A Minnesota state representative is calling for House hearings after dangerous drugs arriving in the mail have been sending correctional workers to the hospital and possibly killing at least two inmates in recent months.
State Rep. Paul Novotny from Elk River doesn’t believe the issue can wait until January’s session. He is a former police officer and sergeant for the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office.
Nine workers at the Stillwater prison were hospitalized last week after they were exposed to synthetic substances. Another inmate also died at Moose Lake last week. Again, sources told Alpha News drug-soaked paper sent in the mail is suspected in that death.
“The drugs are being infused in the paper, the paper is soaked in the drugs. As we’ve seen with some of these synthetic opioids like fentanyl, they are so strong … it’s enough to cause some pretty serious effects,” Novotny said.
“They’re weaponizing these drugs. This is a very serious issue. Obviously, the loss of life for the inmate that overdosed is serious. But now that this could be used against the correctional officers or the employees at these facilities, this is very serious and this will only continue if nothing’s done,” he added.
Novotny said legislators have been asking the Department of Corrections what it is doing and noted that money in the state budget should have addressed this by now.
“The governor’s budget had requested almost a half-million dollars specifically for mail security improvements. The omnibus bill that went out, I believe, was 1.9 million per year. So almost $4 million for security improvements overall. We don’t know where that’s going. We’ve known that the mail has been an issue for a while and we’re supposed to be rolling out these scanning plans to scan the mail so that they don’t have direct access to the mail,” Novotny said.
As Novotny explained, Stillwater is photocopying some of its mail as part of a pilot program, but they haven’t been photocopying legal mail. Now, legal mail has increased dramatically as a result, Novotny said.
“Why are we still on a pilot program at one facility? We’ve got multiple facilities where this has been an issue. This is not something that we can wait and try and analyze and, you know, death by a thousand meetings. There has got to be some sense of urgency. That’s what we’re hoping to get and force that issue,” he said.
“We could have a lot of deaths and a lot of injuries in the meantime if we keep waiting,” he added.
Novotny has been publicly critical of Gov. Tim Walz in the past and he also shared a message to voters ahead of November.
“This mail is just a microcosm of the bigger picture … the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We’re going down the wrong path,” Novotny warned.
Liz Collin
Liz Collin has been a truth-teller for 20 years as a multi-Emmy-Award-winning reporter and anchor. Liz is a Worthington, Minnesota native who lives in the suburbs with her husband, son and loyal lab.
