Corrections officer charged with smuggling $15,000 worth of cigarettes

A New York City corrections officer was charged Wednesday after allegedly smuggling more than $15,000 worth of illegal items into Rikers Island, the city’s largest jail.

Kendell Felix, 37, reportedly received $3,000 in bribes to bring in 200 cigarettes and a cell phone. He faces charges of receiving bribes in the third degree, promoting contraband in the first degree, two counts of promoting contraband in the second degree, and official misconduct. He has a court hearing on December 4.

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The $15,000 estimate is what the law firm believes the cigarettes and phone would have been valued at in jail. Cigarettes could go for $50 to $100 at Rikers Island, according to the Bronx district attorney.

In a similar case, another corrections officer was sentenced in June to three years in prison for conspiracy to smuggle contraband. Again, an outside person also paid that person to carry out the smuggling. That officer, Jason Skeet, reportedly sneaked in marijuana, cigarettes and food for more than two years before he was caught.

And earlier this year, six more people on Rikers Island were charged with smuggling and taking bribes. That group included three corrections officers, a program supervisor, a contractor and an inmate. Carlos Rivera, one of the officers, is alleged to have smuggled oxycodone and marijuana into the prison between December 2021 and February 2022.

After the latest arrest, Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie scolded the officer for putting his own interests “above the safety of people in custody, DOC employees and visitors.”

“Our prisons become less safe when corrections staff accept bribes to smuggle in contraband,” Maginlet-Liddie wrote in the New York Post. “We commend the Bronx District Attorney’s office for working with our department to ensure this individual is brought to justice.”