DRUG CHARGE COULD LAND STUDENT IN U.S. JAIL FOR 13 YEARS

Potential sentence for first offence "out of proportion," lawyer says

TORONTO -- A 23-year-old college student from Hamilton, Ont., is facing a
minimum 13-year prison sentence after a judge ordered the woman's
extradition Wednesday to Florida to stand trial on marijuana- and
ecstasy-smuggling charges.

Jennifer Ridge will receive a lengthy sentence -- if she is ultimately
convicted -- as a result of the strict drug laws in the U.S. The equivalent
offence in Canada for someone like Ridge who has no prior record would
normally result in a sentence of about three years in prison.

Ridge is alleged to be a low-level "mule" in a Hamilton-based group that was
reputedly part of a larger drug-smuggling ring smashed last year in a joint
U.S.-Canada investigation known as Operation Candy Box. More than 140 people
were arrested in both countries, with the alleged operational and financial
masterminds of the drug ring based in Toronto and Ottawa.

Ridge was arrested along with her then-boyfriend Tuan Van Pham, in March
2004, a few weeks after U.S. agents "surreptitiously seized" her car in
Buffalo. About 30,000 ecstacy tablets and approximately four kilograms of
marijuana were found in the car, according to documents filed in Ontario
Superior Court.

The potential U.S. sentence is "out of proportion" to the alleged crime,
said Ridge's lawyer Heather McArthur, who suggested that it should not
"result in the loss of 13 years of a young life."

The Mohawk College business student is alleged to have made regular trips
with Pham to Florida to smuggle the drugs. Pham is accused of being a
high-level member of the drug ring.

The allegations in the extradition documents also suggest there is more
evidence that Ridge was aware of the marijuana smuggling and not necessarily
the ecstacy smuggling.

Ridge had been free on bail for the past 14 months. She was ordered into
custody Wednesday by Superior Court Justice Sandra Chapnik, who signed the
committal order for Ridge's extradition.

The young woman left home in Hamilton at the age of 16 and ended up with the
"wrong crowd," at a bar where she worked, McArthur said Wednesday.

Ridge has re-connected with her family and just finished her second year of
a business program at Mohawk College in Hamilton.

The federal Justice Minister must approve any extradition request, and
McArthur said she hopes Irwin Cotler "will look at all the circumstances,"
of her client's case.

"He could refuse (to sign) on humanitarian grounds," said McArthur, or
decline to extradite Ridge on the ecstasy charge, which by itself carries a
10-year minimum sentence.

McArthur said her client has the support of her family and even her high
school English teacher, who wrote a letter to the court on behalf of her
former student. The potential U.S. prison sentence is "overwhelming" for the
family, said her 19-year-old sister Jaime-Lee Ridge.

Ridge now has 30 days to make legal submissions to Cotler before he makes
any decision on the extradition order.