KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A woman was arrested and charged with a series of crimes after she allegedly gave her 7-year-son a plastic bag containing 13 grams of methamphetamine to hide in his shorts while a police officer was outside the woman's pickup truck in a Kansas City, Missouri, casino parking lot.
Jana L. Robinson, 41, of Blue Springs, allegedly handed her son the bag about 8:30 p.m. on Thursday night in the parking lot of the Ameristar Casino.
According to a probable cause statement, KCMO police officers responded to the casino to check on a suspicious person in a suspicious vehicle with a child inside.
Arriving officers found a silver-and-blue Chevrolet truck with no rear license plate and its hood open parked in a restricted area, according to a court document.
Two men who were outside the truck ran away when they spotted the officers.
Robinson was found in the truck's driver's seat with a digital scale. A torch lighter used to smoke narcotics was in the center console of the truck, the document says.
The officer asked Robinson to get out of the truck, which had a strong odor of marijuana inside the cab, according to police.
A Missouri State Gaming Officer showed a KCPD officer screen shots of surveillance video depicting Robinson appearing to smoke an unknown substance in what appeared to be a meth pipe.
Robinson did not want officers to search the truck.
Her son, who had been in the bed of the truck, climbed into the passenger seat.
When the officer stepped back to make a phone call, Robinson talked to her son in the truck's cab. The boy's head disappeared and the officer looked into the truck to find him shoving what appeared to be a bag with drugs in it into a shorts pocket, according to the probable cause statement.
The officer told Robinson he couldn't believe she just told her son to hide the drugs while in front of him. Robinson was taken out of the truck and the officer had the boy empty his pockets on the hood of a police car.
Tests later showed the white substance in the plastic bag was about 13 grams of meth.
The officer arrested Robinson after discovering the illegal narcotics.
Police also found a bag of marijuana and a glass pipe in Robinson's purse.
Clay County prosecutors charged Robinson on Friday with possession of a controlled substance, endangering the welfare of a child and tampering with physical evidence.
A representative from the Clay County Department of Family Services took the child from the casino parking lot.
