with the Heartless Felons gang,” special prosecutor Matthew Meyer wrote in the filing.
Racketeering charges are also expected against “other corrections officers, and other gang members and inmates,” the filing states.
The bombshell revelation came in response to a motion filed by Thomas’ attorneys asking the judge overseeing the case, William T. McGinty, to remove Thomas’s GPS ankle monitor because he was having a hard time finding work.
McGinty has not ruled on the motion.
Thomas’s attorney, Charles Tyler Sr., said he could not comment on the case because Yost’s office has not provided him with the evidence against Thomas.
An attorney for the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the union that represents corrections officers, said the union will not represent Thomas or any other corrections officer accused of smuggling drugs into the jail.
“Such officers are a disgrace to the profession and our organization,” attorney Adam Chaloupka said.
Cuyahoga County spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan said the county has not been notified of any impending charges involving issues the jail.
Thomas was arrested at the jail on May 8, after a county sheriff’s detective watched him on surveillance video walk into a jail cell and deliver drugs to an inmate, according to court records. Investigators searched the cell shortly after Thomas walked out and found 10 pills that were later determined to contain fentanyl, court records say.
A sheriff ’s detective also wrote in court records he found in Thomas’s pocket a small piece of plastic glove that contained suspected drugs. Investigators seized $1,409 in cash and a cellphone Thomas used to conduct transactions, court records say.
Prosecutors in this week’s motion included an excerpt from Thomas’s interview with investigators after his arrest. Thomas denied smuggling drugs into the jail, but admitted to smuggling a vape pen, a cellphone battery and Tylenol into the jail on two occasions, each for $750, according to the filing.
Thomas, whom the filing calls “an accused drug dealer who dealt drugs in the Cuyahoga County Jail while wearing a guard’s uniform,” also smuggled drugs for an inmate who later suffered a non-fatal overdose, according to court records.
The investigation into drug and contraband smuggling is the latest in a growing number of investigations into issues at the jail following eight inmate deaths in 2018 and an investigation by the U.S. Marshal that found inmates were subjected to inhumane conditions. Other investigations have focused on mismanagement of the jail, civil-rights abuses and officers attacking inmates.
Thomas is among eight corrections officers charged in various incidents. Also charged are former warden Eric Ivey and former jail director Ken Mills.
The sheriff ’s department is also investigating a late June incident in which a corrections officer at the Euclid Jail said he spotted a drone drop items into the jail yard. Officials have not said what items the drone dropped.
County officials announced last week that they are closing the Euclid Jail after mistakenly exceeding the facility’s inmate capacity for several years.