MOM MADE SON PLANT DRUGS ON ENEMY'S SON

She Could Get 15 Years In Prison After Guilty Plea

Trying to get even with an enemy, a Downers Grove woman decided to
plant drugs on her rival's son -- and she enlisted her own
14-year-old boy to do the dirty work, DuPage County prosecutors said.

Christine J. Marmolejo, 39, pleaded guilty to a felony drug charge
Wednesday in the bizarre revenge plot that could send her to prison
for 15 years.

'It was payback time' She faces the hefty sentence -- triple the
normal maximum for such a charge -- because she used her son to slip
marijuana and prescription drugs into the other boy's backpack at
Westmont High School.

The scheme that unfolded March 22 was prompted by a long-simmering
but vaguely defined dispute between Marmolejo and a Westmont woman,
prosecutors said.

"It was payback time," prosecutor Steve Knight quoted Marmolejo as saying.

Marmolejo gave her son a small amount of marijuana and six pills of
a prescription anti-anxiety medication, telling him to put them into
the other boy's bag, Knight said. Marmolejo's son slipped the drugs
into the other boy's backpack, which was under his chair in a
classroom, Knight said.

Boy implicated mother Later that day, Marmolejo called the school
and reported that her son had seen drugs in the other boy's bag.
Police searched the teen's backpack and found the drugs, but later
questioned Marmolejo's son, who implicated himself and his mother,
Knight said, adding that the boy told police "his family had been
arguing with the other family for years."

Marmolejo also acknowledged while being questioned that she provided
the drugs and concocted the plan. "She indicated she did this
because she hated the mother of the other student," Knight said.

Son pled guilty, too Marmolejo's son, now 15, has pleaded guilty to
a drug delivery charge in DuPage County Juvenile Court. He is
scheduled to be sentenced next month.

Marmolejo remains in the DuPage County Jail until she is sentenced
later this month. The drug delivery charge she was convicted of
normally carries a five-year maximum prison term, but because she
used her 14-year-old son to transfer the drugs, she faces a maximum
15-year prison term.

Her attorney declined to comment on the guilty plea.