A former prison nurse has been sentenced to six years after pleading guilty to smuggling more than 100 drug-soaked papers into a Miami detention center for federal inmates, who in turn paid him thousands of dollars and let him use a Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce for free.
The inmates resold the synthetic cannabis-laced papers for $1,500 each from inside the Federal Detention Center in Miami, U.S. prosecutors said. The facility mostly holds defendants awaiting trial and others who have been convicted and sentenced to prison.
The former prison nurse, Ruben Montanez-Mirabal, 33, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez in Miami federal court after admitting in a plea agreement that he conspired to solicit bribes and deliver contraband to inmates at the detention facility.
An FBI investigation began last year after an inmate at the Federal Detention Center tipped off agents about the contraband smuggling operation led by Montanez-Mirabal, according to court papers filed in his case.
Agents discovered that the nurse was delivering cannabis-soaked sheets of papers to inmates in exchange for thousands of dollars in payments — along with the free use of luxury sports cars provided by one unidentified inmate through his associates, according to a factual statement filed with the defendant’s plea agreement.
Between November 2021 and August 2022, Montanez-Mirabal brought the “prohibited items” directly to the inmates or hid them in places where they could be recovered, the statement said. Montanez-Mirabal admitted that he made numerous deliveries, including one where he hid 37 drug-soaked pages under a shelving unit in a mop closet near an inmate who was paying him for the contraband, according to the statement.
FBI agents recovered the pages from the closet and lab tests revealed they were laced with a “synthetic cannabinoid-controlled substance” and had the nurse’s fingerprints on them, according to prosecutor Edward Stamm with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Montanez-Mirabal admitted that he delivered between 100 and 140 drug-soaked pages to inmates at the detention center and was paid as much as $1,500 for each page by associates through the electronic banking service Zelle, according to court papers. The former prison nurse also said he was aware that the inmates were reselling them for $1,500 each to others being held at the detention facility.
