Randall Rolison
A Jamestown woman who was accused of smuggling drugs into the county jail, as well as the recipient who is behind bars for killing two people, have both been indicted.
Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt has announced that Debbie Hires, 57, and Randall Rolison, 61, have been indicted by a county grand jury on charges of fifth-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance and first-degree promoting prison contraband. Earlier this year, the county Sheriff’s Office filed the same charges against Hires and Rolison as well as a charge of seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.
The indictment alleges that Hires gave a quantity of methamphetamine to Rolison during a visit with him while he was housed at the Chautauqua County Jail on March 7.
“A quick response from corrections officers at the jail resulted in the retrieval of the methamphetamine from Mr. Rolison’s person. The investigation was then conducted by the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Department Criminal Investigation Division,” Schmidt said in a news release.
Hires was arraigned on Sept. 4 by Judge David Foley and pleaded not guilty. She was released on her own recognizance and is scheduled for a pre-trial conference on Nov. 8.
Rolison was brought to the county from Attica Correctional Facility and arraigned Sept. 9 by Foley. Rolison pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for a pre-trial conference on Nov. 12.
Schmidt said the incident occurred days before Rolison was to be transported to the custody of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to begin serving his sentence in state prison on the two fatal motor vehicle accidents. Rolison pleaded guilty in June 2023 to second-degree manslaughter in the Dec. 31, 2021, death of Alexis Hughan, and to aggravated vehicular homicide for the Dec. 3, 2022, death of Linda Kraemer.
Hughan was 15 years old and a 10th-grader at Jamestown High School when she died.
Kraemer was 71. She was killed while Rolison was out on bail.
“From the outset of each of these tragedies, they have been my primary focus,” Schmidt said in a statement after Rolison pleaded guilty in Chautauqua County Court. “This is the best I could do for them, but it will never heal the wounds inflicted upon them. The holes in their lives will never be filled.”
Rolison was sentenced in February to between 13 and 40 years in state prison. While he was waiting to be transferred to the Attica Correctional Facility, deputies in the county jail stopped the attempt to smuggle drugs into the jail.
Rolison has also pleaded guilty in federal court to being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Louis Testani, who is handling the firearms case, stated that in January 2022, the Jamestown Police Department and FBI began investigating Rolison’s purchase of firearms outside of the state of New York and subsequent sale of the firearms in the Southern Tier of New York. The investigation determined that Rolison, an over-the-road truck driver, purchased firearms and ammunition from a roadside stand in the state of Georgia between the summer 2021 and December 2021, and subsequently transported and sold, or attempted to sell, a total of nine firearms and ammunition in New York.
Rolison sent pictures of the firearms via text message to various individuals to solicit interest in purchasing them and would subsequently straw purchase the firearms on behalf of the individuals. In June 1997, Rolison was convicted of a felony in Michigan and is legally prohibited from possessing a firearm.