RI corrections officer at MCI-Norfolk arrested for smuggling Suboxone strips

BOSTON – A corrections officer at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute facility in Norfolk (MCI-Norfolk) was arrested today and charged in connection with conspiracy to smuggle Suboxone strips into the facility for an inmate.

Steven J. Frazer, 29, of Cumberland, R.I., was arrested today and charged in a criminal complaint with one count of conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute. Frazer, an employee of the Massachusetts Department of Correction, will appear this afternoon before Magistrate Judge Donald L. Cabell.

Beginning around Nov. 14, 2018, it is alleged that Frazer began arranging with a cooperating witness to smuggle Suboxone strips into MCI-Norfolk to sell to inmates. Suboxone is a Class III controlled substance used to treat heroin addiction, but some addicts abuse it to get high. It is coveted as contraband in prisons across the nation and particularly in New England.

According to court documents, around midnight on Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018, the  cooperating witness met Frazer in a South Attleboro parking lot 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. After the meeting – which was audio and video recorded by law enforcement – federal agents arrested Frazer.

The charge of conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute provides for a sentence of no greater than 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $500,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling; Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; and Commissioner Thomas A. Turco III of the Massachusetts Department of Correction made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugenia M. Carris of Lelling’s Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit is prosecuting the case.