13 Officers Indicted For Involvement in Drug Trafficking Scheme in Maryland involving Black Guerrilla Family

13 corrections officers in Maryland were indicted on Tuesday for involvement in a drug trafficking and money-laundering scheme for a national gang.

All of them were female corrections officers and Maryland state prison and the scheme involved cash payments, sex and luxury deals, according to the Washington Post.  

They were charged in a federal racketeering indictment describing a jailhouse that seemed to be completely "out of control," according to The Post.  

The guards allegedly aided leaders of the notorious Black Guerrilla Family in running a drug enterprise in the jail, according to the Examiner.  Using their hair, shoes and underwear, guards were said to have smuggled things like prescription drugs, phones and other contraband in the jail for the inmates.

"The Black Guerilla Family was founded in California in the 1960s but now operates nationwide in prisons and on the streets of major U.S. cities, including Baltimore," reports The Post.

In addition to the 13 officers, 12 gang members were also named in the indictment, according to NEWSMAX.  They were all charged with conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute rugs and twenty of them were charged with money laundering conspiracy.  The drugs that were smuggled into the jail include marijuana, Oxycodone, Xanax, Klonopin and Vicodin, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

"Correctional officers were in bed with BGF inmates, in violation of the first principle of prison management."  U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in a statement, according to NEWSMAX.  "Preventing prison corruption requires intensive screening at prison entrances and punishment for employees who consort with inmates or bring cell phones and drugs into correctional facilities."

One inmate, Tavon White, impregnated four different corrections officers and two officers tattooed his first name on their bodies.

In a recorded phone call on January 5, White explained the scheme to someone outside of the jail, according to NEWSMAX.  "This is my jail. You understand that? I'm dead serious," White said, according to an FBI press release. "I make every final call in this jail . . . And nothing go past me, everything come to me."

"The inmates literally took over 'the asylum,' and the detention centers became safe havens for BGF," said the FBI Special Agent in Charge, Stephen E. Vogt, according to the Examiner.

"This investigation revealed the pervasive nature of prison corruption in Baltimore City's Detention Centers," Vogt said, according to NEWSMAX. "In this case, the inmates literally took over 'the asylum,' and the detention centers became safe havens for the BGF. Such a situation cannot be tolerated."

Gary D. Maynard, head of the Maryland agency that oversees the prisons, took responsibility for ongoing problems at the Baltimore news conference where prosecutors announced the charges, according to The Post.  Maynard was appointed by Gov. Martin O'Malley in 2007, when the prison system was experiencing a spate of inmate violence and corrections officers' complaints of staffing shortages.

"It's totally on me. I don't make any excuses," said Maynard, according to The Post.  "We will move up the chain of command, and people will be held accountable." A spokesman said late Tuesday that all of the officers have been suspended without pay and that the department will recommend that they be fired.

The 13 officers have been suspended without pay and the department is going to recommend that all of them be fired, according to a spokesman for the prison."Law enforcement should not have to concern itself with criminal subjects who have already been arrested and relegated to detention centers," Vogt said, according to NEWSMAX.