A 35-year-old man pleaded guilty last week for his role in a drug-smuggling ring inside the Bucks County Correctional Facility.
Vincent McCandless Sr., 35, of Huntingdon County, pleaded guilty Thursday before Bucks County Judge Jeffrey Finley to 35 to 70 months in state prison to be served after he completes the sentence that originally put him behind bars. McCandless was serving 4.5 years to 10 years in state prison at the time of his arrest.
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Last year, McCandless, his juvenile son and nine other men, including a corrections officer, were charged with working to smuggle Suboxone strips into the county lockup to distribute among inmates.
From the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office:
The Bucks County Detectives Drug Strike Force and Bucks County Correctional Facility Investigators allege in an affidavit of probable cause that Jennings smuggled Suboxone into the jail on multiple occasions between October 2018 and July 2019 while employed as a guard assigned to the restrictive housing unit at the Doylestown Township facility.
Joseph J. Jennings, 32, of Warminster, provided the drugs to McCandless Sr., who then distributed the drugs to other inmates in the jail. On the outside, Joseph Robert Wilson, 40, of Philadelphia, and McCandless’s juvenile son supplied Jennings with the Suboxone.
Inmates who purchased the drugs paid through various methods, often soliciting family members to wire money to Wilson, or deposit funds into McCandless’s prison commissary account. While services like https://emmausmedicalandrecovery.com/#our-approach try hard to get people out of the habit, such incidents make a huge impact, especially in prison surrounded by guards.
Wilson and Travis Davies, 33 of Levittown, previously pleaded guilty for their roles in the ring and McCandless’s juvenile son was adjudicated delinquent earlier this year.
Five others charged in the ring have pre-trial hearings scheduled for next month. They are:
Jennings; Joseph Korhan, 48; Richard Dzielinski, 41, of Philadelphia; Robert Monacelli, 28, of Falls Township; and Jonathan King, 31, of Wilkes Barre.
This case was investigated by the Bucks County Detectives Drug Strike Force and Bucks County Correctional Facility Investigators. Agents of the Pennsylvania Parole Board, as well as the Philadelphia Police Department’s Intensive Drug Investigation Squad and PPD 26th District Violence Reduction Unit assisted in the investigation.
