COOK COUNTY, IL – An individual in custody and his girlfriend have been charged with felonies for attempting to bring narcotic soaked paper into the Cook County Jail, Sheriff Thomas J. Dart announced today.
In April, Sheriff’s Office investigators were contacted by a correctional officer who relayed that Dwain Johnson, an individual in custody, approached him about bringing drug-soaked paper into the jail. Johnson, according to the investigation, offered to pay the officer $1,500 to do so.
The officer provided a phone number to Johnson who then provided it to his girlfriend, 23-year-old Kasandra Claudio. Claudio contacted the number and arranged a May 18 meeting at a suburban mall parking lot with who she thought was the officer’s girlfriend, but in reality, was an undercover Sheriff’s officer.
Sheriff’s investigators took custody of Claudio, who is from the 200 block of 27th Avenue in Bellwood, after she provided an envelope with paper saturated in suspected narcotics to the undercover officer.
On May 19, Claudio and Johnson were charged by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office with attempting to bring contraband into a penal institution and bribery of a public official, both Class 2 felonies.
Claudio is scheduled to appear for a bond hearing today at the George N. Leighton Criminal Court Building.
The State’s Attorney’s Office will be seeking an indictment against Johnson, 20, who has been held at the jail without bail since Dec.18, 2020 for the murder and attempted carjacking of a retired Chicago firefighter.
Paper laced with narcotics have become a growing problem of concern for correctional facilities across the country, including the Cook County Jail, which has had to institute numerous new policies, including increasing the searching of mail and regulating paper brought into the facility, to protect staff and those in custody.
The defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty by the government in a court of law.
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