Jail guards 'smuggled out frozen sperm'

Prison guards smuggled out frozen sperm to convicts' wives and girlfriends in exchange for thousands of dollars in bribes, the FBI alleges.

Prison guards smuggled out frozen sperm to convicts' wives and girlfriends in exchange for thousands of dollars in bribes, the FBI alleges.

The officers provided cryogenic sperm kits for inmates, including a Mafia hitman, at the Allenwood minimum-security jail, about 50 miles north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, officials said.

"I've been at this job for eight years now, and this is the first case of sperm-kit smuggling I've seen," said David Barasch, an attorney who said the charges stemmed from a two-year FBI investigation.

Federal officials could not confirm a report that the jail authorities first became suspicious when an inmate who had spent a decade in jail referred to a visiting toddler as his son. American law prohibits conjugal visits to federal prisons.

The two suspects did not operate as a team but worked their own individual smuggling operations, officials said.

Troy Kemmerer, 33, of Muncy, Pennsylvania, was indicted on conspiracy and bribery charges for allegedly accepting a $5,000 payment for delivering a sperm kit to Antonio "Nino" Parlavecchio and later forwarding it to a New York fertility clinic. He could spend 20 years in prison if convicted.

Todd Swineford, 32, of Milton, Pennsylvania, was named in a one-count indictment for a single alleged kit-smuggling incident. He faces 15 years in jail.

A third Allenwood officer, 34-year-old Mark James, of Coal Township, Pennsylvania, was indicted for conspiracy, accepting bribes and destroying government documents, the inmates' files. (Reuters)