By Kasey Bubnash
The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
NEW ORLEANS — Three current and former Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies and an inmate at the New Orleans jail conspired to get hollowed-out pens filled with Suboxone strips into the jail, the sheriff’s office announced Monday.
Current OPSO deputies Thomya Bryant, 25, and Giona Gibson, 22, were suspended after an internal investigation into the introduction of illegal contraband at the jail that launched in May.
Bryant is accused of passing an inmate four pens filled with $500 worth of Suboxone strips, film sheets that dissolve in the mouth and are often prescribed to individuals with opioid use disorders to reduce withdrawal symptoms and opioid cravings.
OPSO officials said Bryant admitted to bringing the strips into the jail during an interview with internal affairs investigators. She was arrested Monday and booked into the jail on a count each of malfeasance in office and introducing contraband into a correctional facility.
Gibson, who OPSO officials said was enlisted in April to bring 10 pens filled with Suboxone strips to the jail but didn’t go through with the plan, was booked on counts of criminal conspiracy, malfeasance in office and compounding a felony.
Both Bryant and Gibson will remain suspended from OPSO duties “pending the outcome of the internal investigation,” according to the sheriff’s office.
A former OPSO deputy, 22-year-old Dymond Smith, was also booked on counts of public bribery and criminal conspiracy in connection with the case, according to the sheriff’s office. Smith was terminated from OPSO in December 2023 for disciplinary infractions.
Kevin Ratliff, an inmate at the New Orleans jail, was rebooked last week on counts of criminal conspiracy and public bribery in connection with the case. Online jail records show Ratliff was initially arrested last July on an attempted second-degree murder charge.
In the video below, Gordon Graham discusses how to combat contraband in correctional facilities.
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