Login

Three men behind bars in jailhouse contraband scheme

Print

One arrested is McKinley County jailer

Three Gallup men – one a McKinley County Detention Center officer - remained jailed April 27 following an internal investigation connected to contraband allegedly being brought into the jail, officials said during an April 26 news conference on the matter.

McKinley County Adult Detention Center Warden Steve Silversmith said Officer Terrance Hooper is behind bars on a conspiring to bring contraband into a place of imprisonment charge, which is a fourth degree felony. For safety reasons, Hooper, 23, was booked into the Cibola County Detention Center near Grants, Silversmith said. Hooper, a jailer since January of this year, has his bond set at $5,000.

Also charged in connection to the scheme were Anthony Romero, 25, and Ricardo Teran, 36. Romero was charged with conspiracy, too. Because Romero was already incarcerated at the jail, no bond was set. Teran was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia in a separate matter, but indirectly related to Hooper.

Teran has a litany of charges that initially landed him in jail and, like Romero, no bond was set in Teran’s case. Neither Hooper, Romero or Teran had attorneys listed as of Wednesday.

In explaining how the case unfolded, Lt. Pat Salazar of the McKinley County Sheriff’s Office said Hooper and Romero were the subjects of an internal investigation for months. Some good old-fashioned police work led investigators to the involvement of Teran, Salazar said.

Salazar said a jailhouse scheme developed whereby Hooper was to bring methamphetamine into the facility with the intention of selling it to Romero for $300.

Teran became involved when investigators got a hold of Hooper’s cellular phone, which, oddly enough, contained text messages sent to Hooper and containing the words “Ricky T” and “Trust.”

“We put two and two together and just traced things back to the only person we knew of with those initials,” Salazar said.

It was subsequently discovered that Teran had a hiding place behind an electrical outlet in his cell. That space is where he hid the phone, a charger and the marijuana, Salazar said. A bit from a screwdriver was used to open the outlet, Salazar suggested.

In talking about the situation, Silversmith, hired into the warden job on April 18, was adamant about stamping out criminal behavior from within the jail’s rank and file. Saying the matter is about a “zero-tolerance” policy at the detention center, he said. Hooper was immediately terminated from the $38,000 a year job.

“This is something that will not be tolerated,” Silversmith said of employee insubordination. “We will not tolerate dirty cops. We will not tolerate having drugs being brought into the facility. We will go after people who do this. My hat goes off to the officers at the McKinley County Sheriff’s Office who helped in this investigation.”

By Bernie Dotson
Sun Correspondent