MOM PLEADS FOR DRUG MULE

A Queens Family Court judge delayed the sentencing of a 13-year-old
drug mule yesterday, allowing city investigators to weigh a request by
the boy's mother that he be placed in a facility near her Atlanta-area
home, lawyers said.

"I want it to be over," said the boy's mother, Alissa Walden. "I want
him home."

Last month, Judge Fran Lebow found the boy, Prince Nnaedozie Umegbolu,
guilty of smuggling 87 packets of heroin in his belly when he arrived
in New York on a flight from Nigeria in April.

The Probation Department recommended that Umegbolu be placed with the
state Office of Children and Family Services, which runs detention
centers. Officials said five juvenile facilities rejected the teen,
saying he needed more structure or a more secure environment or citing
the severity of the charges.

Umegbolu faces up to 18 months in a juvenile facility when he is
sentenced. Lebow also can release the teen from custody with time served.

Defense lawyers said Umegbolu, who was living in Nigeria with his
paternal grandparents, was pressed into becoming a heroin mule by drug
dealers who threatened his life.