Three men charged in separate murder cases are among four people charged in connection with an alleged drug-smuggling attempt at Louisville Metro Corrections. Officials intercepted 102 suspected Suboxone strips and 32 grams of methamphetamine hidden inside a dress shoe. A fourth person, accused of trying to deliver the drugs, also faces charges.
According to WLKY, Metro Corrections officials intercepted the drugs on October 12, concealed in a dress shoe intended for someone inside the jail. Officials say 30-year-old Breona Kannamore attempted to smuggle the drugs in for 33-year-old Joseph Hale, who is charged in the 2021 murders of Jermaine Sprewer and Andre Steadmon. WDRB also reported that four people were charged after officials said a woman tried to smuggle drugs into the jail.
Hale was indicted in April 2022 on charges of murder and kidnapping tied to Sprewer's September 2021 death, after Sprewer's family received a ransom video call showing him bound with guns pointed at him, according to WHAS11. Sprewer's body was discovered near a Shawnee Park boat ramp four days after he disappeared. Hale also faces charges in the June 2021 fatal shooting of Andre Steadmon. Two co-defendants, Roderick Bush and Dejuan Simonton, were charged in 2022 alongside Hale for complicity to murder and kidnapping in the same case, after LMPD executed search warrants at a west Louisville residence.
Two Other Jailed Murder Suspects Named in the Scheme
The other two men charged in the smuggling case are 29-year-old Kevon Lawless and 28-year-old Michael Bullock. Lawless is awaiting a new trial for the 2020 murders of 3-year-old Trinity Randolph and her father, Brandon Waddles, per WLKY. The Kentucky Supreme Court overturned his original conviction and two life sentences last October, ordering a retrial because the jury had improperly been told that a key prosecution witness faced perjury charges, the station notes.
Organized Crime Charge Raises the Stakes
All four suspects, Kannamore, Hale, Lawless, and Bullock, are charged with trafficking in controlled substances, promoting contraband, criminal conspiracy, and engaging in organized crime, according to WLKY.
Promoting contraband in the first degree, meanwhile, is a Class D felony under Kentucky Revised Statutes § 520.050, punishable by one to five years in state prison for knowingly bringing dangerous contraband into a detention facility, but it is a Class B felony when the dangerous contraband is fentanyl, carfentanil, or a fentanyl derivative, according to the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kannamore, Lawless, and Bullock are scheduled to return to court on October 21, while Hale is set to be arraigned on the new charges Thursday morning.
A Recurring Problem Inside LMDC
This is not the first time this year that someone has been accused of trying to smuggle Suboxone to a jailed murder suspect at LMDC. In a case Hoodline covered in August, 43-year-old Kimberly Stayton was arrested for promoting contraband and drug trafficking after officers and postal inspectors intercepted 21 Suboxone strips mailed to murder suspect Jesse Galloway, a joint investigation involving federal postal inspectors and LMDC's Professional Standards Unit.
