Two Blair County Prison inmates are facing additional charges after testing positive for a controlled substance following a day of work release.

Shawn Walter Friley, 34, and Gregory Alan Webster, 37, were both arraigned Friday before Magisterial District Judge Paula M. Aigner on single felony counts of criminal conspiracy to possess a controlled substance contraband by an inmate and possess a controlled substance contraband by an inmate. In lieu of $50,000 bail each, Friley and Webster were remanded to the Blair County Prison.

On Oct. 17, 2024, Blair County Prison Deputy Warden Shaun Edmundson called Hollidaysburg police and told a detective that two inmates from the work release block had shown a presumptive positive for suboxone on a random drug test, according to the affidavit of probable cause.

Edmundson told the detective that on Oct. 10, a work release crew was cutting grass at an Altoona cemetery when the officer who oversees them found a bag containing suboxone strips lying on a set of steps within the cemetery. It was prison officials’ belief that the suboxone strips were placed in the cemetery by someone in contact with a work release inmate who was cutting grass at the cemetery, police records state.

The six inmates who were on the work release program were asked to perform a random drug test on Oct. 17 and Friley and Webster had presumptive positives for suboxone. A second drug test was performed and on Nov. 26, the detective received final results for Friley and Webster, which showed positive findings for the metabolite of suboxone, norbuprenorphine, about four times the reporting limit. Neither Filey nor Webster are a part of the prison’s Medically Assisted Treatment Program and shouldn’t have any suboxone in their systems, court documents state.

Friley and Webster are scheduled for individual preliminary hearings in front of Aigner on Jan. 14.