By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
A Grayson couple arrested last year for funneling contraband to their son inside the Carter County Detention Center have been sentenced in connection with their role in the scheme. Ronald Carroll, 65, and Barbara Carroll, 59, were arrested in July of last year after investigators inside the jail discovered they were the source of contraband found in a search of their son’s cell.
At that time internal affairs investigator Sergeant Matt Moore, with the detention center, explained that Kevin Carroll, 34, had coerced a food service contractor into bringing the items into the facility. The items in question included tobacco products and nicotine vape cartridges, as well as a cell phone. The latter was the most worrying, according to Moore, because a cell phone could be used to coordinate other crimes.
The food service contractor, Kierson Callicoat, 22, of Ashland, was also arrested at that time, but cooperated with investigators.
According to Moore, the younger Carroll and other inmates played on Callicoat’s sympathies.
“She felt bad for them,” he said. But it was her cooperation that identified Ronald and Barbara Carroll as the source of the cell phone. Officers with the Grayson Police Department were then able to obtain warrants and affect the arrest the next day, Monday, July 24, 2023.
The Carrolls changed their pleas back in February, while appearing before circuit court judge, the Honorable Rebecca Phillips, but paperwork on the case was only released last week.
Both Barbara and Ronald entered pleas of guilty to charges of promoting contraband, second degree – a reduction of their original charge of promoting contraband, first degree – and were sentenced to twelve months in jail, plus court costs. The Commonwealth also recommended in both cases that the twelve month sentence be conditionally discharged for a period of two years.
Ronald Carroll’s discharge is unsupervised on the condition that he does not commit another offense during the period, refrains from the use of drugs or alcohol, pays any associated cost, and avoids “vicious habits” and “persons or places of disreputable or harmful character.” Carroll was also ordered to stay off the premises of the Carter County Detention Center.
Barbara Carroll’s release is to be supervised for the first year, with the opportunity for supervision to be lifted after the first year if she complies with the terms of her probation. These include the terms laid out in her husband’s conditional release, but includes admonishments to remain within the area designated by her probation, to report to her probation officer as directed, to pay a supervision fee of $20 per month, permit the probation officer to visit her at home and elsewhere, and to submit to periodic drug and alcohol testing at the direction of her probation officer and pay a one-time drug testing fee of $120.
Kevin Carroll had a charge of being a persistent felony offender dropped, and pleaded guilty to a charge of promoting contraband, first degree. In exchange for that plea the Commonwealth agreed to offer his parents the reduction in charges from the Class D Felony promoting contraband in the first degree to charges of promoting contraband in the second degree, Class A Misdemeanors.
Carroll was sentenced to five years of imprisonment, with court costs waived.
Phillips ruled that probation was not a consideration in the younger Carroll’s case because of the likelihood that he would commit another crime while on probation – he was incarcerated on a parole violation at the time of his contraband offense – and because an alternate sentence “would unduly depreciate the seriousness of (his) crime.”
The five years will run consecutively to the sentence he is serving in his other parole violation cases.
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com
Ronald Carroll, 65, and Barbara Carroll, 59, received probation for their role in the scheme. Their son, Kevin, received five years. (Submitted photos) 
Ronald Carroll, 65, and Barbara Carroll, 59, received probation for their role in the scheme. Their son, Kevin, received five years. (Submitted photos)
