{"id":154990,"date":"2025-08-18T06:01:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/154990\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T06:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:01:14","slug":"paralegal-accused-of-smuggling-drugs-into-phoenixs-fourth-avenue-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/154990\/","title":{"rendered":"Paralegal accused of smuggling drugs into Phoenix&#8217;s Fourth Avenue Jail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;z-index:2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/72262936007-azcentral-send-news-tips-promo-with-logo.jpg\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>How to send news tips to azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic<\/p>\n<p>Readers can send news tips to The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com via the newspaper&#8217;s social media channels or by email.<\/p>\n<p>The Republic<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A paralegal, Christopher Byers, was arrested after being accused of smuggling drugs into the Fourth Avenue Jail, the Maricopa County Sheriff&#8217;s Office said.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Items of evidence&#8221; were found during a search of Byers&#8217; home.<\/li>\n<li>Several inmates were found to be in possession of drug-laced papers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A paralegal was arrested after being accused of attempting to smuggle drugs into the Fourth Avenue Jail, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff&#8217;s Office in a news release.<\/p>\n<p>Christopher Byers tried to smuggle drugs into the jail through contaminated paperwork, the Sheriff&#8217;s Office said.<\/p>\n<p>Paperwork submitted by Byers for an inmate was discolored, and when tested for drugs, it was found to be positive for synthetic cannabinoids, said the Sheriff&#8217;s Office.<\/p>\n<p>Byers was subsequently arrested by a Sheriff&#8217;s Office drug task force, according to the Sheriff&#8217;s Office.<\/p>\n<p>A search warrant was executed at Byers&#8217; residence, where &#8220;items of evidence&#8221; were found, the Sheriff&#8217;s Office said.<\/p>\n<p>A K-9 found several inmates at the Fourth Avenue Jail were already in possession of papers that tested positive for the drugs, according to the news release, according to the Sheriff&#8217;s Office. It was not clear how those drugs had been smuggled into the jail.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Keeping drugs out of our jail facility is one of my highest priorities,&#8221; said Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan in the news release.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation remained ongoing, and charges were pending for the inmates involved, the Sheriff&#8217;s Office said.<\/p>\n<p>Byers was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maricopa.gov\/DocumentCenter\/View\/92616\/Paralegals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">listed<\/a> under an official directory for paralegals in Maricopa County date June 3, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Attempts to reach the listed email and phone number were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p>In July, the Sheriff&#8217;s Office started using<a href=\"https:\/\/www.azcentral.com\/story\/news\/local\/phoenix\/2025\/07\/11\/maricopa-county-jail-scanners\/84538855007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> X-ray machines<\/a> to stop drugs from being smuggled into the jails.<\/p>\n<p class=\"exclude-from-newsgate\">Rey Covarrubias Jr. reports breaking news for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Email him at:\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:rcovarrubias@gannett.com\">rcovarrubias@gannett.com<\/a>, and connect with him on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reycjraz\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Instagram<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.threads.com\/@reycjraz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Threads<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/reycjraz.bsky.social\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bluesky<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ReyCJrAZ\">X (formerly Twitter)<\/a>\u00a0at @ReyCJrAZ.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How to send news tips to azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic Readers can send news tips to The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":154991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[691,2106,90429,5229,931,5643,11307,1587,8746,3059,4219,11313,4654,10000,68200,1230,2488,5375,16759,2487,3195,41040,8142,3228,2936,10001,4630,90426,425,728,69771,28327,3344,69586,451,635,7233,50,940,1812,450,457,1589,7207,90428,153,68197,68199,5812,90427,5677,40276,21171,645,2490,646,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7223,76702],"class_list":{"0":"post-154990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-alcohol","10":"tag-alcohol-drugs-and-gambling","11":"tag-america","12":"tag-and","13":"tag-arizona","14":"tag-arrests","15":"tag-az","16":"tag-az-now","17":"tag-county","18":"tag-crime","19":"tag-crime-u0026-justice","20":"tag-dogs","21":"tag-drug","22":"tag-drug-laws-u0026-policy","23":"tag-drugs","24":"tag-enabled","25":"tag-enforcement","26":"tag-gambling","27":"tag-highlights","28":"tag-industry","29":"tag-jails","30":"tag-justice","31":"tag-law","32":"tag-law-enforcement","33":"tag-laws","34":"tag-legal","35":"tag-legal-services-industry","36":"tag-local","37":"tag-local-news","38":"tag-maricopa","39":"tag-maricopa-county-sheriffs-office","40":"tag-marijuana","41":"tag-narcotics","42":"tag-negative","43":"tag-new","44":"tag-new-visitors-az","45":"tag-news","46":"tag-now","47":"tag-office","48":"tag-overall","49":"tag-overall-negative","50":"tag-phoenix","51":"tag-police","52":"tag-police-dogs","53":"tag-policy","54":"tag-recreational","55":"tag-recreational-drugs","56":"tag-search","57":"tag-search-warrants","58":"tag-services","59":"tag-sheriffs","60":"tag-smuggling","61":"tag-story","62":"tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","63":"tag-u0026","64":"tag-united-states","65":"tag-united-states-of-america","66":"tag-unitedstates","67":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","68":"tag-us","69":"tag-usa","70":"tag-visitors","71":"tag-warrants"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}