A former Pittsburgh man has entered guilty pleas in federal court connected with a scheme to smuggle cell phones into the Indiana County Jail.
According to a news release from the US District Court in Pittsburgh, 31-year-old Rashon Richardson pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of possession with intent to distribute controlled substances, conspiracy and bribery of a public official. Police had said that he was detained in Indiana County Jail for drug possession and unlawful possession of a firearm back in 2015. Between June and August of 2019, while Richardson was in jail, he paid multiple bribes to Alex Lewis, who was a corrections officer at the jail at that time, to smuggle cell phones in to the prison. Richardson admitted he used an intermediary outside the jail to pay Lewis in the form of cash and a digital cash transfer. The cell phones were used to make un-monitored calls from inside the jail. For his part, Lewis was sentenced to 2 years in jail following guilty pleas to charges of conspiracy and bribery.
Richardson was ordered to serve 12 years in prison, 10 for the narcotics offiense and an additional 2 years for the bribery and conspiracy offenses, and after he is released, he will serve three years of supervised release.
State Police, the Indiana County Jail officers, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI and the Pittsburgh Police Bureau all assisted in the investigation.
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