This photo of Grant Vance was attached to the affidavit that accompanied the prison search warrant.
BURLINGTON — A federal judge sentenced a former guard at the Newport prison to three months behind bars for smuggling buprenorphine into the facility, saying a message needed to be sent to corrections officers who might try to commit the same offense.
Grant Vance and his attorney had asked Judge William K. Sessions during a hearing Monday in federal court in Burlington to consider a sentence with no prison time.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathanael Burris, who prosecuted the case, argued that jail time was warranted given Vance’s position, and the need to send a message to others in those posts that such actions will have consequences.
Judge Sessions agreed, telling Grant that people in positions of trust must be held accountable when they violate that trust.
Federal sentencing guidelines called for a sentence of zero to six months in prison for Grant. The judge settled on the three-month prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release. Sessions also fined Grant $2,000.
Both the prosecutor and the judge called it a “serious” offense, but added the consequences would have been more severe if the drug being smuggled into the facility was an opiate such as heroin or fentanyl.
Buprenorphine is a drug used to treat opiate addiction, including by the state Department of Corrections inside Vermont’s prisons. There has been a push by some in the criminal justice reform movement to decriminalize the drug entirely.
A new law went into effect last year aimed at making sure prisoners are screened quickly and treated for addiction by allowing more inmates access to buprenorphine or methadone treatment.
That program was not in full effect at the time the buprenorphine smuggling operation at the Newport prison was under investigation.
Grant had earlier pleaded guilty to two felony counts: conspiring with an inmate from Jan. 1, 2018, through June 28, 2018, to distribute buprenorphine, a generic form of Suboxone, and possessing with intent to distribute buprenorphine, also known as bupe.
David McColgin, Grant’s public defender, had asked for a sentence of probation or house arrest. McColgin expressed concern for his client’s safety should he be locked up given that Grant was a correctional officer before his arrest.
U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions speaks at the Vermont Statehouse in September 2018. File photo by Mike Dougherty/VTDigger
Grant also apologized for his actions before Sessions imposed the three-month prison term.
“I know it was wrong,” the 57-year-old man told the judge.
Burris, in court and in written filings, stated that the smuggling scheme started with cigarettes, then marijuana, and eventually led to buprenorphine.
Vance and the inmate, Gregory Paradis, were indicted last fall by a federal grand jury following an FBI probe into the smuggling of buprenorphine into the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport.
Paradis was also sentenced Monday by Sessions for his role in the scheme. Paradis was ordered to serve 15 months in jail, with that time to run concurrent to sentences he is currently serving on other unrelated state offenses that could keep him locked up until 2026.
Paradis also told the judge he was sorry for his actions, and that he was upset that his friend, Vance, had lost his job as a result.
Investigators used a series of prison informants to uncover the smuggling operation, according to court records.
Police said they confronted Vance and searched him and his vehicle as he showed up for work at the Newport facility. That search resulted in authorities seizing a magic marker containing suspected buprenorphine.
Vance, who had worked for the department since 2003, was placed on administrative leave the same day of the search, June 28, 2018, and he resigned his job on Aug. 11.
Paradis, an inmate at the Newport prison at the time, has convictions of several charges, including burglary, repeated counts of escaping from furlough, assault on a law enforcement officer and theft, according to court filings.
Several inmates, referred to in court records as confidential informants, told authorities that Vance was smuggling in the drugs and providing them to Paradis, who would then use or distribute them to other inmates in the facility, court records stated.
Inside the Northern State Correctional Facility. Courtesy Vermont Department of Corrections
McColgin, Vance’s attorney, said in court Monday that his client had known Paradis, who had been in and out of the Newport prison for more than a decade, for several years and they had become friends.
Vance, the defense attorney said, was trying to help his friend by providing him with a drug aimed at helping cope with the withdrawals from opioid addiction. McColgin added that his client never pocketed any money for smuggling in the drugs.
Burris, the prosecutor, said as the scheme progressed, evidence showed it became clear to Vance that Paradis was not using the drug just for himself and was in fact distributing the drug behind bars, and making money from other prisoners.
“While the vast majority of controlled substances entering Vermont prisons come solely from inmates, there are other correctional officers in Vermont engaging in the same conduct as (Grant),” Burris wrote in sentencing document in Vance’s case.
“A sentence of incarceration,” the prosecutor added, “would establish a clear cost for this behavior: if you smuggle drugs for inmates, you will become the inmate.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Ex-guard heading behind bars for smuggling ‘bupe’ into Newport prison.