A former Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office deputy was sentenced Wednesday to six years and six months in prison for smuggling contraband into the Fairfax Adult Detention Center, among other charges.
Robert Theodore Sanford Jr., 37, was a correctional officer at the Fairfax Adult Detention Center, which holds pre- and post-trial detainees, from May 2021 to June 2023.
In exchange for bribe payments, Sanford delivered drugs, a cell phone and confidential information to an inmate. Sanford also rented an apartment and sexually trafficked women out of it for his own financial gain and sexual gratification.
According to court documents, the contraband included a cell phone and distribution quantities of fentanyl, cocaine and Suboxone.
Sanford also supplied latex gloves and glue to the inmate to help conceal the contraband.
Sanford provided the inmate with advance warning of cell searches by deputies, cell blocks to which deputies were proceeding in those searches, whether deputies would be conducting strip searches and where drug-sniffing dogs were being utilized.
Sanford also provided the inmate with information regarding other inmates, including which inmates might be providing information to law enforcement, which assisted Sanford’s co-conspirator in intimidating potential witnesses.
On May 4, 2023, Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office deputies at the Fairfax Adult Detention Center conducted a strip search of Sanford’s co-conspirator.
In the inmate’s long underwear, deputies found a cellphone, two charging cables, one portable cellular phone charger, one USB charging brick, 92 counterfeit oxycodone pills, 174 strips of Suboxone and more than three grams of cocaine.
Sanford was informed of the seizure during roll call the following day. Sanford attempted to cover up his actions by removing his cash tag name and personal email address from the CashApp account he used to receive bribe payments. He also stopped sending messages and making calls to the inmate and other conspirators and deleted related messages.
Within two weeks of discovering the contraband, Sanford resigned from his job telling the Sheriff’s Office that childcare challenges were the reason for his resignation.
Outside of work, Sanford was found to have procured drugs from the inmate’s associates and distributed the drugs to women who lived in and prostituted themselves out of an apartment that Sanford leased.
Sanford “preyed on the vulnerabilities of people in his care, according to Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
“His corruption didn’t stop with profiting from feeding the addictions of inmates in his charge,” she said. “Rather than assisting homeless and addicted members of his community, Sanford used drugs to entrap them in a life of prostitution for his own gain.”
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Crystal Graham
