GREAT FALLS — A corrections officer at Crossroads Correctional Center, two inmates and the wife of one of the inmates are charged with conspiring to bring drugs into the private prison in Shelby.
Three of the four are scheduled to be arraigned in District Court in Great Falls next Wednesday.
The case began in July when a confidential informant told the Department of Corrections that officer Diana Baker was involved in a relationship with inmate Joshua Schied, the Great Falls Tribune reported Tuesday.
Court records say an investigation led to an operation in which the informant sold fake methamphetamine to Baker in Great Falls in September.
Baker, 45, was arrested last month in Cut Bank. No arraignment date has been set and she does not have an attorney who could speak on her behalf, a court clerk said.
Schied and fellow inmate Jason Hoomalu are scheduled to appear at their arraignments via video from the prison. They do not have attorneys.
Ariana Hoomalu’s attorney, James Gardner, declined to comment on the pending case. The Hoomalus are alleged to have had contact with the informant regarding the drug sale, court records said.
There was no one available at the prison to comment on the case Wednesday, an operator said.
Scheid is serving a 50-year term for beating a man with a baseball bat during a 2008 home invasion in Billings, leaving the man permanently disabled with a brain injury.
Jason Hoomalu is serving a 15-year sentence for shooting a woman three times in Great Falls in 2017.