WASHINGTON, DC (WRIC) — A D.C. jail guard who oversaw an entire housing unit has pleaded guilty alongside an accomplice who schemed with her to smuggle drugs into the district’s central detention facility.

Beverly Williams, 52, was a D.C. corrections officer and corporal who “was the Officer-in-Charge for shift’s in DOC’s Central Detention Facility,” according to a statement of facts submitted as part of her plea agreement.

Williams conspired with Keywaune McLeod, 28, a D.C. resident, and Andre Gregory, 31, his cousin and an inmate at the facility, to move drugs and other contraband into the jail.

In one call Gregory made from jail in June 2022, he asked Mcleod, “Is it possible somebody could meet you and drop something off at MGM?”

In other conversations later that year, Gregory said to Mcleod, “I told slim mother [referencing Williams] 7:00 o’clock so she going to meet you with that at 6:00.”

Gregory also repeatedly instructed Mcleod, using coded language, on how much to pay Williams for her assistance.

In one typical handoff in August 2022, Williams met Mcleod in front of a local high school, took a package of drugs from him and then drove to her shift at the jail. Although Williams was searched when she entered the jail, she was able to conceal the drugs on her person.

Then, she entered a housing unit under the guise of a security check, slipped into a shower area — where there were no cameras — then emerged a few moments later. Shortly afterwards, Gregory enters and leaves the same area.

Williams was paid $500 for that exchange, which Mcleod and Gregory also discussed on a jail phone line after the handoff was completed.

The scheme eventually unraveled when Williams was caught in September 2022 with two packages containing weed and pills concealed in her uniform.

Gregory is still awaiting a plea hearing in D.C. court.

Unmentioned in the plea agreement, but alleged in an affidavit filed with the initial charges, was an apparent intimate relationship between Gregory and Williams. At one point, in an apparent reference to Williams, Gregory told Mcleod he would “put a ring on that junk” when released.

The affidavit also spoke to a potential monetary motive for Williams, who investigators confirmed was a frequent customer at the MGM casino in Maryland — a frequent site of handovers between her and Mcleod.

Chicago’s police oversight agency, COPA, is investigating allegations that at least two Chicago police officers improperly inventoried firearms that they recovered while working on the city’s Far South Side. The full scope of the investigation, which a source said began when a gun went “missing,” and exactly how many cops are involved is unclear.

“COPA is actively investigating the actions of the involved officers and made a recommendation to the Chicago Police Department to relieve the officers of their police powers,” COPA First Deputy Ephraim Eaddy said in a written statement Wednesday afternoon.

Two officers that a source identified by name as being under investigation have been reassigned to desk duty in the Alternate Response Section, according to the Chicago Police Department. CPD declined to answer any other questions about the allegations.

“There is an open investigation into this matter,” the department said in an emailed statement. “We will not comment further to protect the integrity of this investigation.”

Neither CPD nor COPA would confirm how many officers are under investigation. The two cops confirmed to be on desk duty have been on the force for four to five years, according to city records. Both officers were assigned to the Calumet (5th) District before being reassigned due to the investigation. They have not been charged with any wrongdoing.

According to two law enforcement sources, part of COPA’s investigation involves allegations that the officers either did not inventory firearms they seized while on duty or filed false paperwork regarding gun seizures. CPD’s general orders detail specific steps officers must take whenever they remove a gun from the streets.

Failure to inventory a weapon creates the potential for devastating conduct, such as illegally selling the weapons or planting firearms at crime scenes and on people. Officials would not confirm if the ongoing investigation involves any allegation of officers using misappropriated firearms as so-called “drop guns.”

In recent years, the police department has consistently advertised the number of guns its officers seized while on patrol. Twitter feeds operated by CPD, including its 22 patrol districts and recently-departed Supt. David Brown have regularly featured pictures of freshly-seized firearms with words of congratulations for the officers responsible for confiscating the weapon.

“Chicago Police officers took 12,716 guns off Chicago’s streets—an average of more than 34 guns recovered every single day this year,” the department said in a New Year’s Day recap of its activities in 2022. “This also marked the second consecutive year of more than 12,000 firearms taken off the streets by Chicago’s officers.”

But critics argue that the department is misplacing priorities by running up gun seizure numbers when it should focus on arresting violent offenders who use firearms. By motivating cops to get every possible gun off the street, the department could be driving officers to make questionable decisions about searches, pursuits, and other behaviors.

During an online “training session” for journalists in June 2021, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office’s chief data officer, Matthew Saniie, argued that CPD was spending too much time collecting guns and not enough time arresting violent people.

Saniie said that while CPD seized more than 11,000 guns in 2020, “less than 20% of those guns ever get linked back to any type of shooting.”

Noting that 1,400 people accused of carrying a gun illegally in 2020 were arrested during street stops and had no previous convictions, Saniee suggested CPD should focus on “arresting the right people.”

Four sea otters that washed ashore on the California coast died from an unusual parasite that scientists warn could possibly infect other marine wildlife and humans.

There are currently no known infections of the Toxoplasma gondii strain among humans, according to a study published Wednesday from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and UC Davis.

But the microscopic parasite could infect any warm-blooded animal or find its way into the food chain, the study said. That includes marine animals like mussels, clams, oysters, and crabs that are consumed raw or undercooked, corresponding study author Melissa Miller with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a written statement.

“I have studied Toxoplasma infections in sea otters for 25 years, and I have never seen such severe lesions or high parasite numbers,” Miller said of the dead otters. “We are reporting our preliminary findings to alert others about this concerning condition.”

Otters are especially susceptible to Toxoplasma infection, researchers said, because they find food along the shoreline and could be exposed to the parasite’s eggs in rainwater runoff as they feed on marine invertebrates. Typically, the parasite is found in wild and domestic cats and shed through their feces, according to the study authors.

The parasite strain, dubbed the COUG genotype, was first isolated in the wild from a mountain lion in British Columbia during an investigation of the parasite’s outbreak in humans in 1995 and a feral pig in eastern California, according to the study authors. The Canadian government reported there were 110 acute human infections identified and none were fatal.

The COUG genotype was present in all four otters, the study said.

The first otter washed ashore in San Simeon in San Luis Obispo County in February 2020, according to the study. The adult female otter was still alive, but thin, unresponsive and groaning. The other three otters washed ashore already dead from February through March 2022 in Cayucos in San Luis Obispo County and in Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz County, researchers said.

Numerous lesions were found throughout the nervous systems in the otters, but were lacking in the brain, which is typically one of the organs affected by the parasite, according to the study authors.

All four otters showed obvious signs of inflammation in their body fat, Miller said, and under the microscope, their tissue was flush with parasites, including faster-growing and actively multiplying invasive cells.

Otherwise the otters were healthy adults that had no other severe disease, according to the study.

Typically, it takes time for the parasite to invade and multiply in the brain, but the sparse number of parasites in the brains of the four otters suggests the infection spread quickly, Miller said.

“We don’t know yet the interval between infection and death for this strain,” Miller said.

Study author Karen Shapiro with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine said it was surprising to find the parasite in otters because it’s never been recorded in their species.

“So, finding this type [of Toxoplasma] in the marine environment was very unexpected, and particularly concerning given the rapid and virulent disease it caused in the four sea otters,” Shapiro said in an email.

In humans, the parasite can cause miscarriages and neurological disease, the study said.

The type of inflammation of the fat associated with toxoplasmosis has been reported in Hawaiian monk seals, according to Devinn Sinnott, a graduate student at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. That strain has not been determined yet and is an active area of research in the UC Davis lab, Sinnott said in an email.

“We still have much to learn,” Sinnott said in a written statement that accompanied the study. “Larger-scale studies are needed to understand the potential impact of infection by the COUG Toxoplasma strain on sea otter populations, how geographically dispersed it is, how it is being introduced into the ocean and what other animals might be affected.”