COLONEL'S WIFE GIVEN FIVE-YEAR PRISON TERM

NEW YORK -- The wife of a U.S. Army colonel who once commanded the
military's anti-drug operation in Colombia was sentenced to five years in
prison yesterday for mailing $700,000 worth of heroin to New York City.

"If I was able to understand what it was going to do to my kids and how it
was going to destroy my husband, I wouldn't have done it," Laurie Hiett,
36, told a federal judge.

She surrendered in August after authorities found two 21/2-pound packages
of heroin that had been mailed to New York from a post office at the U.S.
Embassy in Bogota. She pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy charges.

Her husband, James Hiett, 48, was transferred out of Colombia and pleaded
guilty last month to money laundering, admitting he continued to spend
money from drug sales even after Army investigators told him about his
wife's crime. The 24-year Army veteran is awaiting sentencing.