A former Cumberland County corrections officer has been sentenced to six years in prison, all but 10½ months suspended, for dealing drugs.
Davis Glazener’s conviction has prompted the county sheriff’s department to revise its hiring protocols.
Glazener was sentenced Friday morning after changing his not guilty pleas. Prosecutors dropped some charges, but Glazener also was sentenced Friday to six months on a drug possession charge, running concurrently with the sentence for illegal drug trafficking.
Davis Glazener Courtesy Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office
Glazener was arrested in October 2018. In January, a gun charge was added to the drug trafficking charges he faced. In pleading guilty Friday, he agreed to surrender a handgun and as a convicted felon he will be barred from possessing a firearm.
Glazener had no previous record, but a portion of his job application, obtained through a public records request, showed that he disclosed extensive prior drug use and was in recovery at the time he sought the corrections job.
After his arrest, Glazener went home to California, his attorney, Leonard Sharon said. Since returning to Portland, he has been living in a sober house, Sharon said.
Glazener decided to plead guilty after failed attempts to suppress evidence – drugs seized from Glazener’s home – and testimony from a confidential informant, Sharon said.
Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce said his office has revised its hiring policies in the wake of Glazener’s arrest.
Joyce said he usually leaves hiring decisions up to his top deputies.
“Now they need to let me know” if there’s an issue, like Glazener’s prior drug use, Joyce said. “If they feel, ‘I want to give this guy a second chance,’ run it by me first.”
The sheriff office’s general policy is that past drug use won’t be a disqualifying factor if it occurred more than six months prior to hiring, Joyce said.
There’s no evidence that Glazener was dealing drugs at the jail, Joyce said, although he may have sold drugs to former inmates. And he also said his department, not an outside police force, investigated Glazener and arrested him, in South Portland.
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