ALABAMA: A federal judge sentenced a Weaver woman Tuesday to one month in prison for accepting a bribe to smuggle in a cell phone to an inmate, officials said Tuesday.
Stacie Marie Gardner, 31, worked as a correctional officer at the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega when she accepted $1,474 in January 2015 to smuggle a cell phone to the inmate, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance’s office in Birmingham. Gardner pleaded guilty to accepting the bribe through Western Union in March, according to the release.
U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler, who sentenced Gardner, also ordered three years of supervised release after her month in prison and must pay $1,474 to the government, according to the news release.
The Department of Justice and the Office of Inspector General investigated the case, which Assistant U.S. Attorney Davis A. Barlow prosecuted, according to Tuesday’s release.
Efforts to reach Anniston attorney Bill Broome, representing Gardner, were not successful Tuesday.
