Augusta prison worker caught with contraband, arrested

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - An Augusta State Medical Prison guard has been arrested on suspicion of trying to bring in contraband for an inmate.

Nicole Rosario was arrested Sunday while attempting to enter the facility with contraband, according to a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Corrections.

Rosario, now fired, had been employed by the agency since May 2021, according to the spokeswoman.

As of Thursday afternoon, she remained in Richmond County jail on charges of violation of oath by a public officer, giving convicts articles without the consent of the warden and trading with convicts without permission. Bond was listed at $5,700 for each charge.

TRAINING RECORD:

Smuggling items for inmates has been a growing problem in Georgia prison system and even at the county jail level.

At least 360 employees of Georgia’s state prison system have been arrested on accusations of smuggling contraband into prisons since 2018, with 25 more employees fired for smuggling allegations but not arrested.

Nearly 8 in 10 of the Georgia Department of Corrections employees arrested were women, and like Rosario, nearly half of them are 30 or younger.

Those figures reflect in part a prison system that struggles to recruit employees, often hiring young women with no law enforcement experience. Despite recent salary increases, correctional officers in Georgia are paid less than those in many other states.

Augusta State Medical Prison has had issues before.

Keturah Christel Dunbar, an officer there, a medical worker at the prison, Faatimah Kadija Maddox, was accused of having sex with an inmate in the operating room.

At the county level, 33 Richmond County jail officers have been arrested in three years, many of them for smuggling contraband.

Across the Savannah River in South Carolina, an investigation earlier this month found a widespread contraband smuggling operation among officers that included hundreds of cellphones, as well as narcotics and weapons.

In response to the scandal in South Carolina, prison workers across the state were subjected to surprise random searches when they came to work Wednesday.