A correction officer at Rikers Island has been indicted on prices that she smuggled marijuana and different contraband into a jail, federal authorities stated Friday.
Karin Robinson is the seventh officer to be arrested because of a 2019 investigation into drug dealing within the jails.
The indictment from Brooklyn federal prosecutor Breon Peace alleges that Robinson accepted a collection of $1,000 funds by way of Money App, a money-transfer platform, from the spouse of a detainee, James Albert. Albert was convicted final yr of working a big drug operation whereas incarcerated. Six correction officers have been beforehand arrested in connection with the case, alongside with 15 others.
Robinson faces a sentence of as much as 10 years in jail if convicted. Her lawyer didn’t return a name for remark.
The indictment comes as Rikers Island struggles with a spate of drug overdose deaths, principally from fentanyl. Officers say that detainees are getting the drugs by way of mail, and subsequent week they’re looking for approval from the Board of Correction to ban the receipt of mailed letters and as an alternative have mail scanned to be delivered to detainees digitally.
However advocates for detainees say that plan is a distraction from the truth that officers deliver within the bulk of the drugs, as evidenced by the costs towards Robinson and others. Two officers who testified at Albert’s trial final month described how they have been in a position to sneak kilos of marijuana onto Rikers Island by concealing the drugs in a brown paper bag topped with apples.