MIAMI — A South Florida prison guard is accused of bringing cocaine into the facility where he worked, authorities announced Saturday.
Sgt. Travis Samuel Thompson, 26, who worked at the Homestead Correctional Institution in Miami-Dade County, was arrested Thursday and charged with one felony count of cocaine trafficking, the Miami Herald reported. Bail was set at $25,000, and Thompson is under house arrest, according to Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation records.
“Bringing drugs into a prison is like lighting a match near an open container of gasoline, dangerous and foolish,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement. “Drugged inmates can be totally unpredictable and potentially violent as they relate to other inmates and to guards, placing everyone in danger. I commend the Miami-Dade Police Department and the investigators and prosecutors of our Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office for aggressively pursuing this investigation.”
Thompson’s arrest was the culmination of a joint investigation between the state attorney’s office and the Miami-Dade Police Department, the Herald reported.
Thompson, who has worked for the Florida Department of Corrections since 2015, allegedly agreed to take a $3,000 payment and an undisclosed amount of cocaine into the prison, WTVJ reported.
Thompson was arrested after accepting the drugs and cash, WFOR reported.