COLONEL SENTENCED FOR LAUNDERING NARCOTICS CASH

Some Drug War

It was one of the most unusual cases in America's so-called "war on
drugs." While the U.S. military was combatting drug operations in
Colombia, the commander of the American effort had a narcotics problem in
his own family.

Col. James Hiett initially said that he did not know his wife was shipping
cocaine and heroine from Colombia to the United States when this was
discovered last year. Yet he pleaded guilty in April to charges that he
failed to turn her in and admitted that he laundered $25,000 in proceeds
after learning the Army was investigating.

His wife, Laurie, pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy charges, admitting she
shipped packages containing $700,000 worth of heroin and cocaine from
Colombia to New York City. She is serving a five-year sentence.

Col. Hiett, who is retiring from the Army, was sentenced last week to five
months in prison for laundering cash from his wife's drug operations. In
total, he will serve a years's probation.

U.S. District Judge Edward Korman did not oppose Col. Hiett's bid for
probation. But he called the 48-year-old officer's crime a "betrayal of
trust" in the War on Drugs.

When an affender "is in a postion of trust, when someone is a colonel in
Colombia...it undermines confidence in the military, it undermines
confidence in the country's drug program," the judge said.

Also speaking at the trial was the mother of an Army pilot, Jennifer Odom,
who died earlier this year on a spying mission in Colombia. The mother,
Janie Shafer, said that her daughter "had no idea she was serving under
someone who was sending back drugs to the United States while she was going
out on anti-drug missions."

This case reveals a terrible dereliction of duty. To think that while
American military personel were risking their lives in the fight against
drugs, the commander of that effort was trying to cover up drug use. Incredible.