Las Colinas Inmate Pleads Guilty to Possession of Drugs Within Jail

Also read: 

A woman who recently served time for a 2010 hit-and-run fatality on a Rancho Penasquitos freeway and admitted helping a pleaded guilty today to and prescription drugs at the .

Nicoll Koval, 25, faces sentencing Sept. 11.

At an earlier hearing, Deputy District Attorney Michael Runyon told Judge David Szumowski that deputies were alerted to the smell of marijuana at Las Colinas on June 8.

Deputies followed Koval and fellow inmate Ashlee Hansen, also 25, into a bathroom and found a marijuana cigarette, Runyon told the judge. A search of the women's quarters turned up other illegal drugs, including prescription muscle relaxants, the prosecutor said.

Hansen also pleaded guilty to a drug charge today and had her sentencing set for Sept. 5.

In a separate case. Koval pleaded guilty last month to helping Sandra Lamb, a sentenced prisoner, sneak methamphetamine into the jail. Lamb also pleaded guilty to the drug charge.

Koval served eight months of a one-year sentence on the hit-and-run case before being released on probation.

She pleaded guilty last year to a felony charge in the death of Albert Lee Holman, who was hit while walking on the side of state Route 56 shortly before 3 a.m. on Oct. 19, 2010.

Koval fled the scene and didn't turn herself in until the next day.

Last August, Lamb had someone send her a greeting card laced with methamphetamine to Las Colinas but it was intercepted by sheriff's deputies, according to Runyon.

When Lamb didn't receive the card, she reached out to someone else outside the jail to send her another drug-laced card, and Koval -- who was in custody with Lamb -- called that person on Lamb's behalf, according to Runyon.

At the time, Lamb was serving a sentence for theft and false identity.

-City News Service

Read more court stories