Information circulating in the media about the December 22 arrest of an agency employee at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester incorrectly describe several key details of the incident.
Food service supervisor Adam Siemer was going through the employee security check point for H Unit when an Oklahoma Department of Corrections correctional officer told him to remove his prosthetic leg for searching.
Siemer then became nervous and said he would have to go to his car to get a tool to remove his prosthetic leg. Security staff then escorted him to his vehicle outside the facility’s perimeter, where he removed the prosthetic.
That’s when staff found two bags of methamphetamine in the bottom of the prosthesis. They then called McAlester police, who arrested Siemer. ODOC has suspended him per policy pending the outcome of the criminal case.
H Unit, which is home to multiple parts of OSP, is the facility’s staff entrance where everyone is searched before entry. Every ODOC employee of a medium and maximum-security correctional facility is searched head to toe daily as they enter for their shift.
While H Unit is home to the state’s male death row, the contraband find did not take place during a “shakedown” of death row, nor did the arrest take place on death row. Siemer worked in another part of the facility and was stopped at the facility's staff entry.
Smuggling contraband (any banned item from illegal drugs to tobacco or cellphones) into a state prison is a serious crime. It puts the public, state employees, and inmates at risk.
Inmates use contraband sales on the yard to fund criminal activity outside prison walls.
Also, contraband can cause indebtedness between inmates, which leads to prison violence that endangers staff and the inmates themselves. In fact, contraband causes most prison violence across the country.
ODOC will continue to aggressively investigate and press charges against any employee or member of the public who brings illegal items into its prisons. The crime is a felony that can lead to incarceration in a state prison.