Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
Celina man tries to toss contraband over fence into prison
By Margie Wuebker
A 27-year-old Celina man remains incarcerated at the Allen County Jail after he attempted to toss drugs and other contraband over the fence at the Allen Correctional Institution on Monday morning.
Christopher Pickens Hughes, 401 Meyers Road, faces a charge of conveyance of drugs onto the grounds of a detention facility, a third-degree felony, after Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections staff members observed a package along the perimeter of the fence surrounding the institution.
Ohio State Highway Patrol Trooper Gerald Gibson responded to the scene and observed Hughes, dressed in black and carrying a suitcase, on foot in a nearby wooded area shortly after 8 a.m. He was appended in a nearby field without incident.
Authorities recovered two packages inside the fence with a subsequent search of the suitcase yielding eight more packages.
According to an OSHP news release, the packages contained nearly two-thirds of a pound of marijuana, 7.5 pounds of loose leaf tobacco, five cell phones with chargers and earpieces, 35 packages of rolling papers, 17 lighters, five packages of cigarettes, four packages of cigars, three cans of chewing tobacco, one package of commercial loose leaf tobacco, a bottle of Excedrin PM and a package of condoms.
The patrol, which investigates criminal activity on state-owned and leased property, reported the institutional value of the marijuana at $650 per ounce and the loose leaf tobacco at $500 per pound. Additionally, the cell phones have an institutional value of $750 each with cigarettes fetching $3 each depending on supply and demand.
The investigation is continuing and troopers do not know about the intended recipient at the medium-security men's prison, where smoking is prohibited and tobacco is highly prized.
If convicted, Hughes faces five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
