Former Keys jail guard gets 16 years
Hernandez sentenced for drug conspiracy
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A former Keys jail guard will spend the next 16.25 years being guarded himself.
On Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Miami, Shawn Hernandez, 33, was sentenced to that long in federal prison, plus five years of probation when he gets out. Hernandez pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine, and possession of a firearm in commission of a felony.
So did his best friend since childhood, former Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer John Jacox, who previously was sentenced to seven and a half years.
Both were arrested on April 17. Jacox later said Hernandez recruited him to join a drug smuggling operation to drive cocaine and purported heroin from Florida City to Key West.
The operation turned out to be a sting mounted by federal agents. Hernandez reportedly negotiated the deal with an operative he believed to be a drug dealer.
He was accused of making one run to Key West before joining Jacox for trips on March 12 and April 11. On both occasions, four kilograms of cocaine and a kilogram of heroin, described as "sham" drugs in the arrest affidavit, were placed in a toolbox that Hernandez placed in his car. The two shared $5,000 per trip.
Jacox had been an FWC enforcement officer in the Keys since 2006 but was fired following his arrest.
Hernandez began working for the Monroe County Sheriff's Office in June 2000 as a maintenance assistant. He attended a corrections academy in early 2001 and became a jail guard, working in that position until May 2007.
At that time, he resigned, but went back to work for the agency in July 2008. He'd worked at the Stock Island jail since then.
Like Jacox, Hernandez was fired after his arrest.
