Grandma Convicted of Drug-Running to Fuel Bingo Addiction (Merged)

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Grandma Found With 214 Pounds of Pot Convicted of Drug-Running in Arizona; Cops Blame Bingo Addiction
Fox News

December 1, 2006

SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. — A grandmother found with a trunkful of marijuana was convicted of drug running in what prosecutors said was an attempt to earn cash for a bingo habit.

State troopers found 10 bundles of pot totaling 214 pounds hidden in Leticia Villareal Garcia's car trunk last year when they stopped her outside Bisbee, in far southeastern Arizona.

Villareal, 61, told jurors before they convicted her Thursday that her only regular income was a $275 monthly welfare check, but she frequently played bingo and occasionally won thousands of dollars.

Prosecutor Doyle Johnstun said the game was Villareal's undoing.

"People who play bingo almost every night of the week end up losing in the long run," Johnstun told jurors. "The underlying issue is that she's got a bingo problem, which explains why an otherwise nice person might get sucked into something like this."

Jurors rejected Villareal's argument that she'd been tricked into carrying the drugs.

Villareal faces three to 12 years in state prison when she is sentenced Dec. 18.

Link
 
Drug Running Helped to Feed a Bingo Habit

Drug Running Helped to Feed a Bingo Habit
Jonathan Clark, New York Times
January 25, 2007

BISBEE, Ariz., Jan. 27 — Playing bingo might seem a more likely pastime for a grandmother than running drugs, but a jury found that Leticia Villareal-Garcia did one so she could afford to do the other.

On Friday a judge sentenced Ms. Villareal-Garcia, 62, to three years in prison and fined her $150,000 after she was convicted of carrying more than 200 pounds of marijuana from her home in Douglas to a casino in Tucson.

When the police, acting on an informant’s tip, stopped Ms. Villareal-Garcia’s car on Feb. 12, 2005, they smelled a strong odor of fresh-cut marijuana, officials said, and found 214 pounds of it hidden in the trunk.

But Ms. Villareal-Garcia insisted that she had no idea the drug was there.

At her trial in November in Cochise County Superior Court, she testified that her son’s long-lost godfather had shown up unannounced the day before her arrest and briefly borrowed her car. Her lawyer, Robert Zohlmann, told jurors that Ms. Villareal-Garcia had been a “blind mule,” tricked unwittingly, perhaps by the godfather, into ferrying the drugs.

At the start of the trial, the prosecutor, Doyle Johnstun, seemed to be building his case on circumstantial evidence, like the fact that Ms. Villareal-Garcia was driving with her windows down in chilly winter weather, presumably to lessen the smell of marijuana.

But when a string of character witnesses, on cross-examination, testified that Ms. Villareal-Garcia played bingo nearly every night in Douglas or Tucson, and when the defendant herself said her only regular income was her sporadic bingo winnings and a $275 monthly welfare check she received for caring for her granddaughter, Mr. Johnstun thought he had a motive.

People who play bingo almost every night of the week end up losing in the long run, Mr. Johnstun told the eight jurors. “The underlying issue is that she’s got a bingo problem,” he said, “which explains why an otherwise nice person might get sucked into something like this.”

The jury deliberated less than two hours before finding the defendant guilty of transporting marijuana for sale.

Ms. Villareal-Garcia maintained her innocence at the sentencing.

“I never, never had any knowledge of that car being loaded when I went to Tucson,” she told Judge Wallace R. Hoggatt during a brief but emotional statement.

Although he could have sentenced her to as much as 12½ years in prison, the judge, citing Ms. Villareal-Garcia’s age and lack of prior convictions, opted for a minimum term of three years and the fine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/us/28bingo.html
 
n4k33n said:
officials said, and found 214 pounds of it hidden in the trunk.

But Ms. Villareal-Garcia insisted that she had no idea the drug was there.
Click to expand...

The things people say is amazing. She either has no sense of smell, or is a horrible liar. 214 pounds! Most people would be able to detect a mere gram or two if it was in their car, this is 97,068 times that (do the math)!
 
hahahaha thats way funny

can you imagine getting a phone call during dinner that you need to bail grandma out of jail for smuggling 200lb's of pot. haha
 
Astavats said:
The things people say is amazing. She either has no sense of smell, or is a horrible liar. 214 pounds! Most people would be able to detect a mere gram or two if it was in their car, this is 97,068 times that (do the math)!
Click to expand...

Plenty of people get tricked into transporting drugs.

It happens everyday.

People also have drugs stored in their house without their knowledge etc.

You would be very surprised.

Not saying that this is what happened in this case, I am just saying, it does happen, very often.

As far as most people being able to detect a gram or two in their car, that is just totally ridiculous.

I could hide a pound of herb in your car, and you would have absolutely no clue.
 
Astavats feels and gropes his way about his friends' bodies, searching for the marijuana. He will find it. But Jesus, 3 years for a poor 60 year-old woman?
 
Damn, that old lady got connections. She must have been good friends with the local drug lord. jk

But seriously, doesn't really make sense that she's so connected so I will say that she is an unwilling mule.
 
Check out the Curb Your Enthusiasm with the kamikaze bingo
 
She is 62, and makes less that 300 per month and gets fined 150K? Thats a crime right there. Assuming she pays 300 a month on that fine without interest, that is almost 42 years to pay that off, unless of course she wins big at bingo. Or starts smuggling dope again.

nofx said:
Check out the Curb Your Enthusiasm with the kamikaze bingo
Click to expand...
hahah. thats a good one.

Having herb in your car is all about how you contain it. I've taken ounces in it that have had less of a noticable smell because it was in a good container, than a few grams in a baggie that stuck up my car.

Roaches are the worst tho. Nothing smells as much as a fat blunt roach in the ashtray.
 
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