A former correctional officer and an inmate at Fountain Correctional Facility were sentenced to prison earlier this month after being convicted of charges related to a conspiracy to smuggle drugs into the Alabama prison.
Wiggins Washington, 52, of Bay Minette, the correctional officer, was sentenced to seven years on charges of possessing a gun and on an intent to distribute methamphetamine after an informant told the Department of Homeland Security about Washington’s plans to smuggle two ounces of the drug into the prison, according to a press release Tuesday by the United States Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Alabama.
The inmate, Michael Rashard Dread, 34, of Foley, was sentenced to 10 years after being convicted of a conspiracy charge connected to the plan, according to the release.
“A third participant in the scheme, inmate Kevin Depaul Davidson, 46, was previously sentenced by Judge Moorer in February of 2020 to a term of 262 months imprisonment. Davidson was serving a life sentence on state charges at the time of his participation in the scheme,” according to the release.
The Alabama Department of Corrections has struggled for decades to control illegal drugs inside prison fences.
Overdoses among inmates, and deaths as a result, aren’t uncommon.
The U.S. Department of Justice continues to negotiate with ADOC over what the federal agency found in a lengthy investigation and a 2019 report to be systemic problems with drugs, corruption, sexual assaults and murders.
The investigation resulting in the latest convictions was conducted by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency and the Department of Homeland Security Investigations, according to the release.
