ECDC employee nabbed for smuggling

ELLIS COUNTY – Quadtavius Ramone Donalson, Waxahachie, an  Ellis County Detention Center employee, was arrested last week for smuggling a prohibited substance into the Wayne McCollum Detention Center in Waxahachie.

The Ellis County Sheriff’s office explained in the first part of July the Sheriff’s Office received information that prohibited substances were being smuggled into the jail. 

With that information the EC Sheriff’s Office Special Investigative Unit began an investigation regarding the allegations.

Investigators found on at least one previous occasion contraband had made its way into the jail. 

On Friday, July 21, the special investigative unit conducted surveillance on Donalson during this shift at the detention center, and “observed activity consistent with contraband smuggling in the detention center.”

Donalson was questioned and confessed to the illegal activity. 

He was then stripped of his detention officer uniform by Ellis County Sheriff Brad Norman, terminated from this position and arrested.

He was charged with prohibited substance/item in Correction Facility, which is a 3rd degree Felony, and was arraigned and issued a $5,000 bond. 

Donalson began his employment with the detention center in July 2022.

Norman said he has “zero tolerance” for any employee who engages in conduct betraying the public trust.

“You are a disgrace to every man and woman who wears that uniform and works their tail of in this agency, and you are a disgrace to the citizens that you are supposed to be serving,” Norman told Donalson in the Detention Center Lobby. 

“You don’t bring contraband into this jail and sell it to inmates – not acceptable.”