A man serving time for murder has admitted that he teamed up with a corrections officer to smuggle methamphetamine into Stillwater prison.
Axel R. Kramer, 36, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Paul last week to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in connection with their scheme inside Minnesota’s largest high-security prison, which fell apart in April 2022.
Sentencing for Kramer has yet to be scheduled. The plea agreement pointed out that federal guidelines call for a 15-year prison term. However, federal judges have full discretion when sentencing defendants and are not bound by the guidelines calculation.
The corrections officer, Faith R. Gratz, 26, of Circle Pines, pleaded guilty to the same count in November 2022. Her plea deal says federal guidelines point to a prison term ranging from nine to 11⅓ years in prison.
Kramer was sentenced in 2010 in Cottonwood County to a term of 24 years for aiding and abetting second-degree murder stemming from the shooting of 20-year-old Alberto Samilpa Jr., of St. James, Minn., in 2007.
Department of Corrections records show that Kramer was scheduled to be released from prison in about two months and then be put on supervised release until November 2031.
According to federal court documents:
Kramer and another inmate arranged with suppliers outside the prison for Gratz to pick up packages of meth. She would then smuggle the drugs in and give them to Kramer while she was on duty guarding him as he was on office cleaning duty. This handoff occurred about six times.
Gratz also smuggled into the prison cell phones for Kramer, which he used to reach people outside the prison and arrange the drug deals.
Kramer and Gratz exchanged hundreds of texts with each other about the drug smuggling “as well as discussions about their romantic relationship,” read a statement issued Monday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Gratz’s cell phone number was saved on Kramer’s phone as “Bbygirl.” They “discussed … getting married once Kramer was out of prison,” one of the court documents read.
She also warned him of impending searches of inmates’ cells.
The smuggling scheme was exposed when prison officials received a tip that Kramer illegally had a cell phone.
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