2 arrested in attempt to smuggle drugs into Livingston Jail
LIVINGSTON — Deputies hiding in a wooded area near the Livingston Parish Detention Center intercepted thousands of dollars worth of drugs bound for the jail, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.
The deputies arrested two people and booked them into the same jail. They were being held Thursday in lieu of $1 million bail each on multiple drug counts, Lori Steele of the Sheriff’s Office said.
Narcotics and corrections officers, who had information about a plan to smuggle drugs into the jail, lay in wait for a few hours until a man walked onto Detention Center property outside the jail’s outer-perimeter fence Wednesday afternoon, she said.
“He tried to get away, and they had to use force” to subdue him, Steele said.
The investigation was still under way Thursday, and investigators believe the contraband might have been intended for a trusty, she said.
Sheriff Jason Ard said more arrests could follow.
The drugs were packed inside tobacco wrapped in clear plastic and bound with tape and cord, Steele said.
The street value was about $2,000, but the value inside the facility would have been $5,000 to $10,000, she said.
The man carrying the drugs made his way through a wooded area after being dropped off by a woman on Charley Watts Road not far from the jail, Steele said.
The woman was arrested when she returned to pick the man up, the Sheriff’s Office reported.
Deputies reported arresting Kennie Wascom II, 34, 29360 S. Red Oak Drive, Livingston; and Kimberly Blount, 29, 29620 S. Satsuma Road, Livingston.
Wascom was booked on counts of entering contraband into a penal facility, resisting an officer, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, hydrocodone, and Klonopin and on two counts of possession with intent to distribute Roxycontin, according to a press release from the Sheriff’s Office.
Blount was booked with possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia and as a principal to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, hydrocodone and Klonopin and on two counts as a principal to possession with intent to distribute Roxycontin, the Sheriff’s Office said.
In August, deputies arrested three people accused of trying to smuggle drugs into the same facility.
In that case, a woman also is accused of dropping a man off on Charlie Watts Road from where he allegedly walked through the wooded area to the jail carrying drugs. Deputies also booked a jail trusty in the August case.