A Brooklyn mother paid $14,000 in bribes to juvenile detention officials to secretly supply her son with marijuana and meth while he was incarcerated at the facility, authorities said Thursday.
Jessica Alicia, 44, pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court to bribery charges for allegedly smuggling marijuana and knives to troubled children on more than 130 occasions to staff at Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brownsville. This was announced by the City Investigation Bureau.
Alicia's co-defendant, Davante Bolton, a youth development specialist with the city's Department of Children's Services, was convicted of fraud earlier this year, the department said.
“The smuggling of contraband in juvenile detention facilities jeopardizes the safety and security of the staff and residents of these city facilities,” DOI Director Jocelyn Strauber said in a statement.
“Today's convictions send an important message that there are serious consequences for bribing officials to bring in dangerous contraband,” Strauber said. “We would like to thank the FBI and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York for their cooperation in this important investigation and prosecution.”
DOI began its bribery investigation in August 2022 and continued the investigation into February of this year, after which its findings were turned over to federal prosecutors for criminal prosecution.
According to the criminal complaint, Alicia pleaded guilty to federal program bribery.
She is scheduled to be sentenced in April. It was not immediately clear what sentence she would receive.
Crossroads and another youth detention facility, Horizons Juvenile Center in the Bronx. The issue has been the subject of controversy and scrutiny in recent years, including a scathing DOI report last month.
At issue was the state's “raise the age” law, which raises the age of criminal responsibility to 18 and prohibits 16- and 17-year-old offenders from being prosecuted in adult court for violent crimes.
As a result, juvenile facilities are now well over capacity, with older, more violent suspects crowding the centers and wreaking havoc on staff and young juvenile delinquents, the DOI investigation found.
In a report last week, the Post detailed how baby-faced repeat offenders wind up in and out of family court and then released into the community in the face of ineffective police and criminal justice systems.
According to the DOI, between March 2022 and May of this year, at least 75 cell phones, more than 340 meth and other knives, drugs and tobacco were seized from Crossroads residents.
