Puebloan Brian Jason Hund was fined $12,500 and sentenced to four months of home detention for trying to smuggle methamphetamine into the U.S. Penitentiary at Florence, where he worked.
Hund, 29, was charged in 1997 when the crime occurred, but sentencing was delayed until Thursday.
A court-appointed psychologist in 1998 diagnosed Hund as being severely mentally ill, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia that resulted from a childhood head injury.
At Thursday’s sentencing, U.S. District Judge Wiley Y. Daniel ordered Hund to undergo mental health treatment during the five years he will be on probation.
Hund pleaded guilty to the charge earlier this year. In a plea agreement, Hund admitted he received methamphetamine, marijuana and Valium at his home and intended to take the drugs to an inmate. He became the target of an investigation when a confidential informant told authorities that someone was going to get a guard to bring narcotics into the prison.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Rhodes and Hund’s attorney, Frank E. Moya, asked the judge to impose a reduced sentence. Hund could have been sentenced to 71 months in prison and fined $100,000.
The inmate’s girlfriend, Gloria Casillas, supplied the drugs. She was sentenced in 1998 to 120 hours of community service and two years of probation, as well as being fined $3,000.