A former King County jail guard from Milton pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court to taking bribes to smuggle methamphetamine and fentanyl into a correctional facility for the benefit of two inmates.
Mosses Ramos, 40, brought about a pound of meth and 100 fentanyl pills into the jail between March and May last year in exchange for $5,000, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington said Thursday. Ramos pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.
Ramos had been a jail guard in King County for 17 years before he was fired in 2023.
Bribery is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and the drug-distribution charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. A sentencing date was set for Sept. 13.
Prosecutors said Ramos brought drugs into the King County Correctional Facility for the benefit of two inmates, Michael Anthony Barquet, 37, and Francisco Montero, 25. The men remain incarcerated. Barquet is facing trial in King County for a double homicide, according to prosecutors, and Montero has a trial for drug and bribery charges scheduled to begin in October.
Ramos' crimes were part of a web of bribes and drug trafficking that extended outside of the jail and included three women alleged to be associates of Barquet and Montero, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Neca Silvestre, 38, of Kent; Katrina Cazares, 38, of Burien; and Kayara Zepeda Montero, 27, of Seattle remain charged in the case.
The drugs brought into the jail were given to Ramos in a beverage tumbler through a chain of hand-offs, according to the defendant's plea agreement with prosecutors. Court records don't describe how the former guard smuggled them into the facility.
Cazares allegedly gave the tumbler filled with meth and fentanyl to Kyara Montero on March 24, 2023, along with $5,000 in cash intended as a bribe payment. The same day, Kyara Montero gave Ramos the goods. Records state Silvestre also made a $220 bribe payment to Ramos that day in the form of a Cash App transfer.
Ramos brought the drugs into the jail the next day, according to court records. Investigators later seized about 59 grams of meth from Barquet and the jail cell he shared with Montero.
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