Andre Sims
The York County Jail corrections officer who was arrested on drug charges Saturday night and who subsequently resigned his post had not been dealing drugs there for very long, Sheriff William L. King Jr. said Sunday.
King identified the officer as Andre Sims, 24, of Alfred.
It was second time in three years that a corrections officer has been accused of dealing in contraband at the jail in Alfred.
King said that Sims was arrested about 10 p.m. Saturday and charged with one count of unlawful trafficking in Schedule W drugs (suboxone) and one count of trafficking in prison contraband. Suboxone is the trade name of a drug used to treat opiate dependency.
York County sheriff’s deputies and officers from the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency arrested Sims, who was later released on $500 cash bail. Sims, who had worked at the jail for 11 months, is scheduled to appear Dec. 8 at York County Superior Court in Alfred.
“This has not been going on for very long,” King said in a telephone interview Sunday night. “I’m convinced that he just started doing this.”
King declined to elaborate on the circumstances that led to Sims’ arrest.
The sheriff said this was the first incident of a corrections officer smuggling contraband into the jail since 2014. Three years ago, four corrections officers and three former corrections officers were indicted on criminal charges related to smuggling contraband to an inmate.
At a news conference in September 2014, then-York County Sheriff Maurice Ouellette announced that one of the officers had been accused of bringing contraband – including drugs, cigarettes and a cellphone – into the jail in Alfred. He said the other officers were accused of failing to report what they knew were violations. The smuggling came to light after a photo of an inmate, with razor wire visible behind him, was posted on Facebook.
King, who was the county’s deputy chief in 2014, said the cases against the former corrections officers were handed over to the York County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution. Though he was unable to recall all of the details, King said charges were dropped against most of the officers and two of them returned to work at the York County Jail.
Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
dhoey@pressherald.com
Beth Quimby can be contacted at 791-6363 or at:
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