Anamosa charges spur calls for tighter prison security

Iowa prison officials are considering technology upgrades to make it easier to catch employees who might illegally smuggle contraband after a former Anamosa State Penitentiary guard was caught bringing in cellphones for inmates, Iowa's Department of Corrections director said Tuesday.

Director Jerry Bartruff and U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa Kevin Techau announced criminal charges against four former Anamosa guards stemming from an investigation that began after a cellphone was found on a guard in a restricted area of the prison in late 2014.

Investigators found that former guard Garrett Barton, 29, received cash to smuggle cellphones into the prison for inmates' use, as well as evidence that he sold and traded illegal drugs with co-workers. Barton is expected to plead guilty at a hearing on Oct. 13 to federal charges of extortion and being an unlawful drug user in possession of a firearm.

Bartruff said security procedures require guards' personal items, such as cellphones, that come into the prison to be carried in clear plastic bags and placed in a lockbox. Employees also pass through a metal detector before entering the prison's secured areas.

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Barton, however, was able to exploit a defect in the system, the director said.

"You can't detect cellphones during the metal detector," he said. "There are some things that we're doing now to make sure that we have the technology that allows us to detect cellphones as they enter the institution. We've tried several products and we've yet to find one that gives us the level of security that we need."

The incident has led to prison employees having an "increased vigilance" of the potential for similar illegal activity, Bartruff said.

The penitentiary houses approximately 1,000 inmates, many serving life sentences for crimes such as first-degree murder.

Former tower guard Ethan Darrow, 29, pleaded guilty in federal court on Monday to a charge of being an unlawful drug user in possession of a firearm, admitting that he possessed his state-issued Colt AR-15 rifle while he was a cocaine and marijuana user.

Two other former tower guards, Marques Maryland, 38, and Seth Vogel, 28, will plead guilty to state charges of possessing controlled substances.

"Two messages today should come through loud and clear," Techau said. "The Iowa Department of Corrections will have no place for staff members who use the power of their positions to engage in criminal acts, and the FBI will continue to work with our partners at the federal, state and local level, aggressively investigating allegations of public corruption."

There were several questions that Bartruff could not answer, including who was paying Barton for smuggling cellphones into the maximum-security facility and how he received cash payments. Both cellphones and cash are considered illegal contraband inside the prisons, he said.

Cellphones are particularly dangerous in prisons, as inmates can use them to have uninterrupted communication with people on the outside or potentially other prisoners, officials said.

In September, federal authorities in Georgia indicted members of two inmate groups who used cellphones to run drug rings from prison, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

"If somebody else in the system has a cellphone, they can communicate with them," Bartruff said. "There's all kinds of internal information that could be shared that, again, corrupts our ability to provide a safe and secure environment."

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Bartruff was not able to say at the news conference exactly how many phones were smuggled in to inmates or whether any inmates were facing punishments related to the investigation. The director was adamant that the illegal activity was confined to the group and does not reflect on others who work in Iowa's prisons.

"I think it's really important to recognize that we have 2,650-plus staff that work in our prisons," he said. "I think if you look at the way that our prisons are run, they are safe and secure facilities."

The director said background checks and urinary analysis tests are required of all new prison guards, but state law bars these employees from being subjected to random drug testing.