GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A woman is accused of creating fraudulent attorney documents as part of a scheme to smuggle drugs into the Kent County Jail.
51-year-old Shannon Soltys from Cedar Springs is charged with smuggling contraband into a correctional facility.
She allegedly sent ten strips of Suboxone (Buprenorphine) in two package addressed to an inmate's attorney.
"They thought they would be able to get narcotics into the correctional facility hidden within this mail," Kent County Sheriff Michelle LaJoye-Young told FOX 17 Tuesday. "They didn't believe it would be searched at all."
Suboxone (a brand name for Buprenorphine) is a prescription medicine used to treat opiate addiction— recovering addicts often use it to starve off withdrawal symptoms.
People trying to get off of opiates also use Suboxone as a maintenance tool, to better stay away from other, more dangerous drugs.
An investigation began on April 27 after the Sheriff's Office was notified of a suspicious piece of mail an area attorney received.
The package that was sent to an inmate at the Kent County Jail was labeled with the attorney’s name. The inmate was no longer in jail, so the mail was rerouted to that attorney.
The attorney, however, knew she had never sent the mail and contacted the Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators with the Kent Area Narcotics Team discovered a suspect was involved in forging mail as if it were from that attorney, trying to exploit this attorney-client privilege to smuggle narcotics into the jail.
On May 9, the sheriff’s office says the narcotics team executed a search warrant at a home on Trenton Avenue in Cedar Springs.
Detectives arrested six people during the search for various drug and firearm crimes.
According to court documents, they found and seized methamphetamine, fentanyl, and "analogues" from Soltys' bedroom.
They also allegedly found digital scales and materials believed to be used for packaging drugs for sale.
Soltys was arrested on drug-related charges and smuggling contraband into a correctional facility.
According to documents filed this week in court, Soltys admitted to investigators that she did send the packages to an inmate at the jail— allegedly ten strips of Suboxone between two packages.
The inmate who the package was addressed to is not facing any charges related to the packages of Suboxone at this time.
Sheriff LaJoye-Young said Tuesday that the Kent County Jail's medical staff does offer Suboxone to inmates who need it, at no cost to them.
“I don't want anybody listening to believe that the withdrawal was so dramatic that they needed to reach out to outside sources," she told FOX 17 on Tuesday.
"That treatment is here, and we provide it without cost to the inmate.”
