Pair accused of mailing drugs to jail

CLOVIS — The scheme was to mail drugs to a Clovis jail inmate.

The plan was foiled when law enforcement asked why an envelope postmarked over 200 miles away had listed a law firm within walking distance of the jail as its return address.

A captain at the Curry County Adult Detention Center alerted a sheriff investigator last month that “he had found contraband that was being mailed into the facility” and “explained that the postmark was one of the things that made him suspicious of the letter,” according to a criminal complaint.

It was suspicious, the officer explained, because the “postmark showed that it was mailed from Tome, New Mexico” — a village about 230 miles from the jail. But it had a return address for the Lindsey Law Firm, “located a block away from the jail.”

The letter was postmarked April 17 and examined in the Clovis jail on April 22. Staff found taped to the inside of the envelope a dozen strips of what appeared to be Suboxone sublingual films, a schedule III narcotic used in opioid replacement therapy.

The ensuing investigation reviewed phone calls from inmate Eric Garcia, 25, of Belen, to whom the letter was addressed. That review soon narrowed on calls to Raquel Jaramillo, 31, whose home address in Los Lunas is less than a mile from the Tome post office.

According to an inventory in court records, those calls to Jaramillo ranged from April 9 — the first day after Garcia was booked into the jail on unrelated charges — to May 8, two days before new felony charges were filed on both Garcia and Jaramillo.

In a call April 10, “Garcia tells Jaramillo to write down an address” and provides that of the Lindsey Law Firm; later that day “he tells Jaramillo to make sure that they are taped to the paper and that the paper is typed,” according to court records.

The next day, Garcia tells Jaramillo “that the return is the biggest part” and a day later “Garcia says that they will do this every time he comes here and to make sure that Brett Carter is on the second line.”

Carter, an attorney with the Lindsey law firm, did not respond to messages Monday and Tuesday from The News. Attorney Dan Lindsey said he had no knowledge of the scheme.

“Sure, it’s protected,” Lindsey explained when asked why a person would erroneously list a law office on the return address for mailed contraband. “They (jail officials) are not supposed to open legal mail.”

The scheme apparently did work at least once: Curry County Sheriff Investigator Matt Whittington wrote that “Jaramillo successfully introduced Suboxone into the jail” on April 19, but failed in a subsequent effort three days later.

Both Jaramillo and Garcia entered no plea Monday on felony charges including distribution of a controlled substance, tampering with evidence, bringing contraband into jail and conspiracy to commit bringing contraband into jail.

Jaramillo was released Monday night on an unsecured appearance bond; Garcia remained Wednesday in custody on a pretrial preventive detention hold from his previous case, according to court records.

A representative of the public defender office said Jaramillo and Garcia were represented by attorneys Joe Allred and Jacob Ort, neither of whom returned message Tuesday from The News. Attempts to reach Jaramillo at her cell phone were unsuccessful.