Allegheny County Jail corrections officer arrested in connection with inmate contraband

It started at summer’s peak with a fight in an Allegheny County Jail day-room and unraveled Friday into charges alleging a corrections officer helped plant drugs on an inmate.

That officer, Scott Stawiarski, 31, of North Fayette, was charged Friday — and indefinitely suspended from his job without pay — with making false reports to law enforcement, tampering with evidence, and official oppression, authorities said. He was charged by summonses, police said.

The three misdemeanor charges only tell part of the story.

Stawiarski, a corrections officer since 2017, was working the “escort” position around 8 a.m. on the Downtown jail’s fourth floor on July 17, the morning of the fight, according to a criminal complaint in the case.

At 8:11 a.m., shortly after inmates were let out of their cells, one man attacked another in a nearby day-room, the complaint said. Stawiarski responded, slapping hand-restraints on the assailant, then helped bring both men to Healthcare Services, which evaluated their injuries.

The inmate who was attacked, named only “victim inmate” in court papers, was taken to 6F, a segregated housing unit, the complaint said. He later was moved to 8E, a “restricted housing unit” due to a misconduct report by Stawiarski.

At 8:42 a.m., Stawiarski entered the victim inmate’s cell — #118 on unit 4F — seeking out contraband, the complaint said. Numerous fourth-floor inmates walked past the cell door, some even stopping by the door to talk to each other.

Stawiarski walked out of the victim inmate’s cell at 9:09 a.m. with “multiple items” — including the drug Suboxone, which treats opioid use disorder by attacking withdrawal symptoms and cutting down on cravings.

“While conducting the cell search,” Stawiarski wrote in his report, “this officer found a ripped cardboard box with white powder residue in it, a folded-up piece of paper with pink powder, a black tar-like residue on a piece of tape and a small piece of metal from an envelope.”

He then turned over his report, related documents, and the seized contraband to county police’s Internal Affairs/Jail Investigations Unit, the complaint said.

The county police department launched an investigation.

On Aug. 14 at 1:56 p.m., county police Sgt. Matthew Mineard questioned Stawiarski about the victim inmate and his Suboxone.

“He is a snake,” Stawiarski quipped, according to the complaint.

Stawiarski said the victim inmate complained about jail procedures and tried to get him fired, the complaint said.

The inmate lied to Internal Affairs in the past, Stawiarski told Mineard. He also started a rumor about a jail mental-health staffer “having inappropriate relationships” with inmates and corrections staff.

The interview ended at 2:16 p.m.

Mineard returned to the Jail Investigations Unit office.

Moments later, Stawiarski changed his tune.

He knocked on the investigation unit’s door, the complaint said. He entered the office and confessed that he saw a second inmate throw the Suboxone on cell 118’s floor while Stawiarski was conducting the search.

According to the arrest papers filed against him, Stawiarski then admitted that “turning the item over, as if it were possessed by the victim inmate, was wrong,” the complaint said. He penned a “voluntary statement” on the sequence of events.

Based on Stawiarski’s fictitious reports, the victim inmate was charged with one count of possessing contraband, which Detective Dontae Payne later withdrew, the complaint said. That inmate also received a misconduct report for the Suboxone — which led him to be housed in a segregation unit, where he received multiple jail sanctions.

Stawiarski has a preliminary hearing Sept. 27, court records show. The name of his attorney was not listed in court records Friday.

Stawiarski is one of the 359 officers at the county jail represented by the Allegheny County Prison Employees Independent Union, president Brian Englert confirmed Friday.

“The union really doesn’t have a comment,” Englert said. “But we stand by our officers. If they terminate him, we represent him.”

Jail spokesperson Jesse Geleynse declined to talk about the charges Friday, forwarding inquiries to county spokesperson Amie Downs. Downs also declined comment.

“In criminal matters,” she said, “we always defer to the police reports/statements.”