Two charged with smuggling drugs into prison in Atwater

ATWATER >> A Texas man serving a prison term for identity fraud, and his girlfriend who was a co-defendant in the case, now face new charges: conspiring to smuggle drugs into the federal prison in Atwater.

According to a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Sacramento, Anthony Minor and Tilisha Morrison face charges of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and possessing or providing a controlled substance in a prison.

The charging records allege that the two used one of the oldest schemes in the books: sending drugs hidden in documents that are marked as legal mail, which authorities are generally prohibited from examining. In this case, staff at the prison contacted the attorneys whose names were on the mail and determined that the packages were faked, authorities say.

In October 2021, authorities intercepted THC coming into the prison. In an incident last December, more than 200 strips of suboxone, an opiate drug, were discovered. The packages were addressed to another inmate who, like Minor, was convicted of a federal offense in Texas.

In 2015, Minor was sentenced to a 14 years in federal prison for an alleged fraud scheme that involved “a series of bank account takeovers related to identities that Minor and co-conspirators had stolen or improperly obtained,” prosecutors in Texas wrote in a 2014 legal brief. Morrison was a co-defendant in the same case and was sentenced to four years for her role the scheme, according to court records.

The complaint alleges that the two discussed the drug-smuggling scheme on phones provided by the prison, using coded language, like saying “T-shirts” to refer to strips of suboxone.

Neither Minor nor Morrison has entered a plea, according to court records.