A Brooklyn man, who is currently an inmate at a federal jail in Sunset Park, on Friday was sentenced to additional months in prison for for orchestrating a scheme to smuggle contraband into the Metropolitan Detention Center.
Daryl Campbell, 40, was sentenced to 37 months in prison for organizing a group of Brooklyn residents to help smuggle contraband into the federal jail complex. Campbell pleaded guilty in September 2025 to conspiracy to possess contraband. The sentence imposed on Friday will run consecutive to the 35-year term he is serving for a manslaughter conviction in New York County, according to Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Between April and June 2024, Campbell used a contraband cell phone to send detailed instructions to his co-conspirators on how to bring additional contraband into the MDC, according to prosecutors.
As the organizer of the scheme, Campbell advised his co-conspirators on how to package contraband, to deliver it to the MDC, and to get it into the jail, providing advice and guidance along the way as to how to accomplish each step in the process. For example, in several voice recordings, Campbell explained his method of throwing a “line” out of a window of the MDC on to which a co-conspirator on the outside was to “hook” contraband, which could then be pulled back inside, prosecutors said.
On June 30, 2024, Carl Kelly of Long Island, Ian Diez, Jonathan Guerrero, Abel Mora, and Mayovanex Rodriguez, the latter four all from Brooklyn, attempted to execute Campbell’s scheme. Kelly approached the front of the MDC and threw a rope made of duct tape up to the fourth floor, where Diez, Guerrero, Mora, and Rodriguez tried to pull it through the window of the recreation room in their housing area. Inside of the rope, correctional officers found papers laced with MDMB-4en-Pinaca (a synthetic cannabinoid), suboxone, marijuana, a scalpel, a phone charger, lighters and cigarettes, prosecutors said.
“The message to inmates from today’s sentencing is clear: go fishing for contraband, and all you will catch is another prison term,” Nocella said in a statement. “The smuggling of drugs and weapons by inmates compromises the safety and security of the MDC. Our office will continue to ensure that any inmates who smuggle contraband will be prosecuted and face the consequences.”
