Ex-prison guards charged with taking bribes

More than a dozen former guards are among those charged with taking bribes and participating in a scheme that supplied inmates at a South Texas prison with illegal cellphones, tobacco and drugs, according to a newly unsealed federal indictment.

The scheme was traced back to at least January 2005, and involved bribes of as much as $1,400 at a prison in Beeville, about 85 miles south of San Antonio, investigators allege. The indictment lists 30 individual racketeering acts and said inmates would solicit prison workers and used cellphones to coordinate the scheme.

The indictment names 32 people, including at least two inmates, other Texas Department of Criminal Justice employees and people referred to as "facilitators." They face charges ranging from conspiracy to racketeering.

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