Inmate charged with smuggling controlled substance into jail

WILKES-BARRE — State police at Shickshinny charged an inmate with smuggling a controlled substance hidden in eyeglasses into the Luzerne County Correctional Facility.

Mark Sult, 28, of Grange Road, Shickshinny, was charged with possession of contraband by an inmate, criminal solicitation with intent to deliver a controlled substance, criminal solicitation to possess contraband, criminal conspiracy to possess contraband and criminal use of communication facility. He was arraigned Wednesday by District Judge Martin Kane via video conference and remanded to the county correctional facility for lack of $50,000 bail.

According to the criminal complaint:

Prosecutors obtained a court order in January to record Sult’s jailhouse phone calls related to an ongoing burglary investigation. Sult was jailed in November on various charges of receiving stolen property and flight to avoid apprehension.

Sult frequently called his girlfriend, who has not been charged, asking her to bring him “subs,” a street name for suboxone, a controlled substance. Sult instructed the woman to roll the suboxone like a piece of rice and hide it behind the earpiece of eyeglasses, the complaint alleges.

Sult told the woman to glue the earpiece back onto the frame so correctional staffers could not detect the eyeglasses being altered.

The woman at first was reluctant, telling Sult she did not want to lose her son. Sult told the woman that suboxone does not show up in his system when tested for drugs in jail, according to the complaint.

The woman claimed she purchased eyeglasses and while parked in front of the jail on Water Street, Sult called her telling her how to remove the earpiece and glue it back together. She told Sult that she bent the eyeglasses to refit the earpiece back onto its frame and used her teeth to straighten the arm of the frame, the complaint says.

She passed the eyeglasses to a correctional officer who confirmed Sult was permitted to have the glasses.

State police said in the complaint that Sult refused to submit to a drug test and was reprimanded to 30 days in restrictive housing.