BY DAN HILDEBRAN
A Florida State Prison inmate was sentenced to one day in jail after pleading to smuggling contraband into a correctional facility by hiding the device in his rectum.
According to a Department of Corrections Inspector General complaint, Keon Mayant Jr., 24, set off a handheld metal detector on February 18, 2021, as he entered Florida State Prison after disembarking from a van that transported him from Santa Rosa Correctional Institution.
A corrections sergeant told investigators that after a second metal detector also alerted to the presence of metal in the inmate’s backside area, Mayant told the sergeant he would immediately surrender the device.
“(The sergeant) explained Inmate Mayant then ‘pooped’ the cellphone out of his rectum,” wrote Senior Inspector S. Donaldson in the complaint. The officer added that the device was photographed, bagged, and sent to a lab for analysis.
Mayant began serving a 10-year sentence in 2016 for an Orange County armed robbery. He has been in Department of Corrections custody for eight years.
During a hearing before Circuit Judge James Colaw on December 18, 2024, Assistant Public Defender Susan Ward said Mayant’s case might have a statute of limitations problem because her client was arrested for the smuggling felony over three years after the alleged infraction.
“It’s not like he’s been evading capture,” Ward told the judge. “They knew exactly where he was.”
The judge told Mayant that after a quick glance, he did not see a statute of limitations issue with the case.
“But if you want more time to explore that type of issue or defense to the charges,” Colaw added, “I’m happy to give you that. I’m also happy in light of all the circumstances— you are already here today. If you just want to resolve it today, I’m happy to adjudicate you and close it, so there’s no additional time. It just means you’ll have another conviction for this felony, but you won’t do any additional time.”
The defendant responded that his current release date is March 3, 2025. He asked the judge if he would still get released in March if he pleaded to the smuggling charge.
Colaw said the plea would not add time to Mayant’s sentence but could affect any gain time he had earned while incarcerated.
After consulting with Ward, the defendant accepted the offer, and Colaw sentenced Mayant to one day in jail, with a day’s credit for time served.
