A former Alaska correctional officer has been sentenced to two years in prison after admitting to smuggling drugs and cellphones to inmates jailed at the Mat-Su facility where she worked.
Angela Lincoln, 44, was arrested in November 2021 and shortly after pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy and bribery. A judge sentenced her Wednesday.
Lincoln worked at Goose Creek Correctional Center, southwest of Wasilla on Point MacKenzie, for six years, starting in 2014.
Prosecutors wrote in court documents that in 2019, Lincoln “allowed greed to overcome her ethical responsibilities,” and she started smuggling Suboxone strips and burner cellphones into the medium-security prison.
Lincoln was smuggling the contraband for an inmate serving a 100-year sentence for murder, according to the court documents. In exchange, people working for the inmate outside of prison would give Lincoln cash, which ultimately amounted to about $30,000, the court documents say.
What Lincoln didn’t know was that one of the inmate’s associates was working with federal investigators, sharing texts and recording phone calls.
FBI agents confronted Lincoln with a search warrant in June 2020, and following a series of interviews in which she initially denied the smuggling, Lincoln admitted everything. The court documents say that, days later, she gave them all of the bribe money and pleaded guilty.
In December 2020, Lincoln also gave up her certification to be a correctional officer, according to Alaska Police Standards Council records.
The prosecutors recommended Lincoln, as a former correctional officer, not be jailed in Alaska.
Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Casey here.
