A Rikers Island corrections officer was sentenced to eight years in state prison yesterday for swapping three kilograms of cocaine with an inmate in exchange for shortening his prison sentence in the Department of Corrections computer system, according to the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office.
51-year-old Robert Whitfield was arrested in Inwood in April of 2011 after sending an intermediary to intercept $100,000 worth of cocaine from an undercover agent posing as the inmate's cousin. Unfortunately for Whitfield, officers found his car a few blocks from the meeting site, and he was arrested.
Other Rikers residents testified that Whitfield "approached several inmates at the jail, before he found one who agreed to the bribe plot." Unfortunately, the inmate Whitfield found reported the incident to authorities. If you can't trust an inmate at Rikers not to turn you in, who can you trust, amirite?
Two other inmates testified that they'd seen Whitefield negotiating the bribe in a staff kitchen at Rikers, assertions that were backed up by phone records.
Whitfield was convicted in May on charges including criminal possession of a controlled substance, conspiracy, several counts of bribe receiving and official misconduct. If he's very lucky, maybe another correction officer will approach him with a bribe, and the cycle can continue, unbroken.
