Employee suspended in wake of drug arrests

OFF THE WIRE
Michael P. Buffer (Staff Writer)
standardspeaker.com


WILKES-BARRE - Luzerne County Correctional Facility Warden Joseph Piazza said Friday he suspended Cpl. Joseph Ciampi indefinitely without pay after he reviewed grand jury records released Thursday.
The records say Ciampi testified before the grand jury and bought cocaine in 2008 and 2009 from Christopher Walsh, a corrections officer at the prison and one of four people arrested Thursday for drug trafficking at the prison. Ciampi was not charged with a crime.
Ciampi in 2010 cooperated with state investigators, who recorded conversations of Walsh coaching Ciampi on testifying before the grand jury, records say. Ciampi, 43, of Wyoming, didn't return a message seeking comment. He has been a prison employee since 1990, and his annual salary is $55,086.25.
State narcotics agents on Thursday arrested Walsh and Corrections Officer Jason Fierman at the prison during an afternoon shift change. Fierman, 35, of Dallas, and Walsh, 28, of Pittston, are charged with selling cocaine.
Piazza also suspended Walsh and Fierman indefinitely without pay. Fierman's annual salary is $53,078.18, and Walsh's salary is $34,500.81. The county prison board will discuss the suspensions at a closed meeting before Monday's public meeting, Piazza said.
Former prison nurse Kevin Warman and former prison Capt. John Carey, who were previously fired, surrendered to authorities on Thursday. Warman, 50, Edwardsville, is charged with fraudulently obtaining prescription drugs for prison employees. The county prison board voted to suspend Warman without pay in July 2009 and fired him in October 2009.
Carey, 37, of Kingston, allegedly received deliveries of cocaine on numerous occasions from other prison employees, authorities allege. Carey was fired in February 2010 after a May 2009 hit-and-run crash in Dallas Township in which Carey was under the influence of alcohol and cocaine.
The four defendants were arraigned Thursday. Warman and Carey were released on unsecured bail, while Fierman and Walsh were jailed in the Lackawanna County Prison on $5,000 cash bail. Fierman and Walsh have since posted bail and were released, Piazza said.
Authorities said the arrests resulted from a probe that began in the summer of 2009 after the arrests of 22 people in a multimillion-dollar cocaine-dealing ring by the Outlaws motorcycle gxxg. Piazza said he was aware of the grand-jury investigation but was not aware that Ciampi, Fierman and Walsh were involved.
County Commissioner Chairwoman Maryanne Petrilla and Commissioner Stephen A. Urban credit Piazza for discovering the phony prescriptions from Warman. Piazza said he discovered prescriptions for former and fictitious inmates in May 2009, about three months after becoming warden, and contacted law enforcement officials for a criminal investigation. Piazza was unable to quantify how many drugs Warman obtained from bogus prescriptions.
"It was pretty big," Piazza said. "We got him out of here."
Piazza said the prison adopted new policies on prescription drugs after Warman was suspended and fired. All drugs now are delivered to the prison and listed on an inventory sheet, Piazza said. The county has a contract with Geisinger Health System for inmate health care, and the prison's chief doctor from Geisinger now has to sign off on all prescriptions, Piazza said.
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