Police charge Allegheny County Jail guard with smuggling drugs into lockup
Allegheny County police on Wednesday charged a jail corrections officer with taking illegal drugs into the facility to sell to inmates.
William Kemp III, 34, of Knoxville is charged with four felony counts, including possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and contraband.
He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on the charges on Jan. 18.
According to the criminal complaint, the sergeant assigned to internal affairs at the jail learned that Kemp had arrived to work on Dec. 30 at 2:48 p.m. smelling strongly of marijuana.
Several officers who passed Kemp in the hall confirmed the smell, the complaint said. After Kemp went to his assigned unit for duty, other officers said they continued to smell marijuana.
“CO William Kemp III abruptly left the housing unit and traveled back down to the ACJ’s Level 1M, men’s locker room, before returning back to housing unit 8E,” the complaint said.
While the locker room then smelled of marijuana, the odor was not as strong on Kemp when he returned to the housing unit, according to the complaint.
Jail administrators then searched Kemp’s locker.
Inside, under a uniform sweater, they found an ounce of what appeared to be marijuana wrapped in a paper towel wrapped in plastic.
A captain at the jail asked Kemp via radio to report to the shift commander’s office, but before he did, administrators saw on video that Kemp first went to an employee bathroom on his unit.
He remained there for 16 seconds before reporting to the shift commander.
A sergeant entered the bathroom immediately afterward and removed a trash bag.
Inside, the complaint said, there were 23 pages of thick cotton paper which appeared to be soaked in synthetic marijuana.
Another sergeant at the jail reported that prior to Kemp’s arrival for his shift, he had learned that marijuana and synthetic marijuana were to be delivered to specific inmates on Kemp’s unit that day.
Investigators determined Kemp took the drugs into the jail to sell to inmates, the complaint said.
Kemp was arraigned Thursday morning and posted a $10,000 bond through a bail agency.
Paula Reed Ward is a TribLive reporter covering federal and Allegheny County courts. She joined the Trib in 2020 after spending nearly 17 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. She is the author of “Death by Cyanide.” She can be reached at pward@triblive.com.
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