Posted on 02/26/2006 3:53:57 PM PST by microgood
Just after dawn on a May morning in 2004, Jessica Carothers, awakened by shouting outside her front door, stumbled out of bed. Her boyfriend had left for work a few minutes before, and Carothers' 4-year-old son was sound asleep.
The noise grew louder. Carothers, still groggy, crept into the narrow front hall just as federal marshals kicked in her door.
"Down on the ground!" they shouted, shining flashlights into her face and barking questions: Where was her boyfriend? Did she know what he was involved in?
Carothers was stunned. Alejandro Villafana-Vilchis had been living with her only two months. She said she didn't know what the marshals were talking about or why they were after him. But in the couple's bedroom, police found more than 165 grams of methamphetamine stuffed beneath a night table and a scale stashed inside the closet. By that evening, Carothers, a 25-year-old single mother, was sitting in jail, charged with possession, conspiracy and maintaining a drug-involved premises. Her boyfriend of three years was long gone.
Carothers' case is one of hundreds annually in which federal agents, seeking to quash drug rings, have been permitted to cast a wide net, trapping anyone with a link, no matter how tenuous. The goal is to extract cooperation from friends, family -- any associate who may have information -- using the threat of harsh penalties. But analysts at the Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C., who research criminal justice policy say the laws also have sent thousands of wives and girlfriends to jail -- many of them single mothers such as Carothers -- though they may have done little more than take a phone message.
Federal prosecutors say Carothers did much more than that. With her boyfriend, Villafana-Vilchis, a major player in a meth ring spanning three counties, the Everett woman acted as his willing assistant, they contend, aiding his transactions and providing an apartment where he could store the goods.
But to Carothers, who'd worked her way up from the mailroom of a Bothell biotech firm to become its assistant director, the charges were ludicrous. She drove a 7-year-old Pontiac, which she'd bought used and was still paying off. She worked full time, and though Villafana-Vilchis sometimes bought her roses, he couldn't afford to get his teeth fixed before she put him on her dental plan.
"We didn't even have cable," she said. "It didn't seem like he was this big drug dealer."
Nevertheless, over the next two years Carothers found herself doubted and scrutinized by a legal system determined to send her to prison -- and accustomed to winning.
Admittedly, she said, when it came to men, Carothers' choices had been poor. Her son's father took off while she was pregnant. But Villafana-Vilchis seemed better. He happily changed diapers and fixed bottles. He had a decent job laying carpet, she thought, and if there were things that bothered her -- the way he acted after a few drinks, the druggie-looking friends he'd sometimes meet -- Carothers closed her eyes. Her boy needed a father, she said.
Now it looked as if the 4-year-old might lose his mother. She had already spent five days in a federal holding pen, and no one believed her claims of innocence.
"We'll see you again," said a guard, escorting her from the jail after she was released on bond. "The feds don't make mistakes about this stuff."
The idea of a plea bargain requiring that Carothers admit to running a drug-involved premise was anathema. It would permanently brand her a felon, killing any chance of getting a government loan for school or housing assistance -- not to mention its effect on future job prospects.
But the thought of risking a 10-year prison sentence at trial and leaving her son to foster care seemed worse. So Carothers signed.
This Solomon-like choice, one faced by scores of low-level drug defendants, last year prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to release a report, "Caught in the Net," highlighting the effect of federal drug laws on women and children.
"Many of the drug-conspiracy and accomplice laws were created to go after kingpins," said Lenora Lapidus, the report's author. "But women who may simply be a girlfriend or wife are getting caught in the web as well and sent to prison for very long times when all they may have done is answer the telephone."
The net effect, she said, has been an explosion of women in federal prison -- the numbers have more than doubled since 1991 -- most of whom have children.
They are women like Dorothy Gaines, a mother of three in Alabama who was sentenced to 19 1/2 years for conspiracy to deliver crack cocaine after she drove her boyfriend to his dealer's house. Gaines had never used drugs herself and federal agents found none at her home. But other defendants in the case, who had won deals with prosecutors by promising to provide information, fingered Gaines. She was charged, convicted and served six years before President Clinton granted her executive clemency in 2000.
Despite the early release, Gaines' life has been paralyzed, said her friend Roger Goodman, director of the King County Bar Association's Drug Policy Project. "She calls me every week saying, 'They won't give me a job, I can't get housing, can't get a loan for school.' This is happening to hundreds of thousands of people across the country," he said.
Western Washington has been more generous than other jurisdictions in offering fair deals to defendants, defense lawyers acknowledge. But still, laws mandating tough minimum sentences have forced judges here to hand out harsh prison terms to dozens of first-time offenders with families, jobs and once-bright futures.
"They make one mistake and go away for years in prison, branded for life," said Jeffrey Steinborn, an attorney specializing in marijuana cases. "The system's become mindless in that sense."
One of his recent clients, a woman who just turned 21, is serving nine years for bringing a purse full of ecstasy across the U.S.-Canada border.
"She had no previous record, didn't rob, steal, lie or cheat," Steinborn said. "She was just young and dumb and taken advantage of by someone who manipulated her. In the old days before sentence guidelines, I would have walked that girl without a day in jail."
Carothers says her connection to the drug trade was even more peripheral. She hadn't been a target of the government's initial investigation -- indeed, agents had no warrant for her arrest the morning they kicked down her door -- even though they'd monitored conversations from her phone.
What was most unusual, however, is that her case went to trial at all, because the vast majority of federal defendants plead guilty.
Carothers had done so, too, but only, she says, because a lawyer had led her to believe it would mean six months of house arrest, nothing more. When she learned otherwise -- the arrangement was closer to two years in prison -- Carothers went ballistic.
She had a new lawyer by then, Gil Levy, whom she urged to withdraw the plea and take her case to court. He tried to dissuade her -- almost no one gets away clean in a federal trial, he said -- and so did the government. The feds offered another deal. They told her they hadn't lost a wiretapping case in 10 years. They asked what she thought would happen to her son while his mother was doing a decade in prison.
"I was scared to death," Levy said. "The risks were just so high. With the wrong jury on the wrong day, Jessica could be looking at 10 years."
But Carothers was resolute.
"Maybe it was naïve, but I thought, 'How can I be found guilty when I don't even know any of these people, and I wasn't involved?' " she said.
Evidence in her case consisted of several dozen calls made from Carothers' apartment and cell phone to the meth ring's leader, Jose Roman-Santana, during which her boyfriend was "clearly buying drugs," said the prosecutor, Susan Roe.
A chart with the kingpin on top and a line connecting him straight to Villafana-Vilchis, with Carothers' name right beside in bold, red letters stood facing the jury.
Then there was the meth and scale in her bedroom (both a surprise to Carothers, she says) as well as testimony from Roman-Santana asserting that he'd called Carothers' phone, looking for her boyfriend.
Providing this and other information had wrangled Roman-Santana -- a confessed dealer whose operation netted investigators 5 pounds of meth, $64,000 in cash and 27 guns -- an eight-year sentence. Carothers, whose main involvement appeared to be allowing her boyfriend phone privileges, faced at least 10.
"All their evidence was about Alejandro. None of it was against me," she said. "It seemed like their plan was to make him look really guilty and say well, this is his girlfriend -- she's guilty by association."
Enough for a conspiracy charge. But not enough, apparently, to persuade a jury.
On Feb. 3, after eight hours of deliberation, they acquitted her on all counts. Justice, said the judge, had been done.
Carothers' son, now 6, still knows nothing about the case, the trial or the burden his mother carried for nearly two years. He no longer cries, wondering where his missing "Poppie" has gone. But sometimes, late at night, he'll ask, "Mommy, do you remember when the police came to our house that day?"
Villafana-Vilchis, still a fugitive, is believed to be in Mexico.
P-I reporter Claudia Rowe can be reached at 206-448-8320 or claudiarowe@seattlepi.com.
If my relatives are doing something they shouldn't and for some reason I am caught up in the investigation, then it is my duty to deal with it as openly and honestly as I can and pray for the same outcome as this woman.
Still, they found the drugs in HER bedroom. If my family member hid something in my house, I guess I still believe that I would be responsible for explaining how it got there. Saying that I had no idea and expecting everyone to believe it is just silly.
Like I said, one can only hope that in the end, justice is done.
I'll say the same thing of riding "friends" in your car. If you know someone uses cocaine or some other substance or you don't know them that well, you might consider not riding them in your car.
They may explain that they will claim ownership if you are ever stopped by police, but then you never know, do you? People can be fair weather friends.
Money spends better in Mexico. Cost of living is cheaper. May have always been his retirement plan, take his nest egg home with him.
I see women make AWFUL choics about men all the time. Can't count the number of attractive women I know who aren't interested in the nice, clean-cut, hard working types, but are also always complaining about the thugs with whom they hook up. I think part of it is an excitement thing. I don't get the rest of it.
Anymore, I just tune their complaining out.
And then when things go to crud, they are just shocked, SHOCKED. And sometimes "goes to crud" includes nightmares like this story. But in a little while they do the same thing and hook up with the same types of thugs.
Also know guys who do the flip side: Keep after the very attactive but whacked-out women, complain about them, all while ignoring the reasonably attractive nice ones.
What's driving this? Where did our culture go so wrong?
BUMP
I don't know for sure. I will tell you that I hang out with a pretty square bunch of people though, so my chances are pretty low. Call it risk management if you will.
But life is full of "taking chances." All we can do is live a good clean life and believe that justice will prevail.
Sometimes it doesn't. That is reality. I accept that as a small risk every morning when I get up. It is the cost of doing business, so to speak.
The old "innocent spouse" defense. I find it very, very hard to believe that a woman who has never done drugs is shacked up with a coke dealer. And I can be as starry eyed as anyone.
In the state of Washington? You've got to be kidding. Most corrupt government and courts in the country.
If truth be told,we could kick out every illegal Mexican in this country and we'd still have plenty of homegrown black and white trash doing the same destructive acts and pushing the same poison.
I've got the goods on the CJ of the state supreme court and Gregoire. They will not be in office at the end of the year.
Exactly!! The narcotics squad here are all misfits that couldn't pass a piss test if they studied for a week.
Their MO is to get a g/f or friend and threaten them with jail for a long time if they don't "roll" and will take them to jail even if they don't really know anything.
All they really want though, is to take cash money and drugs with no report...guns, which they can get a family member to sell thru the newspaper
In other words, they are much more crooked than whoever they are trying to catch for drugs.
Slut. And evil for bringing a child into this mess.
She chose him, she had to know his activities, she knew his character, she opened her legs to him, she DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO USE BIRTH CONTROL.
The state should take her child ASAP since she can't seem to keep from making decisions that hurt it.
These are the key words. In any case, not just drugs. Prosecutors are no better than defense attorneys. It's all about winning. The truth matters not.
Sir, if that is the case I will forever be in your debt.
So, when did all of this start? (I saw your profile page.)
There is a documented case from the early 90s where 12 people were arrested for distribution of cocaine. All received plea-bargains and served less than 2 years except for the least involved person, one of the dealer's wife.
She got a standard sentence of 15 years without possibility of parole for 7 years. The only reason she got the harshest sentence is that she didn't know anything and couldn't offer any information for a plea bargain like those directly involved were able to do.
Our system is broken, especially when it comes to the enforcement of drug laws. This lady will do a minimum of 7 years while child rapists do less than 2 and murderers get off in less than 20.
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