Photos: Pinellas County Sheriff's Office / Pergola (l); Gavin (m) ; Rushing (r) (August 20, 2013)
Detention deputies grew suspicious as they prepared the 30-year-old inmate, David Michael Gavin, to be transferred from the Pinellas County Jail in Tampa Bay to the Jefferson County Jail in the Panhandle when he began to ask every deputy and jail employee he saw or passed to help him get his mail, according to a news release from the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
After mail room clerks started to monitor Gavin’s mail more closely, they found four pieces of stamped mail addressed to Gavin with small square pieces of orange paper concealed behind each of the stamps, according to the Sheriff's Office.
Sp mail clerks handed over the contents of the envelopes to Gavin but kept the envelopes and stamps to identify the substance behind the stamps.
Investigators then found more mail addressed to Gavin -- as well as other pieces of mail addressed to his cell mate, 30-year-old Jermonte Russell Rushing -- all of which had the same type of orange paper concealed behind the stamps and similar handwriting to the letters addressed to Gavin, the release stated.
Testing revealed the “orange paper” to be suboxone or “heroin in a breath strip,” further described by deputies as an opiate in the form of a sub-lingual film.
Investigators also stated Gavin recruited his cell mate, Rushing, to have the mail sent to him in exchange for money. The duo then sold the drug to other inmates. Each stamp held five dosage units if cut into five individual strips and was sold for $20.
Gavin's girlfriend, 29-year-old Kaitlyn Pergola, of Trinity, was identified as the alleged supply source of the suboxone to Gavin and Rushing.
Now these two love birds are both jail birds.
Inmates busted for smuggling 'heroin in a breath strip' into jail under stamps - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
