Man sentenced for trying to take marijuana to jail

WARREN -- A city man will spend a year in prison for trying to smuggle a marijuana cigarette into Trumbull County Jail.
Judge W. Wyatt McKay of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court handed down the sentence Thursday to Tyrone Thomas, 27.
The charge was conveyance of a controlled substance into a detention facility.
Thomas was one of three inmates being walked from the courthouse back to the jail Aug. 21. A deputy sheriff stationed at the courthouse security desk said he saw Thomas grab something from behind a pillar outside the courthouse door.
Deputy Raymond A. Deluga said he saw Thomas put something in his shirt pocket.
He alerted jail officials, who searched Thomas and found the marijuana.
A courthouse employee told officials she saw a woman leave the courthouse and place a folded piece of paper on the ledge of the pillar moments before the inmates walked out.
Thomas was being held on a robbery charge, for which he was sentenced recently to three years in prison.
Judge McKay also sentenced Thomas to 11 months in jail on charges of breaking and entering.