NEWPORT — Grant Vance, a former correctional officer at Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport, was sentenced to three months of incarceration.
On the same day, the judge also sentenced Gregory Paradis, an inmate with whom Vance conspired, to 15 months of incarceration.
According to court records, between 2003 and 2018, Vance was employed as a Correctional Officer at Northern State Correctional Facility (NSCF) in Newport, where Paradis was an inmate.
During the summer of 2017, administrators at NSCF began an investigation into the smuggling of controlled substances into the facility.
Administrators spoke with six confidential informants who all stated that Vance was smuggling buprenorphine.
Vance routinely brought the buprenorphine into the facility on Thursdays, obscuring it within a hollowed-out marker of the same type used by prison staff.
On Thursday, June 28, 2018, a federal search warrant for the defendant was executed as he arrived at work.
In Vance’s possession was a marker containing 61 buprenorphine strips.
According to inmates, a single strip of buprenorphine could be sold for as much as $600.
Vance received the buprenorphine by mail from former inmates and family of current inmates.
Postal records detailed seven packages being sent to his P.O. Box during the year leading up to his arrest.
After smuggling the buprenorphine, he gave it to Paradis, who then distributed it to other inmates.
According to court records, Vance also smuggled cigarettes and marijuana into the facility.
