Leticia Barbara Verney: Perth mother sentenced to 3.5 years in prison after attempting to smuggle drugs

A Perth mum caught trying to smuggle drugs into a US prison for a lover she had met online has been jailed for 3½ years. Leticia Verney was arrested in February after attempting to sneak in 200 fentanyl pills, 28g of heroin, an ounce of meth and 7g of marijuana at Lewis Prison in Arizona. Verney, from Fremantle, had travelled across the world with her two children, aged seven and 12, to be with inmate Brandon Dawson after the pair met online. And she routinely took her kids to the prison to visit Dawson. But she was arrested on February 4 after authorities uncovered recordings of her plans to smuggle drugs into Lewis Prison. Verney, 41, was originally charged with promoting prison contraband, money laundering and the sale or transportation of dangerous drugs, but eventually pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of taking contraband into a prison. Last month, The West Australian obtained court documents that revealed the inner workings of Verney and Dawson’s smuggling plot, including how they spoke in code during monitored phone calls on prison phones, preferring to the drugs as “bikes”, and discussed if the drugs could be concealed inside themselves. Verney first come to the attention of authorities after an investigation was launched in December last year over multiple drug overdoses occurring inside the prison. And it was during that probe that the conversations between Dawson and Verney were discovered. “That lady is going to call you within an hour to figure out when you’re going to pick up the bike for the kid, I think she said the only time you guys can go pick up the bikes is on a Thursday or a Saturday,” Dawson told Verney. Verney accused her jailhouse lover of only talking to her when he wanted her to collect drugs. “See what I’m talking about, I bet I hear from you tomorrow when I’ve got your f...ing shit,” she told him. In another recorded conversation, Verney described the “bike” as being suitable enough for both of them to “ride” — which prosecutors claimed meant they were discussing whether the packages were a suitable size for the both of them to be able to conceal inside their bodies. “I can ride it, but I don’t know if you can,” she laughed to Dawson. Following the separate arrest of another woman, who was allegedly smuggling drugs into the prison for another inmate, other communications were uncovered that formed the basis of the case against Verney. It is believed the woman had been working with her and another approved prison visitor — who referred to the Australian as Dawson’s “wife”. Verney was also referred to as “Kangaroo” when there were discussions about who would take the “stuff” into the prison. Court documents detailed claims that Verney had turned to smuggling drugs into the prison because was in a poorly paid cleaning job and couldn’t get a “legal paycheck”. After their mother was arrested, Verney’s children returned to Australia in June to be with family.