NYC mother paid $14K bribe to give marijuana and blade to jailed son inside juvenile facility: Feds

A Brooklyn mother bribed a juvenile detention center employee $14,000 to deliver marijuana and a scalpel to her son, who was jailed inside the troubled facility, authorities said Thursday.

Jessica Alicia, 44, pleaded guilty to bribery charges in Brooklyn federal court for paying an employee of the Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brownsville to smuggle weed and blades on more than 130 occasions for her troubled child, the city’s Department of Investigation announced. Pleaded guilty.

Alicia’s partner Devante Bolton, a youth development specialist for the city Administration for Children’s Services, was convicted in the scam earlier this year, the office said.

“Smuggling contraband into juvenile detention centers jeopardizes the safety of both the staff and residents of these city facilities,” DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber said in a statement.

“Today’s sentencing sends an important message that there will be serious consequences for bribing employees to supply dangerous contraband,” Strober said. “I thank the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York for their partnership on this important investigation and prosecution.”

DOI began the bribery investigation in August 2022 and continued the investigation until February this year, after which the findings were handed over to federal prosecutors for criminal charges.

According to a criminal complaint, Alicia pleaded guilty to federal program bribery charges.

He is scheduled to be sentenced in April. It was not immediately clear what punishment he would face.

Crossroads and another youth detention facility, Horizons Juvenile Center in The Bronx. has been the subject of controversy and scrutiny in recent years – and a DOI’s scathing report last month,

At issue was the state’s “raise the age of majority” law, which raised the age of criminal responsibility to 18 and barred 16- and 17-year-old offenders from being tried in adult court for violent crimes.

As a result, youth facilities are now beyond capacity, with older and more violent suspects now packing the centers and wreaking havoc on staff and young offenders, the DOI investigation found.

In a report last week, The Post detailed how the child’s encounter repeated Offenders are shuttled in and out of family court And released back into the community – with the police and criminal justice system helpless.

According to the DOI, at least 75 mobile phones, over 340 scalpels and other blades along with drugs and tobacco were seized from residents of the intersection between March 2022 and May this year.