Documents allege how South Bay jail deputy was caught smuggling meth
As investigators with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office worked to figure out who might be smuggling meth to inmates inside the Elmwood men’s jail, it was an inmate’s phone call that offered tangible clues that it was one of their own.
“We knocked out a little CO all right; she’s going to bring something in,” the inmate reportedly said to an unknown man during the recorded call. “You know what I mean.”
Mayra Rios, 35, of Antioch has been arrested on suspicion of smuggling methamphetamine into the Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas on behalf of inmates. The description in that excerpt narrowed the scope of the probe to a single person, according to the Sheriff’s Office. By their calculation, the only female jail deputy who had contact with that inmate was Mayra Rios.
From there, Rios was watched closely, and eventually, she was drawn out to the In-N-Out in Pleasanton — a rough midpoint between her home and the jail — by an undercover detective posing as a meth dealer.
That burger joint encounter was Tuesday, and she was arrested soon after, according to an investigative summary that accompanied felony charges filed Thursday against Rios.
Rios, who has been with the Sheriff’s Office for three years, was charged with four drug sales and distribution counts, two of which specifically address smuggling drugs into the jail and getting them to inmates.
The deputy, who has been placed on administrative leave from the Sheriff’s Office, was arraigned Thursday in a San Jose courtroom. She did not enter a plea and was appointed legal representation by the Independent Defense Counsel Office. Because of the county Superior Court’s COVID-19 emergency $0 bail schedule providing relief to misdemeanor and nonviolent felony defendants, Rios was granted supervised release.
She is scheduled to return to court Aug. 27. After her arrest but before her arraignment, Rios refused requests for media interviews.
Todd Kendrick, president of the Santa Clara County Correctional Peace Officers Association, said Thursday the union “is troubled by the accusations and is cooperating fully with the sheriff’s investigation. We strive everyday to create a drug free rehabilitative envi
ronment for all those incarcerated.”
The April 2 inmate call that vaguely described a female correctional deputy as a culprit in meth making its way to inmates was part of a broader investigation predicated on the suspicion that drugs were being smuggled through an old gate on the eastern end of the jail property. By the end of the month, the Sheriff’s Office had grown confident it was Rios who was smuggling the meth, for “a sizable fee” from inmates, according to the investigative summary authored by Sgt. Michael Leslie.
Leslie wrote that Rios was monitored on three days in mid-June; on some days she did not appear to act suspiciously, but on others she was seen darting in and out of the view of security cameras. On one of those surveillance days, she was
seen “manipulating an object in her pockets just prior to entering the staff restroom,” followed by “an odd interaction” with an inmate performing custodial duties.
According to Leslie’s account of the security camera footage, Rios unlocked the restroom for the inmate presumably to have him take out the trash, but then leaned inside — out of the camera’s view — followed by her leaning back outside and the inmate exiting the restroom.
“It is at this point that I believe Mayra Rios transferred the narcotics package to the inmate worker responsible for picking up the trash around the facility,” Leslie wrote.
That set off a chain of events that unfolded this week, highlighted by the meet around 11:45 a.m. Tuesday between Rios and the undercover detective in the parking lot of the Pleasanton restaurant. According to Leslie’s account, Rios walked over to the detective and took a box containing methamphetamine that, unknown
to her, had been seized in a prior criminal case and was scheduled for destruction.
Rios asked about the weight of the contents of the box, and the detective told her it was 8 ounces, Leslie wrote, “which Mayra Rios positively acknowledged.” Rios was arrested soon after.
The crimes alleged in the drug possession and smuggling charges filed against Rios are dated July 7, suggesting that prosecutors’ case against her at the moment is predicated largely on what they believe she intended to do after she had acquired the drugs in the parking lot interaction. Leslie wrote that a search warrant served at Rios’ home, car and work locker located “additional evidence of her criminal conduct,” but found no immediate evidence she actually was using the drugs herself.