Drone Delivers Contraband to Prison

The notion that a society’s essence manifests most purely in its vices and criminals finds compelling expression in Mr. Bryant LeRay Henderson, who was arrested and charged with multiple felonies after allegedly flying a drone into a federal prison for purpose of delivering drugs and electronic devices to inmates.

Mr. Henderson was arrested at his Smithville, Texas residence on one count of attempting to provide contraband in prison, one count of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, and one count of serving as an airman without an airman’s certificate.

According to court documents, Mr. Henderson flew a DJI Inspire drone into the airspace over FMC Fort Worth—an administrative-security United States federal prison for male inmates with special medical and mental health needs. The drone—which was carrying 46-grams of methamphetamine, 87-grams of pressed THC, two prepaid smartphones, and nine MP3 players—crashed inside the prison fence and was recovered by staff.

Surveillance cameras at a nearby high school captured images of a young man removing a drone and a package from a red Chevy Tahoe sporting a Transformers decal on its rear-window, then launching the drone in the direction of the prison before driving off.

A search of the vehicle—which law enforcement officers impounded after finding it abandoned along a local roadway—turned up Mr. Henderson’s debit card, a DJI drone controller, various drone accessories, 18 smartphones, tobacco products, and a smattering of ancillary imponderables.

Upon powering up the recovered drone and controller, the devices immediately paired. From the drone, investigators recovered seventy usable flight-logs, six of which chronicled illegal intrusions of prison airspace. A query of Mr. Henderson’s mobile telephone activity placed his phone near the prisons at times corresponding to those recorded in the drone flight-logs.

Drone bootlegging is an increasingly prevalent and vexing problem for a Federal Bureau of Prisons already hard pressed to adequately police the pigeons, sandwiches, books, and other means by which contraband flows into U.S. prisons. In July 2022, a Houston man was arraigned for allegedly operating a drone over a federal prison near Beaumont, Texas. In April 2022, a former inmate pleaded guilty to conspiring to smuggle phones and tobacco into a New Jersey federal prison. And in autumn 2021, three Atlanta men were each sentenced to one-year in federal prison for using drones to smuggle contraband into Georgia’s Telfair State Prison.

If convicted, the intrepid but not-so-forward-thinking Mr. Henderson faces up to 45-years in prison: twenty-years for attempting to provide contraband to inmates, another twenty-years for the drug charge, and five-years for operating a drone without a license.

FMI: https://www.bop.gov