Corrections Officer Arrested On Federal Bribery Charge, Accused Of Taking Cash To Smuggle Contraband Into FacilitySecond Officer Was Arrested Last Week In Related Case

     WASHINGTON - Lenard Fleming, 33, a corrections officer with the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), has been arrested and charged with bribery following an undercover FBI investigation in which he allegedly accepted money for smuggling contraband into the District of Columbia’s Correctional Treatment Facility.

     The charge was announced by U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr.; Valerie Parlave, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; and Thomas N. Faust, Director of the District of Columbia Department of Corrections.

     Fleming was arrested today by the FBI and appeared this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He pled not guilty and was released on personal recognizance pending a hearing on May 14, 2014.

     Fleming had worked for CCA as a corrections officer at the Correctional Treatment Facility.  CCA, a private company, has a contract to provide services to the D.C. Jail.

     The arrest came nine days after another CCA corrections officer, Darren Malry, 51, was apprehended and charged with bribery in a related investigation. Malry also worked for CCA at the Correctional Treatment Facility. He has pled not guilty to the charge.

     According to the charging documents that were filed today, on Jan. 5, 2014, Fleming met with an undercover FBI agent in the parking lot of a shopping center in Capitol Heights, Md.  The undercover agent gave Fleming a cellphone and cigarettes for Fleming to deliver to an inmate housed at the Correctional Treatment Facility.  The undercover agent also provided Fleming with $750 in cash at that meeting, which was given in exchange for Fleming smuggling the contraband into the facility and delivering it to the inmate.  The FBI recovered the contraband from the inmate shortly after Fleming gave the items to the inmate.

     Fleming was terminated by CCA in February 2014 following a complaint that he was smuggling contraband into the facility for another inmate. 

     A criminal complaint is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed a violation of criminal laws.  Every defendant is presumed innocent until, and unless, proven guilty.     

     The case is being investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office with assistance from the District of Columbia Department of Corrections Office of Investigative Services. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard DiZinno, of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, with assistance from Assistant U.S. Attorneys Catherine K. Connelly and Allessandra Stewart, of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section.