Fraudulent Kansas AG package sent to Sedgwick County Jail held synthetic marijuana

About 5 grams of synthetic marijuana and roughly 32 rolling papers were sent to an inmate at Sedgwick County Jail by a person claiming to be Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

The March 9 package had a fake return address.

After talking with the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, the sheriff’s office said it concluded the package was “not official legal mail.”

The attempt at sending contraband into the jail comes a couple of months after the sheriff’s office changed the way inmates receive mail.

In January, the sheriff’s office started having Securus Technologies, which also handles inmate phone calls, scan incoming mail and forward the copied version to inmates. That change stemmed from seven inmates having reactions to smoking synthetic marijuana, or K-2, after smoking paper laced with the drug in December. The liquefied K-2 was being sprayed onto letters and apparent legal mail.

Letters are scanned and inmates get a copied version, but inmates receive the original copy of legal mail, like what was reported to be in the package where K-2 was found.

“When legal mail is verified it is sent to the addressed inmate’s pod and is opened and searched by the deputy in the presence of the inmate,” Lt. Benjamin Blick said in an email. “The searched mail is then turned over to the inmate.”

Earlier this month, the sheriff’s office said a jail deputy was arrested for smuggling contraband into the jail. The contraband included cell phones, marijuana and K-2.

K-2 is illegal in Kansas.

This story was originally published March 19, 2021 at 1:29 PM.