A Brooklyn mom paid a staffer at a juvenile detention center $14,000 in bribes to sneak marijuana and scalpels to her son, who was jailed inside the troubled facility, authorities said Thursday.
Jessica Alicea, 44, pleaded guilty to bribery charges in Brooklyn federal court for paying off an employee at the Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brownsville to smuggle the weed and blades to her troubled kid on more than 130 occasions, the city Department of Investigation announced.
Alicea’s accomplice, Davante Bolton, a youth development specialist with the city Administration for Children’s Services, was convicted in the scam earlier this year, the office said.
“Contraband smuggling at juvenile detention centers jeopardizes the safety and security of both staff and residents of these city facilities,” DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber said in a statement.
“Today’s conviction sends the important message that bribing staff to introduce dangerous contraband will have serious consequences,” Strauber said. “I thank the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York for its partnership on this important investigation and prosecution.”
DOI launched the probe into the bribes in August 2022 and continued the investigation until February this year, with the findings then turned over to federal prosecutors for criminal charges.
According to a criminal complaint, Alicea pleaded to a charge of federal program bribery.
She is due to be sentenced in April. It wasn’t immediately clear what sentence she faces.
Crossroads and another youth detention facility, the Horizons Juvenile Center in The Bronx. have been the subject of controversy and scrutiny in recent years — and of a scathing DOI report last month.
At issue was the state’s “Raise the Age” law, which increased the age of criminal responsibility to 18 and prohibited 16 and 17-year-old offenders from being prosecuted in adult court for violent offenses.
As a result, the youth facilities are now well beyond capacity, with older and more violent suspects now packing the centers and wreaking havoc on staffers and younger delinquents, the DOI investigation found.
In a report last week, The Post detailed how baby-faced repeat offenders are cycled in and out of family court and released back to the community — with cops and the criminal justice system helpless.
According to DOI, between March 2022 and May of this year at least 75 mobile phones, more than 340 scalpels and other blades were confiscated from residents at Crossroads, along with drugs and tobacco.
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