Large scale search of Jackson County Jail

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Jackson County jail guards took bribes to smuggle cell phones, feds allege

Guards accepted hundreds of dollars bribes in exchange for smuggling contraband cell phones, cigarettes and drugs into the Jackson County Detention Center, according to federal charges unsealed Monday in the wake of a early morning raid at the jail.

Two guards, a jail inmate and another person were charged in the scheme. The cost of smuggling cell phones into the downtown Kansas City jail ranged from $100 to $500, according to court documents. Cigarettes: $25 a pack.

Authorities allege that one of the guards offered to grant an inmate the exclusive right to smuggle narcotics, cigarettes and phones onto his floor, if he paid the guard $2,500 a month.

Another guard was carrying the child of an inmate who arranged for contraband to be smuggled in.

Charges were filed last week under seal following the arrests of all four defendants.

Guards Andre Lamonte Dickerson, 26, and Jalee Caprice Fuller, 29, of Independence were charged, as was inmate Carlos Laron Hughley, 32. All are from Kansas City.

Janikkia Lashay Carter, 36, is accused of being a go-between on the outside who arranged for the transfer of contraband into the facility.

The government is asking that Dickerson and Hughley be held without bond.

The arrests are the latest outgrowth of a broader federal investigation begun in 2015. Five former guards were accused of brutalizing prisoners in those cases. Four are awaiting trial on those charges and charges against the fifth former guard were dismissed after two trials ended in hung juries.