Crime & Safety
Sherman Oaks Lawyer Charged With Smuggling Heroin Into a Jail
Client and girlfriend plead not guilty of conspiracy to commit a crime.
A Sherman Oaks lawyer charged with trying to smuggle heroin into a Los Angeles County Jail near Castaic is scheduled to be arraigned May 1.
Stephen Beecher, 61, is charged with bringing drugs into a jail, transportation of heroin and bringing a firearm into a jail, along with two counts of conspiracy to commit a crime, according to the District Attorney's Office.
He was arrested Tuesday by deputies with the Jail Investigation Unit and released about 1:30 a.m. Thursday on bond, records show.
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Also charged are Beecher's client, Jesus Antonio Duenas, 20, and Duenas' girlfriend, Jessica Paredes, 19, who pleaded not guilty to two counts each of conspiracy to commit a crime.
Duenas and Paredes are due in Los Angeles Superior Court April 24, when a date may be set for a preliminary hearing.
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Duenas allegedly arranged with an "unknown female co-conspirator to bring in narcotics" through Beecher for himself and the ring that controls illegal activity in jails.
Paredes allegedly ironed and flattened two packages of heroin, then agreed to meet Beecher to give him a greeting card containing a little more than 36 grams of heroin.
Beecher was arrested Dec. 28 at the North County Correctional Facility. The heroin was valued at $30,000 behind bars, according to the criminal complaint.
If convicted, Beecher faces 11 years in state prison. Duenas and Paredes are each face nine years in prison, according to the District Attorney's Office.
About three weeks ago, attorney Kenneth Roger Markman, 49, pleaded no contest to similar charges and was sentenced to a year in jail.
Markman was arrested in October 2011 for trying to smuggle heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into a holding cell at the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles, where he planned to meet a client.
Markman was arrested again in November 2011 when a guard in a Lancaster courthouse spotted drug paraphernalia in an X-ray machine. Two bindles of cocaine were found in his wallet, authorities said.