> No such thing as legal smartphone

what does "legal" have to do with it?

They have "currency" in prison (cigarettes or something), but it's hard to translate your actual money into that currency. Your visitors can't just bring you a whole bunch of cigarettes on visiting day.

Things like cellphones are typically smuggled in via guards, for actual real money (either by inmates in possession of cash or paid from by someone outside of the prison environment). "Prison currency" tends to be valued at a fraction of its real value (so a $200 cellphone may end up costing $1000 once all of the middlemen are involved)

For some weird reason people love giving people they perceive as rich (even if they have no money anymore - even if they famously lost it) lots of money for nothing.

So illegal smartphone it is.

What cryptopunk sucker for love wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to help get her a phone? It simply isn’t that far fetched.

She's very rich by normal person standards - her husband is a millionaire. Her family is also quite wealthy/well connected (she was childhood friends with Tim Draper's daughter, that's how he became the first Theranos investor).

Several Maryland jails have tablets for inmates. Complete with video calling, messaging (monitored email and SMS), IHeartRadio, Pluto, Tubia, Coursera, Khan Academy and a bunch of games.

These are state and county institutions, not federal. So I can only imagine what's up at the Feds.