Extortion charge for Montgomery County corrections officer

A Montgomery County Sheriff's Office corrections officer accused of providing a jail inmate with a cell phone has been federally charged with attempted extortion under color of official right, according to an unsealed court document.

Michael Rose Jr., 29, is charged by bill of information with one count in Dayton’s U.S. District Court, according to documents unsealed Friday. The court documents suggest Rose also helped a federal inmate smuggle drugs into the jail with food orders.

Rose is scheduled to be arraigned and plead to the bill on Feb. 21.

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An affidavit written by Frederick Zollers, a member of the sheriff’s office and a task force member, alleges that Rose, who started working at the Montgomery County Jail in the spring of 2016, provided a cell phone to an inmate in exchange for cash.

That federal inmate, according to Zollers, used the telephone to conduct drug transactions while incarcerated. The information came from another another federal inmate, Inmate A, though that inmate did not say Rose was the corrections officer who brought in the phone. Nevertheless, the affidavit said, law enforcement agencies were able to corroborate the federal inmate’s statements.

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Officers did a sweep of jail cells in September 2016 and found an iPhone in Inmate B’s cell. Inmate C, according to the complaint, advised Rose brought in the phone in exchange for $5,000 cash and that prisoners were arranging for Rose to meet Inmate B’s friends or family members outside the jail to make the exchange.

The complaint said a fellow corrections officer said Inmate D was having food brought into the jail from a local restaurant and that there were drugs hidden inside the food order. Bringing in food from restaurants to the jail is not allowed, according to Zollers’ affidavit.

The affidavit said an individual "apparently used narcotics while detained," a probable reference to Dustin Rybak, who died of a fentanyl overdose while incarcerated.

Rose is captured on surveillance video arranging the delivery of outside food to Inmate D, according to the complaint. Phone records also indicate Rose’s cell phone communicating with a known associate of Inmate D.

Inmate C advised that Rose offered to provide another cell phone for $1,500 to $2,000 and that Rose could help sell several pounds of marijuana, according to the complaint.

Law enforcement provided Inmate C with a phone number that actually belonged to an undercover officer, according to the complaint. The affidavit said on Nov. 11, 2016, Rose started texting the undercover officer to set up a meeting.

After making an exchange, the document said, Rose was arrested and taken into custody. Rose told authorities that several months earlier, a man at Fairfield Commons instructed him to smuggle a phone into the jail and said the man claimed he knew where Rose’s family lived. Rose said he never made any law enforcement officers aware of the purported threat, according to court documents.

Rose admitted to getting food delivered to an inmate, but declined the offer to help with drug trafficking, according to the complaint.

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