U.S. drug 'mule' gets 3-year prison sentence on his 90th birthday

By James B. Kelleher

DETROIT (Reuters) - A 90-year-old Indiana man who admitted serving as a cocaine courier for a Mexican drug cartel was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in federal prison.

Leo Sharp, a decorated World War Two combat veteran who turned 90 on Wednesday, was also sentenced to three years supervised release by Judge Nancy Edmunds in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Sharp had told Edmunds before she sentenced him, "All I can tell you your honor is that I'm really heartbroken that I did what I did. But it's done."

Afterward, Sharp turned to prosecutors and called the three-year prison term a "death sentence."

Sharp was pulled over by police in October 2011 for erratic driving on an interstate highway in Michigan with what turned out to be 104 bricks of cocaine in his truck.

Prosecutors said Sharp hauled 1,250 kilograms (2,755 pounds) of cocaine into Michigan from the southwest United States on a half-dozen trips from February 2010 until his arrest, earning $1,000 per kilogram for drugs he transported.

He also hauled duffel bags stuffed with cash back to the southwest border of the United States for the criminal organization that was part of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, prosecutors said.

He pleaded guilty last October to one count of conspiring to distribute cocaine in an agreement with prosecutors that included a recommendation for a prison sentence of five years.

Sharp's attorneys had asked for supervised release or home confinement, saying he suffers from dementia and other health conditions and needs 24-hour monitoring.

Prosecutors said, however, that Sharp had managed to avoid detection for a decade in part because of his age and was now trying to use his age to shield himself from punishment.

Edmunds departed from both suggestions and said the effort to blame Sharp's actions on age and dementia was "an insult to all the people who struggle with dementia and don't become involved in illegal activity."

Edmunds said Sharp was in the middle of the drug conspiracy.

"This is not a victimless crime," Edmunds said. "This is a very serious offense."

Sharp's plea agreement and reduced charge allowed him to avoid a mandatory 10-year minimum sentence. He agreed to forfeit two properties in Florida and $500,000 cash, but not his home and farm in Michigan City, Indiana.

(Reporting by James B. Kelleher; Writing by David Bailey; Editing by Jon Herskovitz)

Society & CultureCrime & JusticeNancy EdmundsMexican drug cartel

View the original article here

Mexican bid to smuggle phone into prison in coffin

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico City prison authorities say they have quashed an attempt to smuggle a prohibited cell phone into a city prison in the coffin of an inmate's mother.

Prisoners in the city have the right to have the casket of a deceased parent or child brought into the prison yard so they can bid farewell to their relative.

But city correctional spokesman Emilio Castelazo said Friday that before the coffin was allowed into the Santa Marta Acatitla prison, guards searched the casket and found the cell phone inside.

Castelazo said a criminal complaint has been filed. Several relatives were with the coffin at the time.

Cell phones are banned because inmates frequently use them to coordinate criminal activities outside prison or make extortion calls.

View the original article here

Man uses spoon to break out of Russian maximum-security prison

Russian officials say Oleg Topalov used only a spoon to escape from a maximum security prison (Federal Prison Supervision …

One man, using only a spoon, has escaped from one of Russia’s most infamous prisons.

Sky News reports that 33-year-old Oleg Topalov escaped from Matrosskaya Tishina, apparently by using a single spoon to dig a hole through his cell’s ceiling.

He is only the fourth person in 20 years to escape from the prison. Russian investigators have blamed Topalov’s escape on the prison staff, who they say engaged in a, "dishonest or careless attitude to their work that was made use of by the prisoner Topalov."

Topalov, who was sentenced for double murder and arms trafficking, used the spoon to create a hole in the cell’s roof, opened a ventilation shaft and then climbed to the prison’s roof, finally escaping over the building’s perimeter fence.

"Because of the building being run-down, Topalov had no difficulty in widening the vent of the air-shaft, through which he got to the prison’s roof,” Russian Federal Penitentiary Service representative Kristina Belousova told RIA Novosti. “Using sheets tied one to another he managed to go down the wall, then jump over the fence and run away.”

One unnamed witness says Topalov didn’t use sheets, but rather acquired rope from the prison’s psychiatric ward.

Prison officials described Topalov as “mentally unstable and liable to escape,” and have offered a “large reward” for his capture.

Interestingly, under Russian law, Topalov only faces an additional four years of incarceration if he is captured.

Reports said Topalov shared a cell with around seven other prisoners, though it’s unclear what role, if any, they played in his daring escape.

Matrosskaya Tishina was first opened in 1946 and is considered one of Russia’s most secure prisons. Over the years, it has been home to high-profile Russian prisoners, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Sergey Magnitsky.

Inmates and their cells are checked each day for illegal objects. Because of this strict enforcement policy, investigators say Topalov could only have used a spoon to make his escape attempt.

Prison service spokesman Sergei Tsygankov said Topalov had been singled out as someone who was likely to make a prison escape attempt. And while Russian officially typically are reluctant to provide details surrounding inmates, they have released pictures of Topalov to the public as part of their attempts to apprehend the former organized crime member.

The prison’s last known escape occurred in 2005, when convicted hitman Aleksandr Solonik used mountain climbing equipment provided to him by a prison officer to escape. The pair rappelled over the prison’s walls using 20 feet of rope and have not been seen in public since.

Moscow's maxium security prison, Matrosskaya Tishina, as seen in a 2009 photo (AFP)

View the original article here

Police: Mom NY used Kiss to give son drugs in prison

PENN YAN, N.Y. (AP) — Police say an upstate New York woman passed medicines to his son while kissing him when she visited him in prison.

Sheriff's deputies Yates County to tell local media took 54-year-old Penn Yan resident Kimberly Margeson was visiting his son last week when she hid pills of oxycodone and passed them from his mouth to his and giving him a kiss.
The police did not say how the drugs were discovered.
Margeson pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of criminal sale of a controlled substance and promoting prison contraband. She is free after posting bail.
Authorities say 30-year-old son also was charged with promoting prison contraband. He remains in jail on a charge of felony weapon possession, and could not be contacted a lawyer for him.

View the original article here