Ex-guard faces prison for giving phone to inmate

A former correction officer who took a bribe to smuggle a cell phone to an inmate at a federal prison in the Adirondacks faces up to 15 years behind bars.

On Friday, Carlos Ochoa of Puerto Rico pleaded guilty in federal court to accepting a bribe in 2012 when he worked at the medium security federal lockup at Ray Brook.

Authorities said that in September 2012, inmate Richard Coleman told his girlfriend to buy a cell phone for him. Coleman then told the woman that a prison guard would smuggle the phone and give it to him and that she should get in touch with a woman friend of his cellmate.

Coleman’s girlfriend bought an iphone and withdrew $900 from her account. She then gave the cellmate’s friend the phone and $600 cash. That woman gave Ochoa the phone and the money.

In October 2012, Ochoa smuggled the phone into the prison and gave it to Coleman and his cellmate, while keeping the cash.

His colleagues found the phone in March 2013.

Ochoa, 32, also faces a fine of up to $250,000.

“For a few hundred dollars, Ochoa sold his integrity as a federal corrections officer to a prisoner by smuggling in a cell phone,” said Grant Jaquith, U.S. Attorney for the Northern district of New York.