Corrections Officer Charged With Smuggling Drugs Into Prison

CUMBERLAND, RI — Steven J. Frazer, 29, of Cumberland, was arrested Monday and charged with a conspiracy to smuggle suboxone into a Bay State prison where he worked as a corrections officer. Frazer worked at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute facility in Norfolk, the state's largest medium security facility.

According to court papers, he picked up the suboxone strips in a South Attleboro parking lot around midnight on Sunday. Suboxone is used to treat heroin addiction, "but some addicts abuse it to get high," the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston said. The strips were going to be sold to inmates.

The "cooperating witness met Frazer and provided him with 40 Suboxone strips, 24 pages of K2 (a synthetic cannabinoid, which is more powerful and more dangerous than marijuana), and $2,500 in cash," the papers said.

Frazier is the second Rhode Islander to face charges of smuggling suboxone into MCI-Norfolk.

William Holts, 51, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, pleaded guilty last July in Boston federal court. He also was charged with conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute.

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