Drugs found on visiting boy at prison

A Reno woman is behind bars in Carson City, accused of using her 11-year-old son to smuggle marijuana into the Northern Nevada Correctional Center.

Dawn Andrea Underwood, a 33-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y.-native who lives in Reno, was charged with felony furnishing of drugs to a state prisoner when she was arrested Saturday. She is also suspected of marijuana possession and child endangerment.

Nevada Department of Prisons spokesman Glen Wharton said Underwood's intent to bring the drugs into the center was discovered through routine surveillance measures.

"Our major effort in the prison system is interdiction of drugs and we do that through investigative techniques like listening to phone calls," he said.

Prison officials used the evidence to obtain a search warrant of Underwood. When a search failed to reveal the drugs, they searched her son, Wharton said.

Underwood is being held at the Carson City Jail in lieu of $20,000 bail.