Smitten Guard Allegedly Spirited Meth to Inmate

A Santa Ana Jail guard involved in a romantic relationship with an inmate helped carry out a daring scheme to smuggle drugs into the city jail, supplying methamphetamine to her boyfriend and other inmates, authorities said Monday.

Michelle V. Rodriguez acted as a drug courier at least five times, delivering hardback books stuffed with drugs, Orange County prosecutors allege.

Rodriguez, 25, who was fired by the Santa Ana Police Department in October, was charged Friday with five felony counts. She faces a maximum sentence of six years in prison if convicted.

Security is now being reviewed at the state-of-the-art facility, which houses local, federal and juvenile inmates.

Santa Ana officials who oversee the jail said drugs rarely get past the facility’s front door. Nevertheless, they said there was little they could do when one of their own was allegedly responsible.

“The job . . . carries a certain amount of trust with it,” Santa Ana Police Sgt. Raul Luna said. “It saddens us to think that one of our own employees would be involved in this type of criminal activity.”

Rodriguez is scheduled to surrender at an arraignment today. Her attorney declined to comment on the charges until after the hearing.

Rodriguez, like all of the jail’s 85 guards, was a civilian employee, not a sworn law enforcement officer. She passed an extensive background check before starting work in February 1997. It was in jail that she met Sergio Sagesyan and fell for him, authorities say.

Sagesyan, now 23, was an inmate in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which contracts with the jail to house federal inmates.

Sagesyan used Rodriguez’s affection for him to launch the drug-smuggling scheme, authorities alleged.

“Some people commit crimes because they want to get rich,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Ebrahim Baytieh said. “She committed it because she wanted love and affection.”

Prosecutors said that, sometime after Nov. 1, 1999, Rodriguez gave Sagesyan her home phone number and address. The two then allegedly discussed ways she could smuggle drugs into the jail--drugs that a woman on the outside would supply her.

Named in documents only as Jane Doe, the supplier gave Rodriguez books with drugs tucked into the binder, court documents allege. On one occasion, a book was left on Rodriguez’s doorstep at her Downey home packed with methamphetamine, according to court records.

Rodriguez brought the books to work and slipped them past the usual inspections that all materials destined for inmates must go through, according to court documents. She then allegedly passed the books to another inmate in INS custody, Edwin Shakhpazyah.

Over the course of three months, Rodriguez made at least five drop-offs, prosecutors alleged.

Other jail guards eventually unraveled the conspiracy after finding some of the drugs during a cell search, Baytieh said. Inmates told investigators about at least three books they said Rodriguez smuggled into the jail, though none of the titles appear to match books currently in print.

“They were going from memory,” Baytieh said. “The inmates weren’t interested in the books.”