Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2007 The New York Times Company Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298 Author: Jonathan Clark DRUG RUNNING HELPED TO FEED A BINGO HABIT BISBEE, Ariz., - 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 121/2 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. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek