Three men have pleaded guilty to attempting to smuggle drugs into a Texarkana federal prison by hiding the contraband under postage stamps.
Two of them, Jeffrey Lee Anderson and Jack Elton Willie, have been sentenced, while the third, Kevin Tyler, is awaiting sentencing.
Anderson, age unavailable, was a former federal inmate who sent packages addressed to Willie, 44, and Tyler, 41, with strips of buprenorphine hidden under the postage stamps.
Buprenorphine is a drug used to help people abusing an opioid, such as heroin or the prescription drug oxycodone, when they are attempting to rid themselves of addiction and avoid the symptoms of withdrawal. The drug comes in a strip form which can be dissolved beneath the tongue.
According to a file in Willie's case, Anderson was a former inmate of a federal prison when he mailed packages with buprenorphine strips secreted beneath postage stamps sometime before March 28, 2017. Prison staff intercepted the contraband before it was delivered, according to court records.
Anderson pleaded guilty in July. He was sentenced to 72 months, or six years, in federal prison at a hearing Oct. 2 before U.S. District Judge Robert Schroeder III.
Willie pleaded guilty in August. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison at a hearing Monday afternoon before Schroeder in the Texarkana Division of the Eastern District of Texas.
Tyler pleaded guilty Sept. 6. His case has not yet been scheduled for sentencing.
According to news reports, including one published in the New York Times, the drug is increasingly being smuggled into jails and prisons. The substance is easy to hide and gives the user a high.