(Westville, IN) - A 19 year old man could face significant time behind bars for the most recent drug smuggling attempt at a La Porte County prison.
Halton Maleek Duke of Michigan City is charged in La Porte Superior Court 2 with dealing in methamphetamine, a Level 2 felony, and Level 5 felony trafficking with an inmate.
According to court documents, a man later identified as Duke somehow entered the grounds of Westville Correctional Facility early on January 20. A prison security officer spotted the man throw a duffel bag and backpack over an inside fence behind two prison dormitories. The man was then spotted running toward the outer fence line, authorities said.
Authorities said he pulled on the fence line until the lower portion of the fence line lifted, allowing him to crawl out from under the barrier. Prison security and La Porte County Sheriff’s deputies following footprints in the snow located Duke hiding behind a nearby business on U.S. 421.
According to court documents, one of the bags contained slightly more than 38 grams of methamphetamine, two 16 ounce packages of tobacco, 31 individual bags of marijuana, 14 cellular devices and a variety of other items such as THC infused gummies and six packs of rolling papers. Other items in the bag included cell phone charger cords and adapters, vape cartridges containing nicotine, a lighter, two screw driver sets and a bottle of castor oil containing biotin and collagen.
Large amounts of tobacco, marijuana and over a dozen cell phones were among the other similar items seized from the backpack, authorities said. The backpack also contained eight tubes of super glue, a bottle of acetone and two sheets of paper that appeared with be saturated with an unknown substance, authorities said.
A number of other people were charged last year in separate incidents for trying to smuggle drugs and other contraband into WCF and the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. Some of those attempts involved the use of drones and were foiled with help from the prison’s drone detection system.
