A 32-year-old Amsterdam woman is facing multiple charges after authorities say a body scan at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility detected a hidden object in her pelvic region, which she then removed and destroyed before deputies could recover it. Deanna C. Karl was taken into custody around 3 a.m. last Monday on two open bench warrants tied to separate petit larceny cases out of Amsterdam, and the scan happened shortly after she arrived at the jail.
According to CBS6 Albany, the scan revealed what authorities described as an internal anomaly in Karl's pelvic region, suspected to be contraband drug paraphernalia. Officials say Karl then voluntarily removed the item herself and immediately destroyed it before it could be examined. NewYorkUpstate.com reports the destroyed item was identified as a glass pipe typically used to smoke crack cocaine.
Karl now faces charges of second-degree promoting prison contraband and tampering with physical evidence, according to the station's report. She was also charged with two counts related to police officers executing a bench warrant. She was arraigned on all charges in Amsterdam Town Court and remanded to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility without bail, per the same account.
How the Scanner Caught the Alleged Contraband
The equipment that flagged Karl is a full-body scanner the jail installed in 2023, and it is built specifically to catch what pat-downs and hand wands tend to miss. As The Daily Gazette reported at the time, the system is capable of identifying materials concealed either externally or internally on a person's body. Before the scanner arrived, jail screening relied on hand scanners, pat searches and interviews — methods with obvious limits when someone is determined to sneak something past the door.
The roughly $140,000 piece of equipment was not paid for out of general county funds. The Gazette reported the purchase was supported by county officials and funded through revenue the jail takes in by providing pre-trial detention space for other counties and the U.S. Marshals Service.
A Jail With a Persistent Contraband Problem
The investment came after a rough stretch for the facility on the contraband front. The Gazette's reporting on the scanner's installation noted that the jail logged 70 incidents involving some form of contraband in just the previous year, with most of those cases tied to drugs — tobacco products, stockpiled extra medications, narcotics and fentanyl-containing substances all made the list.
Montgomery County is not the only facility to lean on scanning technology to get ahead of the problem. In Orange County, corrections officials integrated SOTER RS body scanners into their screening protocols, and WV Dispatch reported that within about six months of adoption, the technology had assisted in at least five contraband recoveries there — including one case that turned up 9.3 grams of cocaine, two dozen oxycodone pills, buprenorphine, marijuana, lighters and rolling paper on a single incoming detainee.
Montgomery County's Own Contraband History
Karl's case is not the first contraband episode at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility to draw charges. Back in the spring of 2024, correctional officers conducting routine cell searches located contraband inside cells, according to CBS6's earlier coverage, leading to charges against Sean P. Knowles of Amsterdam and Jesse D. Bedell of Johnstown for possessing contraband in a jail.
Under New York law, promoting prison contraband in the second degree is classified as a class A misdemeanor, according to the New York State Senate's published statute. The more serious first-degree version of the same offense is a class D felony under a separate section of the penal law. It remains unresolved exactly which statutory subsections apply in Karl's case beyond what has been publicly reported.
