By Julia Bertino
May 14, 2021
(Lincoln, NE) COVID-19 restrictions for visitors and inmates will be relaxed at Nebraska prison facilities starting next week.
According to a media release from the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, they are about to implement, some of the most significant operational changes since the start of COVID-19. Standards for visitors and volunteers will relax, as will parameters around social distancing and mandates that limited activities inside the state’s 10 facilities.
NDCS Director Scott R. Frakes says, “This is a huge step forward and one that is sure to be welcomed by staff members as well as inmates. We have been operating under limits for almost a year and a half. But now, we are in a good place to make this turn and re-initiate some of things we were doing pre-COVID.”
A food service specialist at the Lincoln Correctional Center has been arrested, according to a news release from the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services. In the news release which was sent Wednesday night, the NDCS said 38-year-old Nicole Schwab was arrested earlier in the day for "unauthorized communication with a prisoner." Sign up for our Newsletters The NDCS said Schwab resigned from her position. According to the news release,.
Nebraska prison food worker accused of inmate contact
May 13, 2021
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LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) A state prisons food service worker has been arrested on suspicion of unauthorized communication with a prisoner, Nebraska officials said.
Nicole Schwab, a food service specialist at the Lincoln Correctional Center, was arrested Wednesday, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services said in a news release. The release said the 38-year-old Schwab resigned upon her arrest for the felony charge.
Schwab had been employed at the prison since June 1, the release said.
The arrest is the latest in a string of similar arrests since last year that led Nebraska Department of Correctional Services Director Scott Frakes to express frustration over the development in February.
May 13, 2021
The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services reports an inmate is missing from the Community Corrections Center - Lincoln.
They say Armando Lerma did not return to the facility following a work assignment Wednesday evening.
He was sentenced to three years for drug related charges out of Gage County as well as operating a motor vehicle to avoid arrest.
He has a November release date.
Lerma is a 40-year old white man, 5’11”, 225 lbs., with brown hair and green eyes.
Anyone with knowledge of his whereabouts is asked to contact local law enforcement or the Nebraska State Patrol.
In a separate case, Corrections also reports State troopers arrested a food service specialist at the Lincoln Correctional - Center accusing her of unauthorized communication with a prisoner.