Chatham County jail corrections officer fired, arrested and charged with smuggling drugs

Drew Favakeh, Savannah Morning News
·2 min read
A look from the second level down to the common area at one of the newly refurbished wings inside Unit One at the Chatham County Detention Center.
A look from the second level down to the common area at one of the newly refurbished wings inside Unit One at the Chatham County Detention Center.

On Tuesday, a former Chatham County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) Corrections Officer was arrested and charged with smuggling drugs into the Chatham County Detention Center (CCDC). Sheriff John Wilcher announced Wednesday in a press release that he terminated and arrested the former corrections officer Megan Barbee, following a “significant breach of conduct and trust within the CCSO.”

“On Tuesday, March 5, before her scheduled duty, Barbee underwent an official interview as part of an ongoing investigation at the CCSO,” the CCSO press release read. ”The interview revealed C.O. Barbee’s alarming confessions, including her admissions of accepting payments from inmates in exchange for smuggling controlled substances into the detention facility.”

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“C.O. Barbee’s actions represent a serious violation of the law and the ethical standards we uphold at the CCSO. Such behavior compromises the safety and security of our facility and betrays the community’s trust in us,” Wilcher said in the prepared statement. “We will maintain a zero-tolerance stance on contraband in the detention facility.”

The Savannah Morning News has requested the incident report and Barbee’s personnel file from Chatham County.

The arrest of Barbee is at least the fourth arrest of a former CCSO corrections officer or contract worker hired by the CCSO within the past two years.

In February 2023, a nurse practitioner was arrested after being caught stealing medication from an inmate. Also in February 2023, a correctional officer smuggled drugs into the jail using a Styrofoam cup filled with ice. That corrections officer, Georgette Bennett, was alleged to have smuggled drugs at her previous job at Rogers State Prison in Reidsville, Georgia. In May 2023, a jail contract worker for Oasis, the private company that manages the detention center’s commissary, was paid $1,500 to bring in sheets of paper laced with drugs.

In September 2023, two inmate deaths were attributed to drug overdoses, according to CCDC officials. In 2021, the sheriff's office moved to an electronic mail system because of the prevalance of fentanyl-laced mail.

Drew Favakeh is the public safety and courts reporter for Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at AFavakeh@Gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Chatham County corrections officer arrested, charged with drug smuggling