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Tag: drug charges

  • Prison Guards Accused Of Smuggling Pot, Wire Cutters Into Lock-Up

    Prison Guards Accused Of Smuggling Pot, Wire Cutters Into Lock-Up

    Three female guards are all facing charges of attempting to furnish a prisoner with contraband.

    A trio of prison visitors could end up on the other side of the razor wire after they were arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle pot and cell phones into a pair of South Carolina lock-ups. 

    The three women arrested – Yolanda Whitaker, Yvanda Maria Hardy, and Carmen Bess – are all facing charges of attempting to furnish a prisoner with contraband, according to The State.

    The set of collars came just days after one prison guard was hit with a similar contraband charge and another accused of trying to smuggle oxycodone and MDMA into a Bennettsville facility, according to the Columbia newspaper.

    The first of the visitor arrests came on Nov. 2, nine months after officials say Whitaker tried sneaking 20 cell phones, a pair of wire cutters, 3.5 pounds of tobacco, lighters and rolling papers into the medium-security prison Kershaw Correctional Institution. It’s not clear who the intended recipient was, but officials said she allegedly stuffed the verboten goods into a speaker box she mailed into the facility. 

    A day after Whitaker’s arrest, Hardy was collared for trying to bring weed into McCormick Correctional Institution. In addition to the contraband charge, she was hit with one count of manufacturing or possession of drugs and one count of conspiracy to introduce drugs. 

    The day after that, Jenkins was arrested – at the same facility – after she allegedly tried smuggling liquid perfume and 142.9 grams of pot into the prison. She faced the same set of charges as Hardy, but it’s not immediately clear where she tried hiding the smuggled goods, which were wrapped in black electrical tape. 

    The earlier arrests of officers were both announced in October. In the first case, Williams Suggs was hit with a series of charges after he allegedly stuffed a package of 40 oxycodone in his groin, along with 65 MDMA pills, 19 cigarettes, and a lighter. In his car, prison police discovered 450 grams of synthetic marijuana, authorities said at the time.

    Then, on Oct. 29, prison officials announced the arrest of Ebonyisha Moinque Casby, a Lieber Correctional guard who allegedly smuggled contraband to an inmate she was having sex with. It’s not clear what forbidden goods she was hoping to sneak into the facility, but she was also dinged for bringing a gun into the prison.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Counterfeit Pill Ring Ran Out Of Vacant Apartment Busted By Police

    Counterfeit Pill Ring Ran Out Of Vacant Apartment Busted By Police

    The building’s super allegedly used a vacant apartment and boiler room to manufacture and package the illicit pills. 

    Three men were arrested and charged in the Bronx with alleged production and distribution of black market pills. Lab tests determined that pills said to be oxycodone were actually a dangerous mixture of heroin and fentanyl, while the 50 purported ecstasy pills contained pure methamphetamine.

    ABC 7 News reported that the men involved, Agustin Vasquez Chavez, Yefri Hernandez-Ozoria, and Roberto Castillo, are facing multiple drug charges after two separate arrests.

    The first arrest occurred in July when undercover cops on 201st Street and Grand Concourse purchased two bags of pills for $5,000. Chavez and Ozoria allegedly sold 860 pills as oxycodone and another bag of 50 pills as ecstasy (or MDMA).

    On September 11 police executed a second sting operation and arrested Chavez and Ozoria. Police confiscated approximately 3,000 purported oxycodone pills that looked to match the pills purchased on July 31.

    Law enforcement is awaiting the results of DEA laboratory analysis.

    Roberto Castillo is the superintendent of a five-story apartment building in the Bronx. Castillo allegedly used a vacant apartment and boiler room in this building to package and manufacture pills. Castillo worked with Chavez and Ozoria, who allegedly sold the manufactured and falsely labeled drugs in a large-scale black market pill distribution ring.

    All three men were arrested and charged on September 11 in connection with an alleged conspiracy to produce and distribute black market pills containing heroin, fentanyl, and meth, officials said. Chavez and Ozoria were arrested first, after which police were granted permission to search the boiler room and vacant apartment in Castillo’s building. There, in the boiler room, police found a pill press machine. 

    The boiler room and apartment were being used as a pill manufacturing operation, which included a pill press machine, pill press imprints designed to create oxycodone markings, multiple surgical masks and a vacuum sealer. The apartment contained a refrigerator filled with yet-unknown substances in assorted colors, as well as drug paraphernalia such as cutting agents, grinders and containers.

    According to an official, 420 grams of a heroin/fentanyl mixture were found in a suitcase, in addition to nearly 180 grams of methamphetamine and approximately 1,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills.

    “Narcotics traffickers have long exploited the nation’s high demand for pain pills, a powerful gateway to addiction, but this investigation reveals an even more deviant scheme—an organization creating and distributing counterfeit pills with highly potent and lethal compounds, manufactured in an apartment right next to the boiler room,” said Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan in a statement.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Wynonna Judd's Daughter Sentenced For Meth Charges

    Wynonna Judd's Daughter Sentenced For Meth Charges

    Grace Pauline Kelley has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

    Grace Pauline Kelley, daughter of singer Wynonna Judd, was sentenced to eight years in prison for violating probation for a 2017 drug charge.

    Kelley, 22, left a 180-day in-house rehab program on November 19, 2017 before she was scheduled to be released, which violated the terms of probation she received for charges of manufacturing, delivery and possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute in May 2017.  

    Robert Reburn, the Public Information Officer East Tennessee for the Tennessee Department of Correction, confirmed an inquiry by Us Weekly that Kelley had received the eight-year sentence, which does not expire until August 2025.

    Kelley is the younger of two children by Wynonna Judd, who was one-half of the popular ’80s country duo the Judds with her mother, Naomi; her father is Judd’s first husband, Arch Kelley, whom Judd divorced in 1998, two years after Grace Kelley’s birth.

    She made headlines for the first time in 2014, when Judd’s half-sister, actress Ashley Judd, sought temporary custody of the 17-year-old after she alleged that her mother abused drugs and alcohol and was verbally abusive. Wynonna Judd denied those charges.

    A year later, Kelley was arrested at a Walgreens in Nashville and charged with promotion of methamphetamine manufacture after police found a bag of items used for making meth in a plastic bag that Kelley reportedly threw from her car.

    She pled guilty to possession and received probation, which was revoked in 2016 after Kelley was arrested in Alabama on charges of being a fugitive from justice.

    In 2017, Kelley pled guilty to the aforementioned methamphetamine charges in Williamson County Court in Tennessee, and received a suspended sentence of 11 months and 29 days in jail, as well as a fine of $3,092.50, and a second suspended sentence of four years after pleading guilty to evading arrest in nearby Maury County.

    She was required to complete the 180-day rehab program and then 30 days in jail in March 2017, which would have then allowed her to complete the balance of her sentence on probation.

    According to Taste of Country, Kelley served her 30 days in June 2017 and moved on to rehab, but left the program on November 19, 2017. “[Kelley] was terminated from the recovery court program on November 21, 2017,” said a spokeperson for Williamson County. “A warrant for probation violation was issued on November 22, 2017 and served on December 16, 2017.”

    Probation was officially revoked on February 8, 2018, and Kelley was given the eight-year sentence, as well as the four-year sentence for evading arrest.

    Kelley will be eligible for parole on February 4, 2019. The Judd family and her father, Arch Kelley, have not issued any statement on her sentence. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Sean Penn's Son Hopper Settles Drug Possession Case

    Sean Penn's Son Hopper Settles Drug Possession Case

    In April, police reportedly confiscated a variety of drugs from Penn and his girlfriend during a traffic stop.

    Hopper Penn, son of actors Robin Wright and Sean Penn, pleaded no contest regarding an April misdemeanor drug charge, according to USA Today.

    In April, the 24-year-old actor was pulled over by police for failure to signal on a Nebraska highway with his girlfriend, Uma Von Wittkamp. Penn and Von Wittkamp were both charged with possession of psilocybin mushrooms, while Penn had an additional charge of marijuana possession and Von Wittkamp was charged with possession of amphetamines, reportedPeople magazine.

    In total, police confiscated 14 grams of marijuana, four amphetamine pills, and three grams of psychedelic mushrooms.

    Penn and Wittkamp were both released on separate bonds of $25,000.

    Originally Penn and Wittkamp were both charged with a felony. In Nebraska, possession of a controlled substance is a felony that is punishable with a maximum of two years in prison, one year of post-release supervision, and a $10,000 fine.

    However, the couple pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of attempt of a felony. In addition, they each paid a $1,000 fine. A no contest plea allows a defendant to acknowledge that there might be enough evidence for a conviction without admitting guilt.

    In an interview with the Evening Standard, Hopper Penn had described how a traumatic brain injury, surgery, the subsequent loss of his passion for skateboarding, and his parents’ divorce, led to problems at age 16.

    “I was doing a lot of stuff,” he says, “but meth was the main one that brought me down. I went to rehab because I woke up in a hospital and my dad was like, ‘Rehab? Or bus bench?’ I was like, ‘I’ll take the bed.’ Thank God I got out of that because that was the worst time in my life. Because it’s not fun when it gets to a point where you just need it.”

    Radar Online reported that Sean Penn had bailed his son out of jail with the order that he go to a long-term rehabilitation center.

    Radar quoted a source who said of Sean Penn and his son, “He wants him to check into a long-term facility and clean himself up for good, or else. This is the last straw for him and as much as this pains him, Hopper is just lucky he is still alive.”

    Hopper Penn isn’t the only one struggling in the family—unfortunately his sister, Dylan Penn, also has issues with addiction. Radar reported that in 2015, Dylan was arrested for DUI and subsequently spent three month in a rehabilitation facility. She is on parole until 2019.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Former 3 Doors Down Bassist Arrested On Drug, Gun Charges

    Former 3 Doors Down Bassist Arrested On Drug, Gun Charges

    Deputies received a call from Todd Harrell’s wife after an argument allegedly took a physical turn.

    The former bassist for the Grammy-nominated rock band 3 Doors Down has been jailed on drug, firearms and domestic violence charges after police in Mississippi responded to a call from his wife about an argument.

    The Sheriff’s Department in Jackson County issued a statement on June 15 that stated that Robert “Todd” Harrell, 46, was in an adult detention center after being arrested at his home in St. Martin; deputies who responded to the call found guns and drugs at the home, which prompted a warrant to search the residence.

    Harrell, a founding member of 3 Doors Down, served two years in prison and a six-year probation term for a charge of vehicular homicide in 2013.

    In the press release, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell wrote that deputies came to the Harrells’ home after the wife called them to report that the couple’s argument had taken a physical turn.

    Upon arrival, the deputies saw both drugs and guns in the home, and contacted narcotics unit officers with the South Mississippi Metro Enforcement Team to obtain a search warrant for the residence. 

    Harrell was subsequently arrested and charged for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, which carries felony charges, as well as the misdemeanor charges of possession of a controlled substance and domestic violence/simple assault. He is also wanted in Tennessee for a probation violation.

    As of June 15, Harrell was jailed with no bond and awaiting an initial court hearing. It is unknown if Harrell has legal representation.

    Harrell helped to found the Mississippi-based 3 Doors Down in 1996, but drug and alcohol use led to an arrest for public intoxication in 1999 and charges of driving under the influence in 2012 before the accident in 2013 that claimed the life of Paul Shoulders Jr. in Nashville, Tennessee.

    He was subsequently dismissed from the band and went on to incur another DUI charge in 2014 before his sentencing in 2015. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but served two, and received six years’ probation upon his release.

    In 2017, Harrell told a group of students and participants from a faith-based community service program that the accident had changed his life. “Having everything at your fingertips. Fame. We had it all,” he said. “[The accident] took who I was and just turned me upside down.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Man Reportedly Asked Cops To Test Meth After Bad Reaction To Drug

    Man Reportedly Asked Cops To Test Meth After Bad Reaction To Drug

    “If you believe you were sold bad drugs, we are offering a free service to test them for you,” Florida police wrote on Facebook after the arrest.

    A Florida man was arrested last week after asking cops to test his meth for him so he could “press charges” against the dealer who supposedly ripped him off. 

    Douglas Peter Kelly called detectives on Tuesday to report a “violent reaction” to some drugs he’d bought a week earlier. He was afraid he’d been given some sub-par speed, but the detectives on the other end of the phone offered to help.

    “In an effort to ensure the quality of the drug the suspect purchased, detectives told Kelly if he came to the sheriff’s office they could test the narcotic he purchased,” the sheriff’s office later wrote on Facebook.

    So the 49-year-old man drove to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office to fork over the foil-wrapped crystals for testing. 

    Though he’d feared the substance was actually the synthetic drug Flakka, a field test showed it was indeed the meth his dealer promised. 

    Unfortunately, instead of congratulating him on his solid purchase, police arrested the Hawthorne man and charged him with felony drug possession. He was booked into the county jail and later released on $2,500 bond, according to The Smoking Gun.

    Afterward, the sheriff’s office posted on Facebook a tongue-in-cheek reminder of their services. 

    “If you believe you were sold bad drugs, we are offering a free service to test them for you,” they wrote. “Our detectives are always ready to assist anyone who believes they were misled in their illegal drug purchase.”

    Last year, another Florida man found himself behind bars after a similar blunder. David Blackmon of Fort Walton Beach called police in July 2017 to report that someone had swiped a bag of blow from his car, according to the Miami Herald. 

    After Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived on scene to investigate, Blackmon explained that he was a drug dealer and some ne’er-do-well had busted into his parked car and stolen a quarter-ounce of cocaine along with some cash.

    Deputies found a crack rock still in the car along with a pipe, and ultimately Blackmon was arrested for resisting, paraphernalia and cocaine possession. He was booked into the county jail and released on $4,000 bond.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Accused Dark Web Kingpin "OxyMonster" Faces 20-Year Sentence

    Accused Dark Web Kingpin "OxyMonster" Faces 20-Year Sentence

    Federal agents captured the accused drug kingpin when he came to the US for a beard contest last summer.

    The man who is accused of selling oxycodone, cocaine and methamphetamine online under the alias “OxyMonster” will reportedly plead guilty in federal court on charges of drug conspiracy and money laundering, the Associated Press reported on Thursday (May 31).

    Guy Vallerius faces at least 20 years in prison. The alleged dark web drug dealer was nabbed by U.S. authorities while en route from France to Austin, Texas last summer for the World Beard and Moustache Championships. He was planning to compete in the “full beard 30.1-45cm” category.

    DEA special agent Lilita Infante had Vallerius on her radar when she requested Homeland Security border officials to detain him for questioning upon his arrival in Atlanta, Georgia, his first stop from Paris.

    Infante was hoping he’d have a laptop with him, which he did. Authorities searched his computer and was able to “directly link Vallerius to the Dream Market,” the dark web marketplace where Vallerius would “moderate sales of cocaine, methamphetamine and oxycodone,” according to the AP. 

    According to a DEA affidavit issued last August, authorities were able to “confirm his identity as ‘OxyMonster’” following the border search of his laptop, on which agents discovered the Tor browser (allowing one to conceal their true IP address that would be able to identify them), “apparent log-in credentials for Dream Market, and $500,000 worth of bitcoin.”

    The affidavit states that Vallerius’ online profile advertised that he shipped his illicit wares from France to anywhere in Europe and the United States.

    Vallerius also had a drug vendor page on a similar dark web marketplace called TradeRoute, according to DEA officials, where he had been a member since February 2017, according to the affidavit.

    A magistrate judge stated in a summary of the prosecution’s case:

    “In connection with his role as a ‘senior moderator,’ (Vallerius) also sold controlled substances to other members using the website, receiving payment for these sales through the use of bitcoin ‘tip jar,’ or electronic depository. It was through this tip jar that law enforcement officials became aware of Vallerius’ true identity.

    “After locating the bitcoin depository allegedly belonging to the user ‘OxyMonster,’ agents tracked several incoming payments and outgoing deposits from the tip jar to various ‘wallets’ controlled by Vallerius.”

    Vallerius’ upcoming court hearing on his plea deal is scheduled for June 12.

    View the original article at thefix.com