Woman allegedly brought weed to inmate husband

PALMER — A woman trying to smuggle tobacco and marijuana to her incarcerated husband with help from her 14-year-old son was jailed on charges of promoting contraband.

According to a sworn statement Alaska State Trooper Bruce Weight filed in court, the hand-off of contraband first came to troopers’ attention at 2:09 p.m., March 14 when Sgt. Francis Buzby from the Palmer Correctional Center called.

“Sgt. Buzby informed me that he had information that Krystal Ann Leighton would be attempting to deliver contraband/controlled substances to her husband, Matthew Leighton during a visitation that evening at approximately (6:30 p.m.),” Weight writes.

Buzby had apparently been listening to phone calls between the Leightons and had heard about the plan with enough specificity to know that there would be 11 balloons with marijuana and possibly pills, according to Weight’s statement. Krystal Leighton would pass them to her husband during the visitation.

“Matthew would then swallow the balloons in order to keep them from being discovered when he was searched,” Weight writes.

At 5:50 p.m., Weight showed up at the prison. Krystal Leighton, 31, showed up at 6 p.m. with her four children — ages 14, 9, 5 and 7 months — and Weight stopped her. He read her her rights and she told him she had something on her she shouldn’t have. From her bra she pulled out a white balloon.

“I asked where the rest of the balloons were. She stated they were in an empty cigarette pack in the vehicle she had driven to PCC,” Weight said.

During the search, Weight turned up a glass marijuana pipe with partially burned weed inside, but not balloons.

“While I was conducting the vehicle search a correctional officer informed me that he observed a small colored balloon on the ground by where the children were waiting,” Weight writes.

The trooper went to talk to the kids, asking how the balloon had gotten there.

“Krystal told her 14-year-old son to give me the rest of the balloons. The 14-year-old gave me eight balloons for a total of nine balloons seized,” Weight writes. “The smaller children were referring to the balloons as ‘daddy’s medicine.’ Krystal admitted she had done this kind of thing in the past.”

Opening up the balloons, Weight found tobacco in one and marijuana in the other eight — 4.88 grams of weed total and .74 grams of tobacco, which is also not allowed at the prison.

Krystal Leighton was arrested for promoting contraband, intention to distribute marijuana, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and marijuana possession. She was jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on $1,500 bail. Jail records show she posted bond and was released March 15.

As for Matthew Leighton, court records show that on Oct. 7, 2013, he was convicted in multiple outstanding cases on theft, fraud and felony drug misconduct charges, all prosecuted in Anchorage.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.