Corrections officer charged in jail smuggling

A corrections officer has been arrested and charged with smuggling drugs and cigarettes to inmates inside the Nassau County jail, Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced Friday.

The district attorney said the officer, Luke Holland, 42, of Levittown, was arraigned last week in First District Court in Hempstead, where he pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. He is scheduled to appear again on Feb. 27.

He has been suspended without pay by the Nassau County Sheriffs Department, Rice said.

The corrections officer was one of four people -- a jail visitor and two inmates also were arrested -- charged in two separate probes into smuggling operations at the facility. Officials said drugs, cigarettes and a cell phone were among the items smuggled into the jail between December 2006 and August 2007.

"I find these allegations against the corrections officer appalling," Rice said in a prepared statement released Friday. "He's a public servant sworn to protect us all.

"He violated the public trust and he put making a buck for himself ahead of the public."

Neither Holland nor his attorney could immediately be reached for comment.

Rice said Holland was paid directly, in cash, as well as by the transferring of commissary funds to others who then wired payments to him, for smuggling marijuana, the painkiller OxyContin and cigarettes to inmates.

The district attorney alleged Holland received "in excess of $9,000" over a nine-month period for the goods.

He was charged with second-degree receiving reward for official misconduct, a Class E felony carrying a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

A separate probe also led to the arrest of former inmates John Thompson, 25, of Roosevelt, and Michael Price, 28, of Brentwood, Rice said.

A Roosevelt woman, identified as Sherri Martin, 22, the girlfriend of Thompson, also was arrested in the probe.

All were charged with first-degree promoting prison contraband, a Class D felony carrying a maximum sentence of 7 years in prison.

Officials said Martin smuggled a cell phone into the Nassau County Correctional Facility, giving it to Thompson as he awaited sentencing on a drug possession conviction.

Before being sent to upstate Franklyn Correctional Institute to serve a 42-month sentence, Rice said Thompson gave the cell phone to Price -- a federal prisoner who was awaiting sentencing on a felony weapons possession charge. The phone was discovered before Price was transferred to Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institute in Pennsylvania last April.

He is serving an 80-month sentence.

Thompson was arrested in jail on Monday, Rice said, and was scheduled to be arraigned Friday. Price was arrested Jan. 9 and is scheduled to be transferred to Nassau County on Feb. 5, officials said.

Martin surrendered Friday.