Inside Cook County Jail's battle against drug-soaked paper trade

CHICAGO - Thousands of pieces of paper funnel through the Cook County Jail every single day - cards sent to inmates, letters, tissue used inside books being read.

But beyond the barbed wire, a search is being done right now.

Fifty officers from the Cook County Sheriff's Office search Division 11, Tier CJ, where 40 inmates are in custody charged with murder or attempted murder and others with criminal sex assault, felon in possession of a weapon, and home invasion.

Officers are there to find drug-soaked paper, and it's hard to sniff out.

Lezer, a Belgian Malinois, is trained to uncover street drugs like marijuana, cocaine and even weapons. Inside one mattress, he found a shank.

But Lezer can't find what's hiding in plain sight and if he did, it could make him sick. Horse tranquilizer, rat poison, roach spray, and even tree fertilizer are sprayed on the paper people use every day. One inmate was even caught with it on him.

"These are roaches that have been found, and they will save those and smoke them again later," said Bryan Carr, Cook County Sheriff’s Office deputy director.

They’re lit by any means necessary, then rolled up and smoked. Inmates use light bulbs in their cells and even the microwave on the tier.

"They will grab a small piece of metal, whether it’s from the nose piece around like a Covid mask or any small piece of metal that I can find, then wrap that around the toilet paper, put it in the microwave until that metal sparks," said Justin Wilks, executive director of the Department of Investigations and Intelligence with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.

Two men in custody have died from an overdose linked to synthetic cannabinoids known as K2 and opioids soaked on paper that they smoked. Right now, eight autopsy results are pending, and it's believed many of those are also linked to the same cause.

"Narcan does not work," said Dr. Priscilla Ware, medical director of Cermak Health Services. "It almost turns your brain into mush, so you can get a hemorrhagic stroke, which is a bleed in the brain. It can also affect your kidneys. It can affect your heart, so different parts of the body can be affected."

Because the cells are shared, it's hard to determine who the drug-soaked paper belongs to. The illegal contraband is sent to the Illinois State Crime Lab to be tested only if it's found on an inmate or someone else brings it into the jail.

"We have a greeting card here that’s been saturated, this one has saturated papers and a recipe on it," Wilks said.

The reason why inmates do it is so they take advantage of those on the inside with drug addictions, and one regular-sized sheet of paper after it's cut up into sections can be profitable.

"Anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 depending on potency," Wilks said.

The jail is being proactive trying to keep paper out. Inmates are using tablets to communicate, and in the bowels of the jail there's a special team combing through thousands of pieces of mail daily.

The officers on this detail were able to intercept magazines sent to inmates laced with various chemical substances to be smoked or sold.

So far, police haven't been able to trace the mail back to anyone to make an arrest, but they have caught people trying to smuggle it in.

In January, 34-year-old Joanna McCree - a nurse who was busted for bringing in the paper to her inmate boyfriend - was charged with two felonies.

In March, Shawnda McClendon - a Cook County Jail commissary worker with a private company - was busted trying to bring over $120,000 worth of the drug tucked in her pants.

Two months later, then-inmate Dwain Johnson who was charged with murder, and his girlfriend Kassandra Claudio, tried to get a correctional officer to bring in drug-soaked paper for them. When Claudio went to meet the officer, she was met by an undercover sheriff. They were both charged.

Since FOX 32’s visit to the jail, 15 men have all been indicted for being in possession of drug-soaked paper behind bars.

Sheriff Tom Dart said snuffing out the drug-soaked paper is labor-intensive.

"We have to stay on our toes because we know this isn’t going to end," Dart said.

But the arrests are proof that he's not taking the crime lightly.

"If you want to join your loved one as a resident here, we will accommodate you," he added.