Former State Employee Sentenced for Providing K2-Laced Papers to a Federal Prison Inmate

BOSTON – A Bridgewater, Mass. woman was sentenced on Jan. 16, 2026 in federal court in Worcester for providing a controlled substance in the form of a synthetic cannabinoid, also known as “K2,” to an 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, 44, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman to three years of probation. The government recommended a sentence of 12 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. In November 2025, Hammock pleaded guilty to providing contraband to a federal prison inmate, Raymond Gaines. In March 2025, Hammock and Gaines were charged by criminal complaint. Gaines, an inmate at FMC Devens, was indicted by a federal grand jury with possessing contraband by a prison inmate.

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 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.    

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 prosecuted the case.