HAGERSTOWN — A former correctional officer at the Maryland Correctional Training Center has pleaded guilty to smuggling tobacco into the prison for sale to inmates.

Timothy Parks Jr., 21, of Hagerstown was fined $1,000 Thursday in Washington County District Court.

Parks was granted probation before judgment, meaning the conviction will be expunged if he successfully completes a year of unsupervised probation.

Parks no longer works for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, department spokeswoman Danielle Lueking said. Parks’ last day was Feb. 25, she said.

Parks was arrested in January at the Maryland Correctional Training Center with about a pound of tobacco and eight packs of rolling papers. He told investigators he planned to sell the contraband to an inmate who would mail the payment to Parks’ fiancée.

Division of Correction investigators believe there was an ongoing effort to deliver tobacco and rolling papers to inmates at the medium-security MCTC, which houses about 2,580 inmates on Roxbury Road south of Hagerstown, spokesman Mark Vernarelli said in a press release when Parks was charged.

Parks told investigators he planned to place the tobacco in a trash can that was outside the officers’ restroom in an MCTC housing unit so the inmate later could retrieve the contraband from the trash can, according to court documents.

Delivering contraband to inmates, whether tobacco, cell phones, alcohol, drugs or weapons, creates a dangerous environment for correctional staff because contraband can be traded and sold, with violence sometimes breaking out over control of the products, prison officials said.

Conviction on a charge of possession of contraband carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.