Ex-Corrections Officer From Teaneck Loses Bid To Overturn Conviction

A former corrections officer from Teaneck who smuggled heroin into the Passaic County Jail in a scheme to impress his employer by finding the drugs lost a bid to overturn his conviction Wednesday.

Marvin S. Thompson, 47, was arrested in 2007 and is serving a five-year sentence in state prison on charges of drug possession, official misconduct and filing a false report. 

Investigators uncovered Thompson's plot after a jailhouse informant wore a wire and recorded the former officer discussing his plan to bring drugs and makeshift weapons into the jail and blame the contraband on inmate members of the Bloods street gang, according to court documents. Authorities discovered heroin and "shanks" made from heavy gauge wire in the "ice room" at the jail. 

Thompson's four-year career as a per-diem corrections officer included an indictment on forgery charges and a complaint he filed with the Equal Opportunity Commission after he was not initially rehired when the forgery case was dismissed. The Passaic County Sheriff's Department rehired Thompson in 2006.

A state appellate panel rejected Thompson's claims that prosecutors failed to disclose exculpatory evidence and that the court should not have allowed recorded conversations between investigators and an informant to be presented at trail.

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