A contracted medical technician and an inmate were arraigned last week on charges tied to an alleged handoff of synthetic marijuana inside the Bristol County House of Correction in North Dartmouth.
Malissa Goff, 39, of Fall River, and Darren Andrade, 38, of New Bedford, appeared Nov. 3 in New Bedford District Court, where not-guilty pleas were entered for both, The Boston Globe reported. The counts are allegations. Each was released on personal recognizance on these charges, though Andrade remains at the jail on unrelated ones.
What Investigators Say They Saw
Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux said Andrade enlisted Goff, a contracted medical technician at the facility, to help transport and deliver the substance inside the building. Investigators say they then watched her hand it to him there, according to Turn to 10.
The drug is a synthetic cannabinoid, commonly called K2 or spice. Goff was taken into custody for questioning. She is charged with conspiracy, delivering drugs or articles to prisoners, and improper storage of a firearm. Andrade is charged with conspiracy.
The alleged delivery is the core of the case the sheriff's office has described. No court outcome has been reported beyond the arraignment and the recognizance releases.
Two Accounts Of The Gun
A search of Goff's vehicle on Bristol County Sheriff's Office property turned up an unsecured firearm, and that find is the basis of the storage charge. The published accounts do not agree on whether the gun was loaded.
The Globe reported that officers found an unloaded, unsecured gun in her car. Turn to 10 reported that the firearm recovered after the incident was loaded and unsecured. Both versions describe it as unsecured. Neither report resolves the other.
A September Inquiry, Then A Harder Line
The sheriff's office opened the investigation in September after reports that contracted medical staff were bringing synthetic cannabinoids into the Dartmouth jail, the Globe reported. Heroux said the Internal Affairs Unit and the Special Investigations Unit ran a multiweek inquiry.
He also said the office has stepped up efforts to find illicit drugs and contraband, including enhanced searches of people and packages entering the jail and K9s trained to detect various drugs. His public line on what happens next was blunt: "anyone found bringing drugs into the jail is going to be prosecuted."
That is a shift in emphasis from an earlier practice he described. Heroux said the office had previously terminated many employees without prosecution. He has also called drugs and contraband an ongoing problem in correctional facilities nationwide, which puts the Dartmouth allegation in a wider pattern his office is now treating as a criminal case rather than only a personnel one.
Not The First Route For K2
The Globe described the current allegation as the second time in a year that inmates at the facility have been accused of working with outside associates to smuggle the synthetic drug. The outside person this time was not a visitor. She was contracted medical staff with a reason to be inside.
Bristol County already has a paper trail on jail contraband. The New Bedford Light reported in 2023 that the Bristol County district attorney's office had filed criminal charges in 60 cases over the prior decade involving drugs or other contraband brought into a prison.
One of those employee cases ended in a plea, not a press conference. Former Bristol County jail librarian Ginger Hook resigned after 18 months when confronted about her alleged activity and later pleaded guilty to delivering drugs to prisoners and conspiracy. She was sentenced April 20 to two years of probation, Fall River Reporter reported.
In that separate case, investigators found 13 sheets of paper disguised as legal work that later tested positive for K2, with a reported estimated value inside the jail of about $65,000, according to an earlier Boston Globe account. The method was paper, not a medical bag. The product was the same class of drug now alleged in North Dartmouth.
The pattern is not limited to Bristol County. On Sept. 17, correctional officer Christal Dunston was arrested in connection with smuggling drugs and a cellphone into the Middleton Jail and House of Correction. Investigators had watched her, off duty, buy five sheets of paper soaked in K2, MassLive reported.
Goff and Andrade have pleaded not guilty to the new Bristol County counts. Andrade is still held at the House of Correction on the unrelated charges, while Heroux's office says the next person caught bringing drugs in will be prosecuted.
