Prisoner indicted in drug smuggling

2/18/2011

BOWLING GREEN — An inmate serving a 39-year-sentence for vehicular homicide has been indicted by a Wood County grand jury for conspiring to smuggle marijuana into the Toledo Correctional Institution, where he is a prisoner.

Cory Mendoza and two relatives — Juan Mendoza, an uncle, and Brandon Mendoza, a cousin — were indicted on one count each of conspiracy to traffick in marijuana, a fifth-degree felony. County Prosecutor Paul Dobson said the indictments stem from a scheme "to get marijuana into the prison in Toledo."

Cory Mendoza was given his prison sentence last February after a jury found him guilty of aggravated vehicular homicide for the 2008 deaths of Sharon and William DeWitt of Weston, Ohio. He had been drinking alcohol supplied by his father, also named Juan Mendoza. The father is serving a five-year prison sentence elsewhere in Ohio and is not implicated in the marijuana plot, Mr. Dobson said.