Woman arrested for drone flight carrying drugs and porn in Australian prison

A Brisbane woman pleaded guilty on Friday in connection with an incident last spring when a drone carrying drugs and pornography crashed on the recreational grounds of a Queensland correctional facility.

According to information originally reported by the Australian Associated Press, 27-year-old Cheyenne Anniki Petryszyn was on probation when a drone containing buprenorphine strips, methamphetamine and a USB stick containing pornography was found at a training range and crashed.

Prison staff said they found the drone on the ground at approximately 10:47 a.m. on April 1, 2022, near a bag containing 79 strips of buprenorphine, a drug used to treat opioid addiction, 0.94 grams of methamphetamine and the USB flash drive. Stick containing an unknown amount of pornographic material. A barcode on the drone was later linked to a purchase Petryszyn made about a month before the incident in question. Petryszyn has since returned to prison to serve an 11-year sentence on an unrelated drug trafficking charge. In October 2022, he was also charged with murder in a separate, unrelated matter.

Petryszyn pleaded guilty in court on Friday to two counts of aggravated supply of dangerous drugs in a correctional facility. She also had two accomplices, 33-year-old Cory Jay Sinclair Keleher and 37-year-old Bradley William Knudson, who both pleaded guilty to the same charge, although Knudson only received one count.

The article said the three conspired to have Petryszyn obtain the contraband and use information about the prison’s layout given to her by Keleher, who was released the same day, to ensure that the drone arrives safely on the other side of the prison walls. Knudson planned to distribute the drugs once they arrived at the correctional facility. According to the article, it is unknown who actually piloted the drone that day, but the cargo never reached its intended recipient.

“Officers monitored calls from nearby [cell blocks] and identified conversations between Knudson and Petryszyn during which arrangements were made for the crime,” the Crown prosecutor in the case said in court, detailing how code language about a fishing trip was used to plan the operation.

Prosecutors said that after the drone was discovered, there was also a phone conversation in which Petryszyn said that “everything crashed and burned.”

Keleher’s defense attorney (fancy word for “attorney”) asked Judge Wilson for leniency because his client struggled with substance abuse and had suffered from child abuse and mental disorders in the past.

“He’s working on his drug addiction … he’s turned things around,” said defense attorney Gavin Webber.

Defense attorney Michael Connolly said on behalf of Knudson that his client had endured a traumatic childhood and had been cooperative with the court so far.

“It shows he’s remorseful and recognizes his behavior,” Connolly said, referring to his client’s offer to plead guilty months before trial.

Petryszyn’s defense attorney argued that adding a “crushing” consecutive sentence to the 11-year sentence Petryszyn was already serving would be too harsh and asked Judge Wilson to take into account laws that require new sentences to be served in prison have been imposed, consecutive sentences must be taken into account before sentencing.

Judge Wilson reportedly granted all of the defendants’ respective requests for leniency because Knudson and Keleher had attempted rehabilitation and Petryszyn was already serving a lengthy prison sentence. All of this was taken into account during Judge Wilson’s deliberations, but she also noted that all three defendants had attempted to supply a large quantity of drugs to a place where people were trying to improve their lives and recover from drug and alcohol addiction to recover.

Knudson was sentenced to two years in prison and Keleher and Petryszyn to 16 months, but all three were eligible for parole as of Friday. The Crown prosecutor said in this case the value of the drugs and contraband seized was up to $119,000, given the extremely high prices that drugs can fetch in prisons.