Phoenix Jail Nurse Booked in Drug Case

Promoting prison contraband is a serious count inside a jail, and the sheriff's office has already said it has no evidence she carried drugs through the door. The paraphernalia count rests on what was in the car and on her statement. Both still have to be proved.

A nurse who works in the Maricopa County jail system was booked on drug charges after detectives searched her car in the parking lot of Lower Buckeye Jail, the sheriff's office said.

Lisa Marie Lara, 48, works for Correctional Health Services. Court records say detectives received a handwritten letter on Nov. 4 from an inmate in state prison. The letter was dated Aug. 26. It accused her of keeping drug paraphernalia in a car she parked at the jail while on duty, of bringing contraband inside, and of inappropriate relationships with people housed there.

That night, detectives found her white Dodge Challenger in the lot just after 8 p.m. A sheriff's dog trained to detect drugs alerted to the odor of narcotics from outside the car. Surveillance showed she had arrived about 6:54 p.m. for a graveyard shift and that no one else entered the car after she parked, the records say. After a search warrant, detectives found a glass bong, a glass pipe with burned white residue, and a second pipe. They also searched items she had carried into the building.

Lara was read her rights and agreed to answer questions. She denied smuggling anything to inmates and denied any romantic relationship with an inmate. She said she had smoked methamphetamine in the car more than once and that her DNA would be on a pipe. She said she had never smoked it in the jail parking lot. A sheriff's spokesperson said there is so far no indication she brought drugs or other contraband inside the jail.

She was booked at the county Intake, Transfer, and Release jail on charges of promoting prison contraband and possession of drug paraphernalia.

All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.