An 18-year-old state employee has been charged with trying to smuggle drugs into a Baltimore City prison.
Omeka Best, of the 2900 block of Erdman Avenue in Baltimore, is charged with possession of marijuana, attempted drug distribution and other counts after she was arrested on Aug. 1 at the Metropolitan Transition Center on Forrest Street.
At about 12:30 p.m. that day, a correctional officer assigned to the back gate of the facility frisked Best, who works at the prison’s canteen, and noticed what appeared to be tobacco in Best’s shoes, according to charging documents.
The officer called her supervisor, who ordered Best to undergo an “intense frisk search,” police said.
Best admitted she was smuggling other banned substances into the facility and pulled down her pants to remove bags of marijuana and tobacco from her buttocks, charging documents state. The marijuana seized totaled half a pound.
Best said she was bringing the drugs and tobacco – which is banned from the facility – for an inmate named “Ty” who she had a relationship with prior to working at the center, police said. She would not give police any more information about Ty’s identity, officers said.
Prison spokesman Rick Binetti said the arrest shows that state officials have made stopping contraband a “top priority.”
“It means our stepped-up efforts on busting contraband continue to work,” he said.
