By Skylar Laird
SCDailyGazette.com
COLUMBIA — Two Department of Juvenile Justice corrections officers were charged this week with giving vape pens to detained teenagers.
Both employees, who worked at DJJ’s long-term lockup off Broad River Road, have since been fired, according to a statement Thursday, April 4.
Between December and January, 34-year-old Lottie Cash repeatedly snuck vapes through security to give to the children at the facility, who paid her for them. Ebonie Howard, 37, took vapes home to charge, then brought them back for teens to use, hiding them from security checkpoints, according to their arrest warrants.
Both former employees are charged with misconduct in office and furnishing contraband to juveniles. Cash turned herself into the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center on Wednesday, and Howard did the same Thursday.
The charges follow an arrest earlier this month, in which an employee at the Midlands Evaluation Center was accused of assaulting a youth. He was charged with third-degree assault and battery, as well as misconduct in office, the department said in a news release at the time. Another employee was arrested in December on charges of selling contraband to teenage detainees.
The agency has been struggling to hire and retain workers in recent years, amid significant problems at the department. As of March 22, DJJ was trying to hire 145 officers at the Broad River Road complex, about one-third of the 427 officers needed to be fully staffed, a spokesperson said at the time.
Skylar Laird covers the South Carolina Legislature and criminal justice issues. Originally from Missouri, she previously worked for The Post and Courier’s Columbia bureau.
S.C. Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
