Former Mat-Su correctional officer sentenced for smuggling drugs into prison

A former correctional officer at a Mat-Su prison was sentenced to two years in prison Wednesday for smuggling drugs and cellphones into the facility.

Angela Lincoln was arrested in November 2021 and pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy and bribery just days later.

In sentencing memorandums filed before Wednesday’s hearing, prosecutors say Lincoln “allowed greed to overcome her ethical responsibilities.” Over about a year, she pocketed roughly $30,000 in bribes for smuggling narcotics and phones into Goose Creek Correctional Center.

Lincoln was a “long-serving and well-regarded prison guard,” prosecutors wrote. She worked at the medium-security men’s prison located near Wasilla from 2014 until mid-2020. Lincoln was named employee of the year at the prison in 2017, according to a corrections spokeswoman.

But in 2019 and 2020, she smuggled Suboxone strips and cellphones to an inmate serving a 100-year sentence in exchange for cash, the charges filed against her said. The man’s friends and family delivered the contraband and cash to Lincoln at her home, and ultimately the man would distribute the drugs within the prison, according to the charges.

Lincoln voluntarily gave up her correctional officer certification at the end of 2020.

Lincoln’s attorney requested that she be sentenced to five years on probation and wrote in a sentencing memorandum that her “radically cheerful and trusting nature made her ill-suited to work with the kinds of people she interacted with at GCCC.” Lincoln was an easy mark, her attorney wrote, and “her tendency to only see the good in people was her undoing.”

On Wednesday, she was sentenced to two years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.