SACRAMENTO, California — Attempts at smuggling drugs and escape tools into the Sacramento County jail were made on Aug 29, 2023.
Investigators said methamphetamine, cocaine and security drill bits were all brought into the jail.
In court on Thursday, 23-year-old Tomani Doneisha Zackery pled not guilty, and so did 23-year-old Zareonna Dupreesha Harris.
Sources tell ABC10 Harris is a medical professional contracted to work inside the jail, but ABC10 couldn’t find her in a medical license data base.
Adult Correctional Health hires all the outside contractors for the jail, but said due to short staffing, they couldn’t get to our request.
45-year-old James Willard Whitefield is also facing charges of possessing, selling and bringing drugs into the jail along with items to use them. In 2006, he was convicted of attempted murder.
Co-defendant Donald Louis Zackery also already has two strikes against him in the legal system. He was convicted of attempted first-degree residential burglary in 2020.
Advocates like Margot Mendelson, the legal director of Prison Law Offices, said it shines a light on the bigger issues happening in the system.
“There is ready access to drugs in the jail system right now, and people are dying,” said Mendelson.
She said these problems could be easily prevented.
“In prisons all across California, staff, when they enter the jail, are subject to screening to ensure they aren’t bringing in contraband into the prisons or jails. The sheriff's office in Sacramento has refused to,” said Mendelson.
They sent a request to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office to implement a policy to screen staff, saying there have been three overdoses this year in the Sacramento County jail and others that didn’t lead to death.
ABC10 got a copy of the memo and the county’s emailed response denying it.
“They said staff aren’t the problem; that’s not where the drugs are getting in. So what we are going to do is more searching of incarcerated people, more searching of their visitors, more searching of their lawyers. And this incident as charged, at least if true, indicates what we all know is true anyway that of course staff are introducing, in some circumstances, drugs and contraband into the jails and prisons. This happens in every system,” said Mendelson.
This is all part of a class action lawsuit against Sacramento County about inmate treatment, rights and safety.
The Department of Corrections and Governor Gavin Newsom are considering changing the strip search policy for prisons. This in an attempt to curb phones and drugs being brought into the prisons. But advocates said the changes will just give guards more leeway with probable cause to perform searches.
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