BEAVER COUNTY, Pa. — Three Beaver County corrections officers are facing charges after police said they brought drugs and contraband into the jail and gave them to inmates.
All three are accused of using Cash App to sell substances that they brought into the jail to inmates.
According to all three criminal complaints, drug tests performed on several inmates showed that many tested positive for narcotics even though they were in the jail for long enough that anything they may have used prior to being incarcerated would’ve been out of their system.
Police interviewed inmates, who said they asked family members to send money to multiple Cash App accounts in exchange for the substances. The criminal complaint also said that police conducted a “shake down” of a phone to find a text exchange showing the same thing.
The criminal complaint said that an inmate instructed a family member to send money to a Cash App for a “Valentine’s Day package.”
After a search warrant of Cash App’s parent company, Block Inc., officials found that the bank account linked to the Cash App belonged to corrections officer Erin Huff. An inmate also told detectives that Huff supplied tobacco and marijuana on at least one occasion to inmates and he used Cash App to pay for it.
A criminal complaint said a former inmate at the jail was interviewed and revealed he would also get family outside of the jail to send Cash App money, in return for contraband. He said he sent money to two separate accounts.
The search warrant revealed that one of those accounts linked back to corrections officer Richard Suman Jr., through his bank account information and card number.
According to the criminal complaint, a second inmate said he received marijuana from Suman and he used Suboxone brought to the jail from Suman.
The third criminal complaint said that another interview with an inmate revealed a fourth Cash App account that he would get a family member to send money to, in exchange for tobacco, which is contraband in the jail. The family member confirmed that she sent $200 to the account.
A search warrant showed the information linked to the account traced back to Lisa Abercrombie. Her husband, Raphael Abercrombie, was a corrections officer at the jail.
Police interviewed Raphael Abercrombie, who admitted to bringing tobacco to the jail while on duty. He set up the Cash App in his wife’s name but she had no idea about the account or his crimes.
Huff is facing felony charges of contraband/controlled substance and criminal use of communication facility. He is also charged with the manufacture, delivery, or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver, as well as obstructing the administration of the law or other governmental functions.
Suman is facing the same charges as Huff, with the addition of one count of intentionally possessing a controlled or counterfeit substance by a person not regularly registered.
Abercrombie is facing one count of obstructing the administration of law or other governmental functions.
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