New York woman pleads guilty to selling drug-soaked papers online, mailing them to prisons
A New York woman has pleaded guilty after being charged with manufacturing synthetic cannabinoids and sending drug-soaked documents to inmates in multiple correctional facilities, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Maya McIntosh, 33, manufactured, distributed and possessed with intent to distribute a synthetic cannabinoid called MDMB-4en-PINACA, officials from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York said in a news release. McIntosh ordered the chemicals to make the synthetic drug and had them shipped to her home, according to court documents, which said she then made a liquid form of MDMB-4en-PINACA.
That liquid was then sprayed and soaked into copy paper and business envelopes, according to prosecutors and court documents. McIntosh allegedly sold the sheets and envelopes on social media, and was paid by customers to send them to inmates at various New York State correctional facilities. Prosecutors say McIntosh labeled the envelopes as if they had come from attorneys.
The recipients of the drug-soaked papers and envelopes would not have been able to feel the drug's effects through the paper, said Dr. Andrew Stolbach, a toxicologist and emergency medicine physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. MDMB-4en-PINACA does not pass through skin, he said, and synthetic cannabinoids in general tend to be made of large molecules, making them unable to easily pass through the skin or spontaneously enter the air.
"This is why people who use these drugs smoke them, the literal heat from a flame is used to bring the drug into an absorbable state," Stolbach told CBS News. "If the drugs worked by skin absorption or spontaneous volatilization, people would just touch the drug or open the package to experience them."
McIntosh pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including conspiracies to manufacture, distribute, and possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance, and unlawful possession and use of a means of identification, the Department of Justice said.
McIntosh faces a maximum term of up to 20 years' imprisonment on each count, and a maximum fine of $1 million on the drug counts, as well as a fine of $250,000 on the other counts. She faces a supervised release of at least three years and up to life, the Justice Department said.
Multiple similar cases of drug-soaked papers being delivered to prisons have been reported. In August 2024, a Chicago corrections officer was accused of trying to bring such materials into the Cook County Jail. In 2022, a South African woman was charged with orchestrating a scheme to smuggle dozens of packages containing drug-soaked papers into Ohio prisons and sentenced to one year in prison.
