A woman and a man awaiting trial in connection with the murder of a Lyft driver are facing felony charges for allegedly trying to bribe a correctional officer to sneak illegal drugs into the Cook County Jail.
Denarvis Mendenhall, 26, has been in custody since prosecutors charged him in November 2017 with murdering 53-year-old rideshare driver Adekunte Adaranijo in suburban Maywood.
Now, prosecutors say Mendenhall repeatedly asked a jail correctional officer to smuggle drugs and other items into the facility in exchange for cash. Mendenhall allegedly gave the officer a phone number to contact Larteona McGee, 25, who was supposed to provide the contraband, officials said.
The correctional officer reported Mendenhall’s proposal to the sheriff’s office, which launched an investigation in January, according to a spokesperson for the agency.
An undercover investigator contacted McGee via text and arranged a meeting so she could provide the illegal items, the spokesperson said. She was arrested after she showed up at the meeting with a bag containing pages of paper saturated with synthetic cannabinoids, marijuana, lighters, rolling papers, and other items, according to the sheriff’s office.
A grand jury recently returned true bills indicting McGee and Mendenhall on bribery charges. McGee is also charged with conspiracy to bring contraband into a penal institution and manufacture-delivery of cannabis.
Officials stepped up efforts to intercept banned items after an unusually high number of jail inmates began dying in the facility during the first half of 2023. Dozens of people have been charged with possessing or attempting to smuggle materials since then, both inmates and people on the outside.
Those efforts quickly paid dividends. While the jail had 16 in-custody deaths with nine linked to drug overdoses in 2023, there were only six deaths last year, and just one was drug-related, according to medical examiner records.
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