Leah B. Foley United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts | Department of Justice
A former employee of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Tasha Hammock, was sentenced on January 16, 2026, in federal court in Worcester for providing synthetic cannabinoids to an inmate at FMC Devens. The substance, commonly known as K2, was passed to Raymond Gaines during a prison visit on August 18, 2024.
U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman sentenced Hammock, age 44 and from Bridgewater, Massachusetts, to three years of probation. The government had recommended a sentence of 12 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Hammock pleaded guilty in November 2025 to providing contraband to Gaines.
Raymond Gaines had previously been sentenced in February 2022 to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute cocaine and possessing a firearm related to drug trafficking. At the time of his offenses, he was on federal supervised release following a conviction for distributing cocaine base near a school in 2017. In both cases, Gaines was alleged to be associated with the Orchard Park Trailblazers gang in Boston.
On January 17, 2025, Gaines received an Executive Grant of Clemency that reduced his federal sentence from over seven years to five years.
Court documents indicate that K2 has caused health problems at FMC Devens for both inmates and staff exposed to secondary smoke from the substance-laced paper.
"United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Ted E. Docks, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston; and Ryan Geach, Special Agent in Charge of the Northeast Regional Office of DOJ-OIG, made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Special Investigative Services Unit at FMC Devens. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan O’Shea of the Worcester Branch Office prosecuted the case."
