The Eastern Reception Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri, a facility typically reserved for the confinement of individuals found on the wrong side of the law, has found one of its own sentenced to a lengthy term behind bars. Steven M. Reminger, 53, a former electronics technician at the prison, was handed an 87-month sentence by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey on Tuesday for smuggling contraband, including drugs, into the facility.
On May 25, 2022, U.S. Postal Inspectors apprehended Reminger with a package found to contain $4,000 in cash, along with an array of illegal substances and prohibited items such as fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, K2, THC edibles, marijuana, cell phones, and knives. An investigation ensued, spurred initially by inmate reports alerting prison officials to ongoing drug smuggling, in the wake of several inmate deaths. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, an inmate tipped off a Missouri Department of Corrections investigator about Reminger's receipt of packages at a P.O. box in Farmington, Missouri under a pseudonym.
Scrutiny into Reminger's activities revealed that he had received approximately a dozen packages at the aforementioned P.O. box between Nov. 13, 2021, and May 24, 2022. During interrogation, Reminger admitted to the Postal Inspectors the $4,000 was payment for his services, and he claimed to have never opened the individual packages, not knowing their contents. He stated that it was "possible" the packages he brought in contained something that contributed to the inmate overdoses, saying "ignorance is bliss," the U.S. Attorney's Office reported.
Beyond the illicit profit from his smuggling operation, Reminger used some of the funds to purchase personal luxuries, including a dune buggy and two trailers. Faced with the weight of evidence against him, he turned over $15,000 in cash that he'd made from the criminal enterprise. Reminger pleaded guilty in April in the U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count each of conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute controlled substances, and attempting to possess with the intent to distribute controlled substances. The case was a combined effort of the Missouri Department of Corrections Office of Professional Standards, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Missouri State Highway Patrol, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Rebar at the helm of prosecution.
