Former CPD dispatcher gets 3 years for jail smuggling plot

A former Chicago Police dispatcher was doing more than just passing along information to officers; she was using private information to help her boyfriend in a scheme to smuggle contraband into the Cook County Jail.

Stephanie Lewis, 43, of Chicago, was sentenced Wednesday, after earlier pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit extortion, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. A judge ordered her to serve 41 months in federal prison.

Lewis admitted using her position as a dispatch supervisor in the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications to access police databases to find personal information for a correctional officer at the jail, according to federal prosecutors.

The information was passed along to Prince Johnson, Lewis’ boyfriend, and an inmate being held at the jail, prosecutors said. They used it to threaten an officer with physical harm unless he continued to help smuggle contraband into the facility.

Lewis was one of five people convicted in the smuggling case.

Previously, Jason Marek, a correctional officer at the jail, pleaded guilty to delivering contraband—including marijuana, tobacco and alcohol — to an inmate. He Marek worked in a maximum-security tier of the jail when the smuggling took place in May and June of 2013. The contraband was smuggled inside sandwiches. Marek is awaiting sentencing.

Johnson also pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and is awaiting sentencing, prosecutors said.