Former Employee Admits Smuggling Drugs into Missouri Prison

ST. LOUIS – A former employee of a Missouri state prison on Wednesday admitted smuggling drugs and knives into prison.

Steven M. Reminger, 53, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute controlled substances and one count of attempting to possess with the intent to distribute controlled substances.

Reminger was an electronics technician at the Eastern Reception Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri at the time of his crimes. After a number of inmate drug overdoses, inmates told officials that Reminger was smuggling drugs into the prison. One told a Missouri Department of Corrections investigator that Reminger had drugs mailed to a Post Office box in Farmington, Missouri under a fake name.

A U.S. Postal Inspection Service inspector learned that Reminger had obtained the Post Office box on Nov. 8, 2021, and received about 12 packages between Nov. 13, 2021, and May 24, 2022. After Reminger picked up the final parcel on May 25, 2022, Postal Inspectors took him to a police station and interviewed him. They also opened the package, discovering $4,000 in cash as well as fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, K2, THC edibles, marijuana, knives and cell phones that were contained in four vacuum-sealed packages. Reminger said the $4,000 was his pay for bringing the packages into the prison. He acknowledged that it was “possible” the packages he brought in contained something that contributed to the inmate overdoses, but said “ignorance is bliss” and added that he never opened the packages within the parcels or asked what was inside of them. Reminger admitted being “deliberately ignorant” to the contents of the packages. 

Reminger said he made no more than $50,000 from the smuggling scheme. He turned over $15,000 in cash that he had at home to investigators. He used some of the rest of the money to buy a dune buggy and two trailers.

Reminger is scheduled to be sentenced on July 24. Each charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison, a $1 million fine or both prison and a fine.

The Missouri Department of Corrections Office of Professional Standards, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Missouri State Highway Patrol are investigating the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Rebar is prosecuting the case.