Inmate gets 17 months for Lucas County jail drug smuggling

6/8/2007

A Toledo man convicted of helping to smuggle cigarettes and marijuana into the Lucas County jail while incarcerated on other drug charges will spend an additional 17 months in prison.

Trivelle Hartfield, 22, was previously sentenced to two years in prison for felony drug convictions. Yesterday in Lucas County Common Pleas Court, Judge Ruth Ann Franks imposed a 17-month sentence to run consecutively after he had been found guilty of conspiracy to convey illegal drugs into a detention facility.

Hartfield pleaded guilty May 22 to the charge and admitted to Judge Franks he had entered a cell Feb. 25 where fellow inmates had broken a window and used sheets tied together to smuggle in contraband. He said he took a pack of cigarettes and some marijuana, which was found on him when corrections officers came across the situation and searched the men.

Another man charged in the incident, Frank Maples, 19, of Toledo, entered an Alford plea on May 14 to one count of conveying illegal drugs into a detention facility. He is to be sentenced Thursday. A second charge of possessing criminal tools was dropped.

In an Alford plea, the defendant maintains his innocence or does not admit to committing a crime, but pleads guilty because he decides it's in his best interest.