Two people have been arrested and accused of conspiring to smuggle drugs into a Riverside County jail through the mail. One was an inmate and one was on the outside, trying to mail drugs to the inmate, the sheriff’s department alleges.
Such smuggling has been an ongoing problem for the county’s jail system, which saw a spike in deaths in recent years, including some due to overdoses.
The woman accused of mailing the drugs is through the U.S. Postal Service is Josie Halcon, 51, of Corona. She was arrested Friday, May 29, and booked into the Larry Smith Correctional Facility on suspicion of smuggling narcotics into a jail and a parole violation, the sheriff’s department said.
That’s the same jail where the inmate she’s accused of sending the drugs to, 39-year-old David Benson of Riverside, was housed. He is now accused of smuggling narcotics into the jail and conspiracy.
Halcon was taken into custody after a search warrant was served in the 1900 block of Frontage Road in Corona. During the search, deputies found what they suspect to be methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia, as well as other evidence they said tied her to mailing narcotics into the jail, sheriff’s Sgt. Matt Posson said in a press release.
The investigation began in November 2025, when the sheriff’s department began looking into members of the public suspected of working with inmates to smuggle narcotics into the jail through the mail, Posson said.
Riverside County jails have experienced a surge in deaths of incarcerated people in the past five years, and Sheriff Chad Bianco has said drug use in the jails is largely to blame. The sheriff’s department reported a record 19 deaths in its jails in 2022, while it had averaged about seven deaths a year going back decades.
While Bianco has blamed drug smuggling for the jail deaths, lawsuits from families of people who died have also accused him and his staff of repeated failures, including failing to adequately monitor inmates and failing to get them timely medical care, whether for overdoses or for unrelated health problems. Lawsuits have also alleged the sheriff’s department didn’t do enough to keep drugs out of jails.
The sheriff’s department, meanwhile, says it has repeatedly busted up conspiracies in recent years, arresting people who were trying to smuggle drugs into jails. And it says it has instituted other measures, including a specialized nonintrusive body scanner called the “Soter RS.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: 2 accused of smuggling drugs into Riverside County jail
Reporting by Jennifer Cortez, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
