An Oak Park man who worked at Cook County Jail was arrested by the Cook County Sheriff’s Police last week and charged with trying to smuggle drugs to inmates.
Timothy Fuller, 42, of Oak Park, was charged on Oct. 4 with four felonies, including possession of marijuana, possession of cocaine and two charges for attempting to deliver them.
Fuller, a 15-year employee at the jail, was arrested after an investigation by the sheriff’s internal investigations unit.
That office received information Fuller was involved in “suspicious activity at the jail involving inmates under his watch,” according to a press release from the sheriff’s department.
An investigation revealed that Fuller allegedly agreed to smuggle marijuana into the jail for an inmate, if the inmate paid him $400, the sheriff’s department said. Fuller then allegedly called a number provided by the inmate and set up a meeting — with an undercover sheriff’s police officer — to exchange the drugs for cash.
On Monday after his shift ended at 3 p.m., Fuller allegedly entered the passenger side of the undercover officer’s car and gave her cash for a grocery bag filled with 15.9 grams of marijuana and a handful of $20 bills, according to the sheriff’s department.
The transaction was entirely caught on video, and after the exchange, sheriff’s officers swarmed the car and arrested Fuller.
At a hearing Thursday morning, Fuller’s bond was set at $40,000, according to sheriff’s spokesman Steve Patterson.
Fuller has been suspended with pay, but Patterson said the sheriff’s department has requested that he be fired.
