Detectives charge 2 more in Westmoreland prison drug smuggling scheme

A former inmate at the Westmoreland County Prison is back behind bars after being accused by county detectives of participating in a Suboxone smuggling scheme with another inmate.

Brad M. Rentz, 43, of Indiana, was arrested Monday by county Detective James Williams and accused of conspiring with another inmate, Jamie Rayques Espy, 33, of Southwest Greensburg, to smuggle contraband into the Hempfield lockup earlier this year.

Williams also acquired a warrant for the arrest of Rentz’s girlfriend, Danielle N. Kemp, 32, also of Indiana, for participating in the alleged smuggling scheme.

Rentz is charged with illegal possession of contraband by an inmate and illegal possession of a controlled substance.

According to court documents, Espy and Rentz worked together earlier this year to smuggle Suboxone into the county prison when Espy would go to medical appointments at Excela Health hospital in Latrobe.

Williams alleges in court documents that Rentz would telephone Kemp prior to Espy’s medical appointments and have her hide the contraband in the men’s room at the hospital where Espy would retrieve the packages.

Williams reported in court documents that Espy and Rentz would sell the contraband to other inmates.

Williams said prison security staff built the case by listening to inmate phone calls. He said the calls showed a Rentz would call his girlfriend “and directed her to take the contraband to the hospital and hide it in a certain bathroom where Espy was being treated.”

According to online dockets, Rentz was in the prison with Espy serving a 90-day to one-year sentence after pleading guilty last October to a theft in Greensburg. He was paroled in March.

Rentz was ordered held in the county prison Monday after failing to post $50,000 bond pending a preliminary hearing May 3. He did not have an attorney listed in court documents.

Espy, of Southwest Greensburg, was charged in the smuggling scheme last week. He has been in the county jail since his Nov. 10 arrest on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm, carrying an unlicensed gun and and multiple drug-related counts.

Espy’s trial on those charges is scheduled for July.

Kemp, who has also lived in Farmington, Fayette County, is awaiting trial in Westmoreland County for hindering apprehension of a fugitive in a vehicle break-in case filed by Jeannette police last year.