Guard accused of distributing drugs inside prison

Corrections officer arrested in sting prompted by tip

New Mexico State Police arrested a 60-year-old prison guard Tuesday outside an Albuquerque casino parking lot as part of an undercover sting following a tip that the man had been sneaking drugs into the state penitentiary south of Santa Fe.

A criminal complaint filed in the Metropolitan Court in Albuquerque charges John Aragon of Albuquerque with one count of distribution of a controlled substance. The court document says Aragon had been smuggling heroin and Suboxone and would get paid between $1,000 and $1,500 each time he brought the drugs inside the Penitentiary of New Mexico.

Suboxone, a narcotic that doctors can prescribe to patients to treat opiate addiction, has become a drug of abuse in its own right. As an opioid epidemic in New Mexico and across the nation has worsened in recent years, authorities increasingly have had to battle streams of the smuggled narcotic entering jails and prisons by inmates, family members and, in some cases, corrections officers. Smugglers often crush Suboxone pills into a paste and rub it on the backs of postage stamps. Suboxone also comes in thin strips of film that smugglers can tuck behind the seams of envelopes.

Two drug cases involving Suboxone were reported this week at the Santa Fe County jail. According to a deputy’s report, inmate Ericca Quintana, 31, of Santa Fe was found at the jail Tuesday with heroin, Suboxone, Adderall and marijuana. On Wednesday, a report says, jail inmate Dale Valdez, 32, of Velarde was found with heroin, Xanax pills and a small quantity of Suboxone.

S.U. Mahesh, a spokesman for the state Corrections Department, said, “It’s an ongoing issue that requires the Department and its investigators to be vigilant all times and aggressively pursue inmates, family members, staff and correctional officers who try to smuggle drugs into our prisons.”

The criminal complaint in the case of Aragon, an eight-year veteran of the department, says a confidential informant told a captain with the Corrections Department’s Security Threat Intelligence Unit that Aragon had been sneaking drugs into the prison for inmates.

Aragon’s drug dealer had recently canceled a meeting with him, the informant said, so the confidential source gave Aragon the captain’s number under the guise that the captain was a drug dealer, the court document says.

The captain, identified only as Sapien, began texting Aragon to arrange a meeting in which the prison guard would pick up heroin and Suboxone strips, the complaint says. Then an undercover agent contacted Aragon using Sapien’s cellphone to set up a meeting location and time in the parking lot of the Sandia Resort & Casino in Albuquerque. The corrections officer would be waiting there in a silver car to make the transaction, the court document says.

When the undercover agent arrived in the parking lot, the criminal complaint says, Aragon entered the agent’s truck and told the agent he was there to pick up money and drugs.

Agents from the multiagency Region III Drug Enforcement Task Force quickly arrested the corrections officer.

During an interview, Aragon told one of the agents he gets paid $1,500 for his services but declined to say what services he provides, the complaint says. Still, the document says, he admitted that he had met with the undercover agent to pick up drugs.

Aragon then asked for a lawyer.

Mahesh said Aragon was hired by the state department as a corrections officer in February 2009. Since his arrest, he has been put on paid administrative leave, Mahesh added.

Aragon is out of a jail on a $2,500 secured bond, court records show. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance Thursday afternoon before Metropolitan Court Judge Michelle Castillo Dowler in Albuquerque.

Contact Uriel Garcia at 505-986-3062 or ugarcia@ sfnewmexican.com. Follow him on Twitter @ujohnnyg.