Pubdate: Tue, 15 Dec 2015
Source: Edmonton Journal (CN AB)
Copyright: 2015 The Edmonton Journal
Website: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/134
Author: Otiena Ellwand
Page: A6

JUDGE CLEARS GRANDMOTHER IN JAIL DRUG PLOT

Court finds woman under duress when she made smuggling attempt

An Edmonton grandmother who tried to smuggle drugs inside her vagina
into the Edmonton Institution has been found not guilty.

Linda Ethal Sheridan, 62, admitted she brought the drugs to the
maximum-security prison for her incarcerated son, but argued the
offences were committed under duress because she was told her son
would be killed if she didn't transport the contraband.

"It was a pressure situation, and, you know, I folded to the pressure
and I shouldn't have, obviously," Sheridan told a police officer after
she was caught.

The Crown argued Sheridan could not use duress as an excuse for her
behaviour because it "did not have an air of reality."

But in an 18-page written decision, Court of Queen's Bench Justice
Mary Moreau determined Sheridan's story did meet the requirements of
being under duress at the time, and the Crown failed to disprove it
beyond a reasonable doubt.

Moreau said she found Sheridan to be a "credible witness whose account
of the events and her decision to smuggle drugs into the Institution
was not shaken after a thorough cross-examination."

Sheridan and her 10-year-old granddaughter were going to visit her son
at the maximum-security prison on July 22, 2013, when a drug-sniffing
dog singled her out.

Sheridan was escorted to a women's bathroom where she removed three
packages containing methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana resin from
her vagina.

Officials later found nicotine patches, cigarettes and hydromorphone,
an opiate, in her bra. The drugs would have been worth $12,230 inside
the prison, Crown prosecutor Monique Dion told the court. Drugs often
have an inflated value inside the prison system.

Sheridan was charged with four counts of possession of a controlled
substance for the purpose of trafficking.

Sheridan testified that she had received an anonymous phone call two
weeks before the scheduled visit to the prison. The caller asked if
she loved her son, then threatened his life. Sheridan was told her son
would be killed if she didn't smuggle in the drugs. The caller told
her to smuggle them inside her body and in her underwear.

"He said if I did exactly as he told me, the drugs wouldn't be
detected," she previously told the court.

The drugs arrived in a mailed brown envelope a few days later,
Sheridan said, already wrapped in cellophane and condoms. She hid the
package and didn't tell her husband. Two days later, the anonymous
caller phoned again and repeated his death threat. She didn't report
the calls because the caller knew where she lived and had background
information on her son. She believed the threat was real, she said.

Sheridan's son was involved with a dangerous gang and had been shot
twice in Calgary and stabbed seven times in prison. Sheridan said she
felt her son would be murdered if she did not comply.

After the judge delivered her verdict, Sheridan's husband bowed his
head in his hands. Sheridan got teary-eyed and thanked and hugged her
lawyer.
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