(Stillwater) — A woman who admitted taking marijuana to her brother in the Cimarron Correctional Facility has been jailed for failing to appear in court for her sentencing in the Cushing prison case.
Pamela Yvette Powell, 37, of Oklahoma City, spent this past Christmas in the Payne County Jail where she is expected to remain until she is sentenced on Jan. 9 by Special District Judge Phillip Corley.
She was apprehended in Oklahoma County on Dec. 18 and has been in custody ever since, a sheriff’s spokesman said Tuesday.
Powell was originally arrested at the Cimarron Correctional Facility about 3 p.m. Oct. 21, 2007, by Cushing Police Officer Carson Watts for allegedly delivering marijuana to her inmate brother and possessing the contraband within a penal institution.
On the day after New Year’s of 2008, Powell pleaded guilty to both felony charges before Corley, who released her on a personal recognizance bond pending her sentencing, which was originally scheduled for Feb. 28, 2008.
She had spent Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2007, as well as New Year’s Day of 2008, in the Payne County Jail.
A security camera at the Cushing prison had shown her coming out of the bathroom on Oct. 21, 2007, while holding something in her hand, an affidavit said.
Powell then sat down at a table in the visitation room and put her hand under the table, prison shift supervisor Captain Dennis Weems told the Cushing officer, according to an affidavit.
The woman’s brother, inmate Darell Wiggins, put his hand under the table and then put his hand and arm into the back of his pants, the affidavit said.
The prison shift supervisor said he took the inmate to the medical room of the facility, where Wiggins admitted to receiving a package containing marijuana from his sister, the affidavit said.
The oval package, which the inmate retrieved from his body, was about two-and-one-half inches long by one-inch wide and wrapped in electrical tape, the affidavit said.
Powell said that her brother had called her and asked her to bring the contraband to him, the affidavit said.
She told the Cushing police officer that she brought the package into the prison by tucking it under a roll on her side, while pointing to the right side of her abdomen, the affidavit said.
The package contained about 26 grams of marijuana, the affidavit said.
Drug delivery carries a maximum penalty of life in prison and a $20,000 fine, court records show.
Possession of contraband within a penal institution carries a maximum penalty of a five-year prison term and a $1,000 fine, records show.
