BOULDER, Colo. – Police arrested a former Boulder County sheriff’s deputy who worked at the county jail Tuesday morning on charges he conspired to smuggle marijuana edibles and chewing tobacco into the jail in late September.

Boulder police say Tyler P. Mason, 33, was struggling with money when he agreed to bring the contraband into the jail for an inmate who was a childhood friend.

Another inmate told jail staffers about the plan on Sept. 23, and on Sept. 28, undercover detectives watched Mason allegedly take $160 from a woman in Longmont, which was to be used to buy the edibles and tobacco. Police say the woman was in on the plan.

Though the planned transaction never happened and there is no evidence Mason had smuggled contraband before, he was placed on administrative leave, then fired from the sheriff’s office on Oct. 12.

Mason had been working at the jail since December 2014.

He will be charged with one felony count of first-degree conspiracy to introduce contraband, a felony second-degree count of conspiracy to introduce contraband, and misdemeanor first-degree official misconduct.

Mason was booked into and released from the Boulder County jail Tuesday and is next scheduled to appear in court Dec. 1 to be formally charged.

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