Illegal alien Inmate, girlfriend, guard charged with smuggling pot into jail

A Cook County Jail inmate who is awaiting trial in the brutal beating of two women with a baseball bat during a robbery in Bucktown last year has been charged with smuggling marijuana into the jail, prosecutors said today.
Prosecutors charged that Heriberto Viramontes arranged to have his girlfriend, Kira Lundgren, bring in a package of marijuana during visiting hours on June 11. Lundgren was arrested on her way out of the jail and the package was discovered during a search of Viramontes’ cell.
Also arrested on June 11 and charged was a jail guard accused of letting Lundgren smuggle contraband into the jail, Jerome Prusa, 50, of Westchester, according to the Cook County sheriff's police.
On June 11, Lundgren hid a small amount of marijuana in her shoe and went to Division 10 of the jail to visit Viramontes, according to a sheriff's statement. Once in the visiting room, she took the marijuana out and taped it to the underside of a table.
An undercover officer investigating smuggling into the jail division then came to the same visiting room and was approached by Prusa, who pointed the officer to the marijuana Lundgren had allegedly left and asked if it could be given to Viramontes at the same time.
Prusa then let the undercover officer into a secure area of the jail with the contraband and then back into the visiting room, according to the sheriff's statement.
Both Lundgren and Prusa were immediately arrested. The drugs were later found in Viramontes' cell when guards tossed it, the statement said. Police found two knives in Prusa's uniform when he was taken into custody.
He has been de-deputized and suspended pending an employment hearing and has resigned his position as an auxiliary officer for the LaGrange Park Police Department, the statement said.
Viramontes, 32, and Lundgren, 22, each were charged with one count of bringing contraband into a penal institution. She is free on a $10,000 bond, records show.
Prusa, who is free on a $40,000 bond, has been charged with four counts of official misconduct, two counts of possession of a weapon in a penal institution, one count of bringing a weapon into a penal institution and one count of bringing contraband into a penal institution.
According to records Prusa has been with the sheriff's department since July 2005.
Viramontes and his former girlfriend, Marcy Cruz, 26, are awaiting trial on charges of attempted murder, armed robbery, aggravated battery and aggravated unlawful restraint. Authorities allege that Viramontes struck Stacy Jurich, 24, and Natasha McShane, 23, with a baseball bat as they walked home in the Bucktown neighborhood on April 23, 2010. Cruz allegedly waited in a vehicle and drove Viramontes from the scene, authorities said.
McShane, a native of Northern Ireland, bore the brunt of the beating, sustaining head injuries that have left her unable to walk, speak or dress herself, the Tribune reported earlier this year.