JAIL FOR WOMAN WHO HID DRUGS IN BABY FORMULA

After tearfully apologizing Wednesday in federal court, a Chicago woman was
sentenced to 58 months in prison for smuggling drugs in infant formula cans
and traveling with other mothers' "rented" babies to avert suspicion.

Donna Washington, 57, won a break on her sentence for cooperating with
investigators--even providing information about her daughter's alleged role
in the international smuggling ring, which prosecutors called "massive."

Washington smuggled more than 9 pounds of cocaine and about two-thirds of a
pound of heroin on two trips from Panama. She was nabbed in 1999 in Atlanta
with six formula cans containing liquefied coke and a seventh with heroin
inside. She was paid less than $2,000, her lawyer Patrick O'Brien said.

Washington is recovering from cervical cancer and is blind in the left eye
from a shotgun wound she suffered in a drug deal gone bad. O'Brien asked
U.S. District Judge Ronald A. Guzman to cut her sentence because of her
poor health.

But the judge--noting Washington has arrests dating to 1966--said her
"extraordinary" cooperation was the only reason he cut her sentence. She
faced 108 months in prison.