Smuggling marijuana into the prison system is an operation that takes a certain level of guts and ingenuity to pull it off without ending up on the wrong side of a cell. It is for this reason that one Chicago corrections officer decided to employ a real tasty tactic for trafficking illegal contraband into the Cook County Jail — by stuffing weed in to a hollowed-out sandwich known throughout the Windy City as the “Jim Shoe.”
Reports indicate that 29-year-old Jason Marek, who was employed as a guard for the Cook County Jail, was busted earlier last year trying to smuggle two large sandwiches into the facility stuffed with gyro meat, roast beef, and a couple ounces of that special herb. Federal officials claim Marek was persuaded with a cash offering to take part in an elaborate scheme to sell marijuana to inmates at a rate of five times more than the black market value.
The US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois claims that several prisoners and their girlfriends approached Marek in the summer of 2013 and bribed him to be a drug mule. Knowing that a corrections officer would not be subject to the same rigorous search procedure as a visitor, the group paid him $200 to smuggle in several ounces of weed, booze and cigarettes – all of which was pre-sold on behalf of various inmates.
The report claims that Marek and six others, including a police dispatcher, conjured up the plan to sneak the bags of marijuana into the jail by stuffing them inside the hollowed-out roll of a Jim Shoe submarine sandwich. However, none of the statements indicate exactly what led officials to discover the weed was being smuggled into the facility using this method.
After more than a year, federal authorities finally issued a warrant for Marek’s arrest on Tuesday. He is facing a number of federal charges, which could land him in prison for the next five years if he is convicted.
