Baltimore Woman Receives Light Sentence on Drug Charges

An unlucky-in-love woman received a lenient sentence after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute heroin. The Baltimore woman was sentenced to six months in jail in Washington County Circuit Court this week after she admitted to smuggling heroin into Maryland Correctional Institution-Hagerstown. According to Assistant State’s Attorney Robert Veil, the state normally seeks a sentence of four years in prison for guilty pleas in similar cases involving drug charges.

The 25-year-old woman was manipulated by a prison inmate who promised her a romantic relationship. The man instructed her to smuggle a balloon containing heroin into the correctional facility. The woman’s public defender said she was unaware of what the substance was, but that she knew what she was doing was not right.

The woman received the heroin balloon from a woman she did not know the night before she went to visit the man at the correctional facility. When she arrived on June 28, an officer with a police dog noticed that she appeared nervous. When he approached her and asked if she had any contraband, she removed the balloon filled with heroin from her bra.

Because the woman had been cooperative and candid with investigators, Veil did not seek the usual sentence of four years in prison. Veil told Circuit Judge M. Kenneth Long Jr. that the woman should receive jail time, but for a shorter period and not in state prison.

The judge was perplexed as to why this woman, who has no criminal record, would put so much on the line for the prison inmate. The woman replied, “I was thinking with my heart.” This case demonstrates that sometimes the defendant can also be a victim.

Source: The Herald-Mail “Woman ‘thinking with my heart’ gets jail in drug case,” Don Aines, 27 Oct. 2010

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