Police: Drugs mailed to jail
WAYNESBURG – A Wind Ridge woman was found guilty Thursday of mailing two letters containing Suboxone, a controlled substance, to her son at Greene County jail.
Teresa M. Jones, 45, of 142 Kuhn Hill Road, was convicted by the Greene County jury of possession of a controlled substance, contraband involving a controlled substance and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance.
Jones mailed the two letters to her son, Willie Wayne Jones, at the jail between June 20 and 21, 2014. The letters contained strips of Suboxone, a form of buprenorphine that is used to treat opioid addiction. Willie Jones was being held in the jail on a burglary charge.
A jail sergeant, who examined Jones’ letters after they arrived at the jail, found the small strips of buprenorphine “concealed in the block writing on the paper,” the criminal complaint said.
The sergeant subsequently listened to telephone conversations recorded at the jail between Willie Jones and his mother.
They indicated Teresa Jones had sent Willie Jones the letters and that they contained contraband, the complaint said.
Willie Jones, interviewed later by state police, admitted his mother had said she was sending him the two letters and he understood they would contain Suboxone. She obtained the drug illegally without a prescription.
“Jones stated that his mother knew he would be sick in prison because he had been using subutex ‘on the street,'” the complaint said. Subutex also is a form of buprenorphine.
The two-day trial was before Greene County President Judge Farley Toothman.
Greene County Assistant District Attorney Andrew Lock, who prosecuted the case, said the trial took longer than expected because “there were a lot of players who had to be examined.”
“There was just a lot of testimony,” Lock said.
Teresa Jones will be sentenced following the preparation of a pre-sentence report.
Her public attorney, Harry Cancelmi, declined to comment on the case until after the sentencing.
“I know she’s disappointed,” Cancelmi “So she has to face the sentence and maybe there will be something different.”
Her son, Willie Jones, was in jail after being arrested a few days earlier accused of a entering a home at the Wheeling Creek Mobile Home Park in Richill Township and assaulting the occupant. The charged were later withdrawn.
Willie Jones was also arrested in August and accused of robbing the Stokes General Store in Wind Ridge. He pleaded guilty last month to that robbery and was sentenced to 2 to 10 years in prison.