Former State Employee Pleads Guilty to Providing K2-Laced Papers to a Federal Prison Inmate

BOSTON – A Bridgewater, Mass. woman pleaded guilty on Oct. 7, 2025 to providing a controlled substance in the form of a synthetic cannabinoid, also known as “K2,” to a federal inmate at the federal prison FMC Devens. The inmate was granted clemency on Jan. 17, 2025, reducing his 2022 federal prison sentence for drug distribution.

Tasha Hammock, 43, a former employee with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, pleaded guilty to providing contraband to a prison inmate. U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman scheduled sentencing for Jan. 16, 2026. In March 2025, Hammock and her co-conspirator Raymond Gaines were charged by criminal complaint. Gaines, a federal inmate at FMC Devens, was indicted by a federal grand jury with possessing contraband by a prison inmate, and his case remains pending.

In February 2022, Gaines was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty in federal court in Boston to possession with intent to distribute cocaine and possessing a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking. At the time Gaines committed the alleged offenses charged, he was on federal supervised release after serving a prison sentence resulting from a 2017 conviction for distributing cocaine base within 1,000 feet of a school. In both prior cases Gaines was alleged to be an associate of the Orchard Park Trailblazers, a street gang in Boston.

On Jan. 17, 2025, Gaines received an Executive Grant of Clemency, reducing his current federal sentence to five years in prison.  

Hammock admitted that on Aug. 18, 2024, while visiting Gaines in prison, she surreptitiously passed K2-laced papers to Gaines, which he allegedly pocketed. At the time, Hammock was employed with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. 

As described in court documents, K2 presents a health problem at FMC Devens, where inmates have become sick from smoking paper believed to contain K2, as well as prison staff who have been exposed to the secondary smoke.    

The charges of providing a prohibited object to a prison inmate, and receiving a prohibited object by a prison inmate, each carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Ted E. Docks, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston; and Ryan Geach, Special Agent in Charge of the Northeast Regional Office of DOJ-OIG, made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Special Investigative Services Unit at FMC Devens. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan O’Shea of the Worcester Branch Office is prosecuting the case.  

The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The remaining defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.