Drug Bust Inside Putnam County Jail: 3 Charged

From Putnam County Sheriff Donald B. Smith

Three inmates in the Putnam County Correctional Facility have been charged with drug possession and promoting prison contraband after heroin and other controlled substances were found in their cells last week.

Inmates Ceferino Garcia, 36, Daremus Reynolds, 35, and Frank Pasqua, Jr., 36, were charged after authorities conducted a large-scale search of the jail on March 28. The search occurred after correction officers developed suspicions that an inmate was smuggling drugs into the jail.

Corrections officers, sheriff’s deputies and investigators, and members of the sheriff’s Narcotics Enforcement Unit were involved in the jail sweep. Teams of drug-sniffing dogs and their police handlers from the Sheriff’s Office, State Police and Kent Police Department participated in the search. Officers from the Putnam County Probation Department also assisted in the operation.

Authorities recovered quantities of heroin, suboxone and other contraband in the search. Some of the contraband was found on the persons of inmates and some was found in the inmates’ cells.

Investigators suspect that the drugs were brought into the jail by an outsider during a visitation with an inmate. Further details of the case are not being disclosed at this time, as the investigation is still ongoing.

Inmates Garcia and Reynolds were charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree and promoting prison contraband in the first degree. Inmate Pasqua was charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, promoting prison contraband in the first degree and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree.

All three inmates were arraigned in the Town of Southeast Justice Court, acting on behalf of the Carmel Justice Court. Garcia and Reynolds were remanded back to the jail with bail of $10,000 set on their new charges. Pasqua was remanded back to jail with bail set at $100,000 on his charges.