Ex-probation officer ordered to stand trial
A former Fayette County adult probation officer was ordered to stand trial for allegedly smuggling three miniature bottles of alcohol, a pack of cigarettes and a pack of chewing gum into the Fayette County Prison and giving them to a female inmate. Jason Daniel Chess, 28, of 142 Southwood Drive, South Union Township, was ordered held for court on a misdemeanor count of contraband filed by state police. A preliminary hearing was held before Magisterial District Judge Mark Blair on Tuesday.
The case against Chess will be forwarded to Common Pleas Court, where he will have a trial or accept a plea agreement. He is free on $10,000 unsecured bail.
Inmate Frankie JoAne Ross testified that Chess passed the items to her during a visit in an interview room.
Under questioning from Michelle Kelley, Fayette County assistant district attorney, Ross said Chess removed the items from his socks, handed them to her and she hid them in her socks and bra before returning to her cell.
She said she could not remember it happened, but a prison guard testified that the contraband was found on Sept. 29, 2005.
In an affidavit of probable cause, police said the items were brought into the lockup on Sept. 28.
Ross said she became friends with Chess after she was released from prison in March 2005.
Under cross-examination from defense attorney Nick Timperio, she said was incarcerated on a charge of possession of drug paraphernalia and was free for four or five months before she was sent back to the prison for a parole violation stemming from a drug charge.
Ross said she is currently being held in prison for the parole violation.
She said Chess brought her the items after she asked him to.
“I guess because I was dope sick,” Ross said. “I was coming off of heroin.”
Chess brought her the specific items she requested, she said. They were a box or hard pack of Newport cigarettes, a pack of gum and miniature bottles of Jack Daniels whiskey and Jose Quervo tequila, she said.
Ross said she felt good after she drank the liquor that night.
She said police offered her nothing in exchange for her testimony.
Joel Shawn Bush, a lieutenant guard at the prison, testified that he followed orders to shakedown Ross’s cell to look for contraband on Sept. 29.
He said he found two empty miniature Jack Daniels bottles, an empty miniature Jose Quervo bottle and an empty pack of gum in a garbage bag hanging from Ross’s bunk.
Bush said he also searched a shower area near Ross’s cell and found a box of Newport cigarettes with about 15 cigarettes inside.