H-L investigation: Smuggling at KY juvenile jail yields felony charges against officers

The latest scandal in the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice — now the focus of an ongoing civil-rights investigation by the U.S. Justice Department — is a smuggling operation that started to unravel just before last Christmas at the Warren Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Bowling Green.

So far, the scandal has led to five firings and felony charges against three of the detention center’s employees.

On Dec. 18, tipped off by a resident, state officials found pictures on Facebook of several youths flashing gang signs while they stood in the detention center’s “dayroom,” a common area used for recreation.

The discovery raised immediate alarms.

Youths in state custody aren’t supposed to have access to cameras, usually found in forbidden phones, or to the internet. So, how could they be posting pictures of themselves online?

By the time Kentucky State Police and investigators with the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet finished interviewing nearly everyone in the building, they determined that phones, chargers, THC- and nicotine-loaded vapes and other contraband were passed among the youths, at least in part with the help of employees who brought in illicit items, thanks to lax security screening at the facility’s entrance.

Employees helped youths charge illicit electronic devices; gave them access to office computers with internet connections; slipped envelopes under their cell doors; and sometimes failed to watch to what they were doing, investigators found.

When a resident’s family tried to smuggle him marijuana vapes in a Sour Patch Kids candy box during visitation Dec. 3, 2023, a correctional officer at the entrance caught it. But the captain on duty allowed the relatives to leave before officers from the Bowling Green Police Department could arrive to arrest them, investigators said.

One youth warned investigators during an April 22 interview there are “a lot of ‘dirty’ staff at Warren.”

And in February, a teen boy who was ordered to remain in isolation for 27 hours for failing to obey a verbal directive wrote in a grievance: “Warren Regional Juvenile Detention Center is completely out of control. That’s why residents act the way they act.”

To learn more about the abuse and neglect of youths inside Kentucky’s juvenile detention centers so far this year, the Herald-Leader in May used the Open Records Act to request investigative reports about substantiated incidents of employee misconduct.

The Department of Juvenile Justice provided 259 pages of reports covering 18 separate incidents from Nov. 19, 2023, to April 17, 2024.

The department houses youths between the ages of 11 and 18 who either are charged with an offense or serving a penalty for an offense. Last month it held 238 youths in its eight juvenile detention centers, 96 youths in its six youth development centers and 43 youths in its eight group homes.

Juvenile Justice Commissioner Randy White, appointed to the job in March, declined to be interviewed by the Herald-Leader for this story.

In a prepared statement, White said additional changes might be coming to the Bowling Green facility.

“In response to recent incident, I am reviewing if additional corrective action needs to be taken at Warren Regional Juvenile Detention Center,” he said.

Officer said he was frightened

An officer accused in the Warren County smuggling operation had his own complaints about the facility.

After initially denying involvement, 27-year-old Correctional Officer Brandon Wayne Grubbs revised his statement and told investigators that he only agreed to help the youths charge their contraband phone because he was frightened, according to investigators’ reports.

Grubbs said the youths threatened to harm him and rape his girlfriend, who was expecting a baby. They seemed to know where he lived, he said.

“I was genuinely scared,” Grubbs, who worked at the Department of Juvenile Justice for four years, told investigators. “This is just a shitty situation.”

Grubbs, who was fired May 1, is charged in Warren Circuit Court with first-degree promoting contraband and first-degree official misconduct. He has pleaded not guilty. A conviction could put him in prison for up to five years.

Grubbs faces unrelated but more serious charges in Butler County for an alleged May 30 attack on police officers, including attempted murder of a police officer, first-degree strangulation, first-degree assault on police and resisting arrest.

His lawyer, Gary Logsdon, said Grubbs was using kratom, a drug legally sold at gas stations with psychedelic and stimulant properties. That led to an incident at his mother’s house turning violent when sheriff’s deputies tried to remove him, the lawyer said.

“It went south very fast,” Logdson said.

Troubled employees rehired, kept on

Also fired and charged over the contraband operation were Correctional Captain Jose Antonio Soto, 56, and Correctional Officer Terrance Jevon Lightfoot, 45.

Like Grubbs, they face up to five years in prison if convicted.

Investigators said Soto tried to help smuggle five marijuana vapes into the facility in a box of candy. They said Lightfoot brought in a phone and vapes and passed envelopes with unknown contents under residents’ doors.

“Lightfoot is known as the guy you ask if you want something,” one resident told facility Superintendent Kevin Foster, according to Foster’s Feb. 9 interview with investigators.

Both Soto and Lightfoot, who have pleaded not guilty, had histories of disciplinary actions at the Department of Juvenile Justice.

Soto resigned “with prejudice” in 2017 as an investigation was substantiated against him for misconduct and poor work performance, according to his personnel records. Despite his past problems, the department rehired Soto in 2019.

Morgan Hall, spokeswoman for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, said Soto’s rehiring occurred under former Gov. Matt Bevin, so officials with Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration officials can’t explain it.

After the Herald-Leader reported in February on juvenile justice employees being rehired despite records of serious disciplinary problems in previous state employment, the Justice Cabinet improved its background screening for job applicants, Hall said.

Soto received a three-day suspension later in 2019 for excessive use of force, followed by a 10-day suspension in 2022 for using unapproved techniques while restraining a youth and for failing to provide appropriate supervision, according to his personnel records.

Lightfoot was suspended for three days in 2023 for failing to secure a door on a youth who was on precautionary watch, allowing him to assault a second youth, according to records in his personnel file.

When a third youth tried to warn Lightfoot about the assault, the officer cursed him, saying, “Do you want to be a man and keep running that motherf*****g mouth at me?,” according to records.

Other officers fired or suspended

Other correctional officers fired as a result of the contraband investigation include Alexander Proffitt and Ebony Wilson.

Investigators said Proffitt failed to provide appropriate supervision as youths entered an office in the facility and used a computer to upload their gang sign photos to the web. They said Wilson passed an envelope containing a cell phone charger between two youths.

Another correctional officer named in the investigation, Candice France, was suspended, according to personnel records. Investigators said France passed envelopes among the youths and under the doors of their cells.

“When asked what was in the envelopes she passed, France replied, ‘I have no idea what’s in the envelope,’” investigators wrote.

France was suspended for 10 days in May for bringing her cell phone into the detention center in violation of policy, bypassing the security screening at the entrance, and using her phone while she was supposed to be working as a control room operator, according to personnel records.

She was suspended for five days last October for providing a contraband charger to a youth and failing to conduct bed checks as ordered, according to personnel records.

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