MOTHER, 75, CHARGED IN PRISON CONTRABAND CASE

Police: Woman Tried To Smuggle Heroin Into Great Meadow

FORT ANN -- A 75-year-old woman was arrested Thursday on charges she tried
to smuggle heroin and $100 in cash to her son at Great Meadow Correctional
Facility.

Mary Weygant, of New Windsor (Orange County) was charged with third-degree
criminal possession of a controlled substance and first-degree promoting
prison contraband, both felonies, after she was caught with the drugs and
money in the prison visiting area about 11:20 a.m., officials said.

An investigator with the Inspector General's office of the state Department
of Correctional Services confronted her as she waited to visit her son, and
she confessed to having a balloon that contained contraband, said DOCS
spokesman Mike Houston.

The balloon contained 10 glassine envelopes of a substance believed to be
heroin, Houston said. The woman was concealing the balloon on her person,
but it was not in a body cavity, Houston said. She handed it over when
confronted.

Prison officials had gotten a tip she might be bringing drugs and
contraband to the maximum security prison where her 40 year-old son,
Lawrence Weygant, is serving a 25-years-to-life sentence for a 2000
second-degree murder conviction in Orange County, officials said.

Houston said prison officials are looking into whether to charge Lawrence
Weygant.

Kevin Kortright, a Washington County first assistant district attorney who
prosecutes most of the agency's prison cases, said Weygant was the oldest
drug-smuggling suspect he could recall at the prison.

"We've had a few mothers over the years but no one that old," he said.

Kortright said $100 was a significant sum of money in a prison, where
inmates aren't allowed to have cash. Drugs and cigarettes often sell for
many times their street value in prison.

"That's big bucks in a prison," he said.

Houston said the Department of Correctional Services has a zero tolerance
policy for those trying to bring contraband into a state prison.

"Our staff continues to be very diligent in ensuring that no contraband of
any sort finds its way into our facilities," he said.

Weygant was arrested by state police from the Granville station and sent to
Washington County Jail for lack of $10,000 cash bail or $20,000 bond.

Staff writer Matt Volke contributed to this report.