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Nurse, Convicted Killer Sentenced For Plot To Smuggle Heroin Into Newark Prison

NEWARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- A nurse and an inmate already doing hard time for murder were sentenced Friday for conspiring to bring 50 decks of heroin into Northern State Prison in Newark.

Nurse Christopher Ramdayal, 40, of Jersey City; and convicted murderer Frank Booker, 60, both pleaded guilty in August to a charge of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.

Booker is already doing 99 years – with a 30-year period of parole ineligibility – for murder in Middlesex County. He was sentence on April 6, 1987 and would have been eligible for parole in 2017, but he has now been sentenced to three more years on the drug conspiracy charge.

Ramdayal, who has no prior convictions, will not do prison time. He was given probation, but was fired from his job and permanently barred from public employment, according to the Essex County Prosecutor's office. He has also been suspended from nursing for two years by the New Jersey Board of Nursing.

On May 19, Ramdayal was caught on surveillance video in the parking lot of a store on Springfield Avenue in Newark, where he met up with a woman he thought was a drug dealer. She was really an undercover investigator with the Northern State Prison Special Investigations Division, prosecutors said.

Ramdayal had been working for Rutgers University, which was under contract to provide nursing services at the prison, when he agreed to smuggle in 50 decks of heroin for $500, prosecutors said.

"Bringing contraband into a correctional facility is a serious offense that puts many people at risk," Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Peter C. Polidoro said in a news release. "Efforts to keep contraband out of Northern State Prison and the Essex County Correctional Facility will continue.''

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