A Weber County jail employee suspected of distributing opioids to inmates was arrested Thursday.
Investigators found in April that “several members” of an Ogden gang incarcerated at the Weber County jail were able to obtain drugs to use and sell, according to court documents. Authorities identified the supplier as a “civilian corrections assistant” employed at the facility, court documents state.
That staffer was later determined to be Jennica Massie, who Weber County prosecutors charged Friday with distributing or arranging to distribute a controlled substance at a correctional facility, a first-degree felony, with a gang enhancement.
The Weber County attorney’s office is concurrently investigating the death of an inmate who was found unresponsive in their cell last Friday, marking the third in-custody death at the Weber County jail in three months. It’s unclear if any of the deaths were related to drug use.
Massie was identified as a suspect after a recorded phone call between her and one of the alleged gang members revealed that Massie had been bringing in Suboxone to work — which is an opioid used to treat opioid dependence, according to court documents. Massie would then provide the opioids to the man, and he would distribute them to other alleged gang members, an investigator wrote in a probable cause affidavit.
Authorities confronted Massie after an undercover detective contacted her to provide the alleged gang member with a package before he was moved to a prison, court documents state. The undercover detective told Massie that he had Suboxone and fentanyl, and Massie told him she only wanted the Suboxone.
Massie directed him to a specific location to drop off the package as additional officers waited in a nearby parking lot to surveil the meeting, court documents state. The detective handed the employee the package of Suboxone, and authorities took Massie into custody when she left the area with it, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Authorities believe Massie was “instrumental” in smuggling Suboxone into the jail since April, although she has worked with the Weber County Sheriff’s Office since July 2021. She was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the criminal and a separate internal investigation.
As a precaution to “stop the potential introduction of controlled substances into the facility,” three other employees who worked with Massie were also placed on administrative leave, according to the Weber County Sheriff’s Office.
Internal investigators are working to determine whether any jail staff, volunteers or contractors violated policy. Any findings will be considered for potential policy improvements, officials said, and anyone determined to have been involved will face criminal charges.
“The illegal introduction of controlled substances into a correctional facility poses risks to the health and safety of employees, volunteers and those incarcerated in our facility,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Massie was booked into the Box Elder County Jail after her arrest. She is scheduled to appear in court Aug. 3.
