Prison guard caught after drug tip, surveillance

A disgraced prison warden who is awaiting sentencing on drug charges was caught following a tip and after being tailed by police in St. John's, court has been told.

A sentencing hearing for Edward Taylor, 32, was set over Tuesday and has been scheduled for Jan. 20. Taylor could be sent to jail after pleading guilty last week to five charges, including trafficking in such drugs as oxycodone and marijuana.

An agreed statement of facts presented to Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador shows that police were tipped off to Taylor last January, and began a surveillance program in February.

That surveillance quickly showed that Taylor had connections to criminals he had been paid to guard at Her Majesty's Penitentiary.

Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officers followed Taylor to the Campbell Avenue home of  Rene Seers, the father of a man with the same name. Rene Seers Jr. was sentenced to prison this fall for his role in a brutal home invasion in the east of St. John's.

Taylor, who spent six minutes in the house, was later searched as he started his night shift at HMP.

Although officials found just three cigarettes, four pills and a "crushed substance" in the search, Taylor was later stopped by RNC officers in the prison parking lot, where he learned his car had been confiscated through a warrant.

Taylor told police that a gym bag in the car held about $150 worth of marijuana, which he said he had bought from Seers.

He also told police that another inmate — Zach Hill, who was arrested during Operation Razorback, which busted a national ring that sold cocaine and laundered money — had asked him to smuggle drugs into HMP.

The agreed statement of facts said Taylor's car held packages of drugs, one wrapped in a newspaper and another wrapped in a magazine. One of the packages held marijuana and tobacco, the value of which soars inside prison walls. Inmates will pay $200 for a gram and a half of marijuana, or about 10 times what that quantity would fetch on the street.

Police seized a variety of drugs, including morphine, prescription painkillers, ecstasy, muscle relaxants, sleeping pills and anti-psychotics.

Taylor's lawyer is asking for a sentence of just under two years, to be served as a conditional sentence.

The Crown, though, is asking for a tougher sentence, of three years in prison.