DARTMOUTH — Jason Michaels was carried out of the Bristol County Jail and House of Correction on a stretcher in the early evening of Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022, and was pronounced dead at the hospital about an hour later. The 35-year-old, who’d been in jail awaiting trial, died of fentanyl poisoning. His cause of death pointed to a mystery — and a challenge the sheriff’s office faces every day.
Where did Michaels get the fentanyl? How did it get into the jail? Had he brought the drug in himself, or gotten it from someone else? What else might be done to make the jail more secure?
Major Michael Nunes, who leads the sheriff’s Special Investigations Unit, calls the security effort a continuing game of “cat and mouse” at the 19th-century lockup in New Bedford and the two-building complex in North Dartmouth. The nine SIU members use officers’ observations, a network of informants, mail and phone surveillance in running an operation that mirrors drug enforcement outside the walls.
Would-be smugglers get caught in routine searches when they come to jail, or return from court, when a hidden package appears in a body scan. Some try more elaborate schemes involving other inmates and outside associates. Drugs are left for pickup at inmate work crew job sites and in clothing dropped off for an inmate to wear for court. Once, drugs were attached to a kite and lofted onto a jail roof.
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Most of those accused of bringing drugs into the jail are inmates, but not all. Some are inmates’ friends and relatives. One case implicates an employee of a food vending company. Another involves a kitchen supervisor.
“They’re here 24 hours a day, trying to figure out” how to get drugs past security, Nunes said. “We’re here eight hours a day trying to stop them.”
In the last 10 years, the Bristol County District Attorney has filed criminal charges in about 60 cases under the state law that prohibits bringing drugs or other contraband into a prison, according to a database search the DA’s office conducted at The Light’s request.
And those are just the cases that went to court. Accusations against contractors or employees for bringing in drugs are sometimes handled through administrative proceedings that do not become public record, said Steve Souza, the former system superintendent. The DA’s database search also would not show charges for simple drug possession brought against inmates who were not believed to have brought the drugs in from outside.
Most criminal charges of jail drug smuggling in Bristol County arise from the Jail and House of Correction in Dartmouth. A complex of two separate buildings for men and women, opened in 1990, it houses 500 to 650 people a day. More than half the inmates are detained while awaiting trial. Others have been convicted, serving time for offenses punishable by imprisonment of up to two-and-a-half years.
Very few smuggling cases involve the Ash Street Jail and Regional Lock-up in New Bedford, a 19th-century building that accommodates about 100 pre-trial detainees and about 10 inmates serving House of Correction sentences who work there. Still, drug cases happen there too. In one, someone once tossed drugs over the wall into an exercise yard from an employee parking lot.
Drug investigations make up about a third of the SIU’s 50 or 60 cases a month, Nunes said. The SIU also investigates suicides and allegations of assault and gang activity.
Demand for drugs is heightened in jail, where seven or eight of every 10 inmates are estimated to have a substance abuse disorder. The jails in North Dartmouth and New Bedford are part of a criminal justice system, and also a drug treatment and mental health system. Because addiction feeds demand for product, the buildings also house a marketplace.
“Anything behind the wall, the cost goes up. Supply and demand,” said Eric Cardoso, a lieutenant in the SIU. “This is a great place for a drug dealer to do business.”
Arrival and screening
Jason Michaels had been in the Jail and House of Correction on pre-trial detention from January to March 2022, on charges related to domestic violence out of Attleboro District Court. Court records show the man with a criminal record dating to his teens had violated terms of his pretrial release — including regular testing for alcohol, but not other drugs — and was arrested in August. He was returned to the North Dartmouth jail shortly after 6 p.m. on Aug. 31.
Michaels, like all inmates, would have arrived at the sally port, an area with a sliding gate about 15 feet tall, enclosed by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Stepping inside the low-rise, concrete-block building, he would have stood in the “dispatch” area, staffed by officers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He would have stepped onto the short conveyor belt that rolls past a scanner, generating an image on a screen a bit like an X-ray: skeleton, contours of internal organs, masses of body fat, all shown in shades of light gray to near black.
Inmates go through the scan anytime they return from outside the security boundary, Nunes said. The scan is meant to reveal foreign objects. If officers spot something suspicious, the inmate would be put on “eyeball watch,” meaning they’re put in a cell with a toilet inside and a correctional officer sitting outside watching.
No record indicates Michaels was suspected of hiding anything. He would have been strip-searched, taken a shower, put his own clothes into a hanging mesh storage bag called a “strap,” been issued a uniform, and assigned to a cell in the unit for new arrivals.
Michaels had company, as do most detainees and inmates. He was assigned to cell M13 in the “intake” unit with Jordan Correia, a man from New Bedford. Correia had come in on Aug. 26 to serve a sentence for violating probation on a previous conviction after he was found in October 2021 with seven grams of fentanyl while in the House of Correction. Court records show that the drug offense while in jail was more serious than the charge on which he was arrested in the first place. That shoplifting case was ultimately dismissed.
Inmates had been talking about Correia soon after he arrived in late August. They’d heard that he’d come in with a “missile,” slang for a package containing a substantial drug load, according to a confidential informant who spoke with the SIU after hearing about Michaels’ death. Word among inmates, the SIU report says, was that Correia had brought in marijuana, crack cocaine, and fentanyl.
SIU officers did not talk with Correia, at least not right away. They went to the property room and searched his “strap,” including the clothing he had come in wearing. Inside was a pair of dark-colored sneakers. The tongues of both shoes had been cut to create pockets, according to an SIU report. In the left sneaker, officers found a small bag containing what appeared to be marijuana and a white rock-like substance.
The white substance tested positive as fentanyl, weighing 2.1 grams. On the street, that amount could sell for $100 to $200, according to New Bedford Police. In the House of Correction, who knows, perhaps up to a couple thousand, Nunes said. “That’s a substantial amount [of fentanyl] to have inside the jail,” he said.
The same day, the report says, Cardoso issued Correia a disciplinary report. Strips of Suboxone — a medication used to treat opioid addiction — had been found in a pocket cut into a different sneaker that Correia had bought at the jail canteen.
Outside the walls, $5 to $15 buys an 8-milligram dose of Suboxone, made in the form of a strip as thin as Scotch tape and about the length of a small Band-Aid. That strip can be cut into bits and sold to addicted inmates seeking a high or just trying to avoid withdrawal, raising the value of the whole strip to $100, $200, or as much as $800, in the estimation of one inmate heard in phone surveillance. It’s impossible to say if the inmate really got that price.
The marketplace shifts by the day, by the traffic in and out of the building. The jailhouse drug marketplace splits into micro-markets, said Cardoso of the SIU. In the intake unit, which houses new people, there’s likely to be more supply, which depresses prices. Farther into the building, supply drops, prices rise.
Cardoso said that prices the SIU hears about from sources can provide some hint of how good a job the investigators are doing at restricting the supply.
Stories get around about how much money can be made by selling inside, not least because Suboxone — by several accounts the most common illicit drug in circulation behind the walls in Bristol County — is so easy to hide, even in large quantities.
Santos Ortega, who works at Rise Recovery in New Bedford now after serving time in the system, said an $8 Suboxone strip of 8 milligrams was going for about $500 or more when he was there years ago. He recalled a price of $1,200 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the flow of people in and out of the jail was severely restricted.
Illicit drug activity in the Bristol County system reflects the situation in jails and prisons across the country and the world. A report published last fall in the United Kingdom, summing up 81 studies in 22 countries, found that, on average, a third of prison inmates are using drugs, and in some institutions up to 90%. The supply chain was similar to that reported in Bristol County: mail, visitors, stuff tossed onto prison grounds from outside, inmates returning from court.
Jail officials and former inmates say dealing drugs in jail can be lucrative enough to make it worth committing a crime — typically violating terms of release on bail or probation — just to get in with a package.
Ortega said a friend, whom he declined to name, violated his probation deliberately on three separate occasions so he could get into the House of Correction with drugs to make some money selling. His friend made tens of thousands of dollars in about a month, Ortega said. Nunes said he thought such numbers were not impossible.
Inmates working with associates outside can deposit money in another inmate’s cash app account. They can also pay money into the in-house accounts that inmates use to pay for food from the canteen, but those payments are easier for investigators to spot.
An addict inside jail, suffering withdrawal or fearing the symptoms, is a desperate person, Ortega said.
“You’ll kill to get this stuff,” he said.
Correia had apparently figured he’d be making some money, considering two monitored phone calls he made on Sept. 15 and 16, 2022, to a woman identified in the SIU report as his girlfriend. He was worried.
He’d been taken to court on Sept. 15, stopping by the property room first, only to find that his belongings were gone.
“My heart dropped when I went to court this morning and that wasn’t there,” he said.
In a call the next day to the same woman, Correia said, “Obviously I went and that s— is gone, so that’s not gonna be — no money’s gonna be coming in.”
Correia had been given a disciplinary report. He knew he could be facing 30 days in solitary confinement, he said. He feared worse, he told her. On the way to court, he said, one officer told him about a rumor that the SIU “is tryin’ to pin a body on you.”
“I guess they’re building a case. That’s what he’s saying. I’m like — what … there’s no case. What are you talking about? Like, makes no f—ing sense, dude. That’s why I’m trying to get f— up out of here.”
The investigator’s report does not explain that passage, but in light of the timing, it appears to refer to Jason Michaels.
Ambulance call: ‘Overdose’
The ambulance call at the House of Correction early on the evening of Sept. 4, 2022, was one of three or four a year for an “overdose” or “possible overdose” that turns up in Dartmouth ambulance records. New Bedford ambulance records show five non-fatal overdose calls to the Ash Street Jail in 2021 and none since.
Of these, Michaels was the only case of a fatal overdose.
One researcher has argued that fentanyl poisoning behind bars is becoming more common.
“Fentanyl-related overdoses are occurring in correctional facilities with unknown but likely increasing frequency,” wrote Alexandria Macmadu, a postdoctoral epidemiology researcher at the Brown University School of Public Health. Her 2021 research article highlights the lack of reporting on overdoses behind bars.
“People who are incarcerated are more vulnerable to overdose,” wrote Macmadu, who has focused on opioids and overdose prevention in the criminal legal system for nine years. During incarceration, the lack of substances makes inmates’ tolerance drop. Because they tend to go back to their old dose once they obtain the drug again, the risk of overdose increases drastically.
Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux, who took office four months after Michaels’ death, has taken a few steps to tighten security.
He said he plans to have K-9 dogs play more of a role in searching inmates and others coming into the House of Correction. Visitors will be patted down more frequently.
The sheriff’s office has been contacting local defense lawyers in an effort to make the mail they send to inmates more secure.
Heroux said jail employees have intercepted mail showing what appears to be a law office return address — yet the mail turns out not to be from a lawyer, but from someone trying to get drugs into the jail.
Correctional officers are not allowed to read mail inmates receive from lawyers, but they have in the past few years made a practice of opening the mail and handing inmates photocopies of the contents, in an effort to intercept drugs or paper soaked in a drug — another fairly common smuggling method.
Heroux said he’s considering having nets installed along the walls at the Ash Street Jail to catch contraband being tossed in from outside. He has already expanded the SIU by two members, from seven to nine, Nunes said.
When in-house security fails, leading to the worst possible outcome, the Massachusetts State Police are brought in to investigate under the auspices of the Bristol County District Attorney. On the evening of Sept. 4, 2022, they got the call.
21 missed phone calls
That morning, Jason Michaels called his sister, Amy, from jail. He asked her for some money to buy shampoo and deodorant, Amy said in an interview. Following her brother’s instructions, Amy sent $20 to the girlfriend of his cellmate, Correia, through a cash app around 8 a.m.
She then started her day taking care of her kids. It was not until she woke up from a nap and picked up her phone that she saw 21 missed calls from the jail’s phone system. The system, allowing inmates to make calls using the tablets they’re issued by the jail, does not allow inmates to leave voicemails. The sheer number of calls, though, made Amy think something bad had happened.
“Was he trying to tell me he needed help? I’ll never get the answer,” she said.
Video surveillance of the row of cells where Michaels was held has no sound, but at 6:14 p.m., it appears that an inmate a few cells down from Michaels and Correia is calling out, trying to get someone’s attention.
Bruce Lima, an inmate who was housed nearby, said in an interview that he indeed heard someone shouting for help. He said it seemed the shouting went on for some time, but the video shows officers responding seconds after one man appears to call for help. It’s possible another person was shouting who does not appear in the video. A State Police report says Michaels’ cellmate, Correia, alerted the correctional officer on duty to Michaels’ condition.
In minutes, a nurse arrives at the cell, then several more officers. Ambulance records provided by the Dartmouth Police show a 6:21 p.m. call to the House of Correction for an inmate overdose.
The State Police report says Michaels was found on the floor “unresponsive and seizing.”
The video shows a crew arriving, lifting a man out of a cell, placing him on a stretcher, stopping briefly at a stair landing, then carrying him off. Michaels was pronounced dead at the hospital at 7:21 p.m., the report says. The name of the hospital is blacked out in the copy provided by the DA’s office, along with a number of other details.
Records from the Massachusetts Department of Health show that Michaels died of fentanyl poisoning. Where or how he obtained the drug is not clear.
The State Police report on Michaels’ death includes the SIU’s account of its investigation of Correia, including transcripts of his phone calls. A State Police trooper and a sheriff’s officer interviewed him. The DA’s office has denied a request to release the video and audio recording of that interview.
Correia was charged with drug possession and with bringing drugs or other items into a prison. District Court records show he pleaded guilty. In December 2022, he started serving a 14-month sentence in the House of Correction. A sheriff’s spokesperson said Correia declined a request to be interviewed for this story.
The Michaels case is closed. The effort to avoid another overdose death goes on.
In early October, during a tour of the “dispatch” area where inmates come into the Jail and House of Correction, a correctional officer sat outside an inmate’s cell, conducting an “eyeball watch” — his back to the hallway, waiting.
Days later, that inmate was cleared to leave that cell, and no drugs were found.
“Every time we figure out a way to stop them, they figure a way to beat us,” Major Nunes said. “If they get it in half the time, or a third of the time, they can still make a lot of money.”
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.
