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.