Turbeville prison corrections officer charged with smuggling cell phone

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A Columbia woman who had only been working with the South Carolina Department of Corrections for a couple months faces years in prison after allegedly trying to smuggle a cell phone into Turbeville Correctional Institution recently. Prison officials announced Monday that Kyontae Ty' Tiauna Moni Stroman of 1340 Longcrek Drive, Apt. 1217, in Columbia was arrested Sunday and charged with furnishing or attempting to furnish a prisoner with contraband, violation of the state's ethics law, and misconduct in office. Warrants allege that prison officials caught Stroman "trying to bring a cell phone and charger that wre hidden inside her state-issued vest into Turbeville Correctional in exchange for $700." She was caught Saturday, exactly two months after she began working at the prison, which houses mostly medium-level offenders and those sentenced under the Youthful Offender Act. No intended recipient of the cell phone was identified in warrants. The use of cell phones in prisons across South Carolina has been a thorn in the side of the SCDC. Acting South Carolina District U.S. Attorney Beth Drake said in April that the prisons have a "crisis in contraband" after 14 former prison workers were indicted on federal contraband charges. Smartphones with touch screens and internet capabilities are common contraband, according to federal prosecutors, and prison officials are making a concerted effort to get FCC approval to use cellphone-jamming technology while trying to stymie the tide of smuggled goods into the state’s facilities. More than 7,000 cellphones, or about one for every three inmates, were seized from South Carolina correctional institutions in 2014 and 2015. In recent years, cellphones have been linked to a ring of inmates who continued to run their drug operation from behind bars, a prisoner’s attempt to buy a mail bomb so he could try again to kill his ex-wife — his last attempt earned him a 50-year sentence — and prisons chief Bryan Stirling blamed cellphones for the spread of the April riot at Lee Correctional across three dorms. Last month, the state Department of Corrections announced at least eight contraband arrests, which included a Greenwood woman accused of trying to smuggle cocaine in to a convicted sex offender at maximum-security Lieber Correctional in Ridgeville. Stroman faces fines of up to $10,000 and prison terms as long as 10 years each, if she is convicted. The Greenville Index-Journal contributed to this report.