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Cops: Woman arrested in court had drugs, $1,400 in cash
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police said a woman taken into custody in municipal court Wednesday had $1,400 in cash and also suspected cocaine and heroin, which were hidden in a body cavity.
Lesa Paris, 37, of South Hazelwood Avenue, is in the Mahoning County jail on a charge of illegal conveyance of drugs of abuse into a detention facility, a third-degree felony. She is expected back in municipal court today to be arraigned on that new charge.
Reports said Paris was taken into custody Wednesday in municipal court, where she was being arraigned on a misdemeanor charge of possession of drug paraphernalia filed Monday by police at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.
When she was taken to a holding area in the old city jail in the police department to await transportation to the county jail, reports said a search found a cellphone and $1,445 cash on her.
When she was taken to the county jail, corrections officers who searched her found a pill vial in a body cavity that had doses of cocaine and heroin, reports said.
Paris already is facing felony drug charges in common pleas court from a November arrest in which she was found passed out in a car at a West Side gas station and gave police a false name.
Paris was found passed out in a running car about 10:35 p.m. Nov. 11 at a 1 N. Meridan Road gas station. Reports said officers found two needles and two spoons next to her, as well as 30 pills in a bottle. More pills were found in her key chain when she was taken by ambulance to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.
She told police she had not injected drugs, but officers found numerous needle tracks on her arms and legs, reports said.
She gave police the name of a 26-year-old woman who turned out to be her sister, reports said. Two days later, she left St. Elizabeth, where she was being treated, and was later caught. When she was taken to the jail corrections officers there discovered her real name. Three felony and three misdemeanor drug charges as well as a charge of escape were all bound over Nov. 23 to a grand jury. She has yet to be indicted on those charges.