[A] man who worked as a guard at the Newport prison is at the center of an FBI probe over allegations that he smuggled drugs into the facility by stuffing strips of buprenorphine into magic markers he would carry into the facility when he arrived for work.
Recently unsealed court papers also reveal that the guard, who is no longer working for the state, may have smuggled fentanyl into the prison, thinking it was buprenorphine, and not knowing it was really the drug linked to scores of overdoses in correctional facilities around the country.
An 11-page affidavit filed in federal court in Vermont in support of an FBI search warrant details the investigation that has been ongoing for several months.
The document, unsealed this week, provides the guard’s name, Grant Vance, but does not indicate that any charges have filed in connection with the probe. Attempts to find a working phone number for Vance were not successful.
The Vermont State Employees’ Association said that Vance has resigned his Department of Corrections position and the union is not currently providing representation for him, declining further comment.
Kraig LaPorte, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont, said Tuesday he couldn’t comment on the status of the investigation.
According to the document unsealed this week, authorities were seeking to search Vance as he showed up for work on June 28, and when they did they reported seizing, “One black magic marker containing suspected Suboxone.”
Suboxone’s generic form is known as buprenorphine, also called Bupe.
According to the Department of Corrections, Vance was placed on administrative leave that same day of the search, June 28, and his “employment ended” on Aug. 11.
Vance, who was making $24.36 an hour, had worked for the department since 2003, according to the DOC.
Corrections Commissioner Lisa Menard said Tuesday she could not comment on the allegations in the search warrant document, referring questions to the FBI.
The FBI office in Burlington referred questions to its media personnel in Albany, New York, who referred questions to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont. That office had earlier told VTDigger it couldn’t comment.
Asked why the FBI would be conducting an investigation in Vermont’s prison system, Menard replied, “It is typically the state police.”
However, she added, that “speaking generally, and not about a specific case,” the FBI may be asked by state police to conduct an investigation, or a federal prisoner may be involved.
Buprenorphine, or Suboxone, are among the most common drugs smuggled into Vermont’s prisons, Menard said, often through the mail or hidden in clothing. As for fentanyl, she said, “We haven’t seen a lot of that.”
The commissioner also said that prison staff members are not “generally” searched when they come into work.
“If they bring things in from the outside there are clear plastic bags provided to them and it can seen what they are bringing in,” she said.
However, a marker or pen would not be something searched, Menard said, rather it would be considered part of a staff person’s uniform.
“Unless we have suspicion or information we wouldn’t be breaking apart every pen a staff member brought into the facility,” she said.
Buprenorphine, a drug used to treat opiate addiction inside Vermont’s correctional system, has been in the news in the recent weeks.
Prisoner rights groups and some lawmakers have been criticizing the state’s implementation of a new law aimed at making sure prisoners are screened quickly and treated for addiction by allowing more inmate access to buprenorphine or methadone treatment.
According to the affidavit unsealed this week, FBI Agent Colin Simons wrote that in May he was informed by Vermont State Police Lt. Kirk Cooper of the ongoing investigation at the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport.
State police said they had “numerous reports from inmates” claiming that Vance was smuggling drugs into the prison. The reports identified the narcotics as buprenorphine, the FBI agent wrote.
State police told Simons that the state Department of Corrections had compiled a folder “documenting all of the allegations directed at Vance from inmates inside the facility,” the affidavit stated.
Simons wrote that he reviewed a state police summary of its investigation that showed in February one of the troopers sent an email to his internal chain of command alleging that Vance was suspected of bringing contraband into the facility for a “number of years.”
Also, that report indicated the trooper suspected Vance of having a “sort of friendship” with inmate Gregory Paradis.
Paradis has convictions for a host of charges, including burglary, repeated counts of escaping from furlough, assault on a law enforcement officer and theft, according to corrections officials. He is currently incarcerated in the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport.
According to the affidavit, several inmates, referred to as confidential informants 1 through 7, alleged that Vance was smuggling in the drugs and providing them to Paradis, who would then use or distribute them to other inmates in the facility.
Some of the informants who provided statements were seeking something in return, the affidavit stated.
For example, one, identified only as “CI#3,” was cooperating with DOC staff “because he was looking for preferable placement upon his return to general population,” the affidavit stated.
That inmate had been placed in segregation “because he had been operating a store that competed with the commissary out of his cell,” according to the affidavit.
The inmate, the affidavit stated, told authorities that smuggling activity allegedly involving Paradis and Vance began around Thanksgiving 2017.
That inmate recalled one particular instance in which he claimed Vance brought in the drugs and provided them to Paradis, and eventually other inmates used them, too, according to the affidavit.
“After the bupe strips were used and ingested the following day everyone was tested and ended up ‘pissing hot,’” the informant told police, the affidavit stated. “CI#3 thought that Vance may have talked to VTDOC staff about the shipment to take the focus off of himself for bringing it in.”
Another informant, the affidavit stated, identified as “CI#7,” spoke with authorities “in the hope that he can be moved to another state facility closer to his girlfriend.”
That inmate told investigators that Vance would bring the drugs into the facility on Thursday evenings, the last day of his work week, the FBI agent wrote.
“Vance keeps the marker in his locker and then retrieves it when he feels it is safe to give it to Paradis,” the informant told investigators, according to the affidavit
“According to CI#7, based on a conversation he witnessed between Vance and Paradis he is aware that Vance does not get any money for bringing drugs to Paradis,” the affidavit stated. “Rather, it started with Vance feeling bad for Paradis so he agreed to help out and get him through. It has since become a continuous thing.”
According to the informants, Vance took great care in ensuring that the markers he brought to the facility were the same ones that are used by the DOC inside the prison.
At least one of the informants told authorities that Paradis was having people send buprenorphine to a relative, and that relative gave the drugs to Vance, Simons wrote in the affidavit.
Informants also reported that other drugs were being smuggled in through the alleged scheme as well, with Vance not even aware of the other types of drugs he was suspected of sneaking in to the prison.
Another informant told investigators that “Vance believed all he is bringing in was bupe and did not know about the crack cocaine and fentanyl.”
