New York Woman Sentenced For Smuggling Suboxone Into Prison

WILLIAMSPORT - The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that on August 4, 2022, Jessika Ann Sanders, age 34, of New York, was sentenced to three and a half months’ imprisonment to be followed by a two-year term of supervised release by Chief United States District Court Judge Matthew W. Brann, for providing contraband in prison.

According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, Tyrone Wayne Meachem was an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution, Allenwood (FCI Allenwood), in White Deer, Pennsylvania.  On April 7, 2018, Sanders visited Meachem and gave him a sandwich containing three balloons filled with 68 strips of Suboxone.  Suboxone contains buprenorphine, a controlled substance.  Meachem recruited Sanders to smuggle the Suboxone so Meachem could pay off a debt to another inmate.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Drew O. Inman and Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey W. MacArthur prosecuted the case.

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