By: Cara Latham
FORT DIX A Fort Dix corrections officer was charged last week with conspiring to smuggle and sell cellular phones and tobacco products at the federal prison at Fort Dix.
Samuel Bethea, 41, was arrested Dec. 21 at his home in Ocean City, on a criminal complaint issued by special agents of the Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General, stated a press release issued by U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie’s office.
Mr. Bethea was immediately suspended from his job, and is charged with conspiracy. He faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the release.
According to the criminal complaint, on at least four separate occasions between July 2006 and Oct. 12, 2006, Mr. Bethea made an agreement with a confidential informant, who was an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution at Fort Dix, to smuggle thousands of pouches of rolling tobacco and dozens of packs of cigarettes, in exchange for cash payments from the confidential informant.
Soon after Mr. Bethea received the money from the inmate, he smuggled the tobacco products into FCI Fort Dix and gave them to the inmate, the complaint stated.
"Additionally, in early November, the cooperating inmate ‘ordered’ two cellular telephones and promised to pay Bethea $1,000 per phone," stated the press release. "Federal law enforcement officers then wired $1,990 to a friend of Bethea’s. A few weeks later," the press release said, "Bethea allegedly met the cooperating inmate in a Fort Dix bathroom and gave him the cell phones."
Then, he smuggled two more cell phones on Dec, 1, also purchased by the agents and given to Mr. Bethea’s friend, into the prison for $1,990, the complaint stated.
Mr. Bethea appeared Dec. 21 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Falk in federal court in Newark, who allowed Mr. Bethea to be released on a $50,000 unsecured bond, the press release stated.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard E. Constable III, who is prosecuting the case, said, "We received a tip that he was smuggling contraband for sale to inmates, and we approached it."
Investigators then made a request of the inmate to cooperate, and began their investigation, he said.
A court date has not yet been set, but in all likelihood, "he’s going to plead guilty, so the next step is going to be his plea," said Mr. Constable.
This is not the first time a guard at the prison was charged for smuggling contraband to an inmate.
Timberly Gamache, 35, of Pemberton Township, pleaded guilty Oct. 26 to conspiring to smuggle and sell cellular phones and tobacco products at the prison.
She admitted that she agreed with inmate Hassan Thomas that she would smuggle the contraband, according to a press release from Mr. Christie’s office. Ms. Gamache faces a probable sentencing range of between 12 months and 18 months.
Mr. Thomas, already serving a sentence for a drug conviction out of New York, faces between 10 and 16 months.
They are scheduled for sentencing for Feb. 22 before U.S. District Judge Joseph A. Greenaway Jr.

