Former northern Virginia jail deputy gets 6 1/2 years for drug operation, sex trafficking

Associated Press

A former sheriff’s deputy at a northern Virginia jail has been sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison for smuggling drugs into the jail and for running a sex trafficking operation out of a Baltimore apartment. Court records show 37-year-old Robert Sanford Jr. worked night shifts at the Fairfax County jail between 2021 and 2023. He admitted that he smuggled drugs and a phone to a jail inmate, including fentanyl and cocaine, for distribution among other inmates. Outside his role as a guard, prosecutors say Sanford was a pimp who trafficked women and plied them with drugs. Sanford apologized to the judge for his misconduct.