A Texas woman who conspired to fly a crow-shaped package of methamphetamine into the federal penitentiary at Pollock, Louisiana, by drone was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison on October 16. Melanie Jean Worthington, 39, of Joshua, Texas, had pleaded guilty in June to drug conspiracy and providing contraband into a prison.

U.S. District Judge Jerry Edwards Jr. sentenced a second Pollock drone defendant in Alexandria the same day. Yoan Seirra Hernandez, 42, of West Park, Florida, got 120 months. He admitted he intended to fly drugs into the prison, and deputies investigating a December 2024 trespassing complaint later found him at a nearby Airbnb.

In Worthington’s case, penitentiary staff recovered a crow full of meth.

The Crow Was the Package, and the FBI Photo Shows a Stock Quadcopter

The Justice Department describes a package designed to look like a crow, smuggled using a drone. Penitentiary staff recovered one holding more than 100 grams of methamphetamine, suspected THC concentrate, SIM cards, charging cords and wireless earbuds, and KALB reported it was found inside the prison.

KALB’s sentencing report describes “drones disguised as crows,” and the Justice Department captions its own photos “the ‘crow’ drone.” The text of the department’s release describes a package instead, and its FBI photo of the car evidence shows a dark gray quadcopter in a hard case, with the brand name Aeroo on the aircraft, its installed battery and two boxes. The Grant Parish Sheriff’s Office photo above shows a taped crow lying beside a conventional drone.

Investigators got reports of drone activity near the prison early that morning. Detectives found Worthington and a person prosecutors describe as a co-conspirator in a car with a drone box and a remote controller attached to a cell phone, plus a crow full of cigars, tobacco and paper soaked in synthetic marijuana. A third crow turned up in Worthington’s hotel room with cell phones, rolling papers and tobacco.

KALB reported in March, citing the Grant Parish Sheriff’s Office, that the two women said they were being paid $40,000 to smuggle in the items. KALB counted theirs as the ninth and 10th smuggling arrests at the prison in 2026. By KALB’s tally the count reached 26 in September, when a drone carrying $31,000 of meth flew itself back to its launch point on a low battery. The federal release does not name Worthington’s co-conspirator or say where that case stands, and the second woman is presumed innocent unless convicted.

Yoan Hernandez’s Case Involved 776 Grams of 98 Percent Pure Meth

Yoan Hernandez was caught with far more methamphetamine than Worthington’s case describes. A lab confirmed 776 grams at 98 percent purity, prosecutors said, plus about two kilograms of lower purity, six pounds of marijuana and 50 sheets of suspected K2, recovered from his Airbnb and a rental car outside.

The case began on December 6, 2024, with a trespassing complaint. Surveillance cameras caught three people walking the property line near USP Pollock at about 4:30 a.m., one of them apparently carrying a drone, and officers heard a drone had been seen flying there earlier that morning. The Airbnb’s owner reported suspicious activity, and a search warrant turned up what prosecutors called a co-conspirator hiding inside, along with two drones, a 9mm handgun and artificial turf meant to disguise packages.

Federal law sets a 10-year minimum for trafficking 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, or 500 grams of a mixture containing it, under 21 U.S.C. § 841, and § 846 applies the same penalties to conspiracies. Hernandez’s 120 months equals that floor. The release does not say which penalty provision applied in either case. Hernandez pleaded guilty on June 26 and admitted he expected a percentage of the drug proceeds.

Pollock also appears in a larger federal case. FCI Pollock was one of ten federal prisons named in a June indictment in Georgia that accuses twelve people of at least 38 drone drops, and those defendants are presumed innocent unless convicted.

DroneXL’s Take

The crow is the detail everyone will repeat, and I think it is the least important fact in the case. Staff recovered the bird anyway, and detectives found the car after reports of drone activity near the facility. A decoy built for a guard’s eyes did nothing about either.

My read of the two cases side by side is that the drone barely moved the outcome. The release gives no reasons for either sentence, but Hernandez, with no delivery described in his case, drew 10 years on 776 grams of nearly pure meth. Worthington, whose conspiracy got a package to the penitentiary, got 70 months.

If the women’s account to deputies is right, someone was paying $40,000 for this job, and it bought almost six years of Worthington’s life. The next courier at Pollock should do that math before the drone goes up.

Sources: U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana, KALB, Grant Parish Sheriff’s Office

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.