COLONEL'S WIFE RECEIVES PRISON TIME IN DRUG CASE

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 Friday for mailing $700,000 worth of heroin to New York City.

"I am ashamed. I am devastated. 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.

Hiett also was ordered to undergo 500 hours of drug treatment, which,
her attorney said, could trim a year from her sentence.

Hiett surrendered in August after authorities intercepted two 2
1/2-pound packages of heroin 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 in June. James Hiett ,
of Seaford, Va., a former head of the Military Group at the U.S.
Embassy in Bogota and commander of the U.S. Army's anti-drug operation
in Colombia, faces a maximum three years in prison and $250,000 fine.

Hiett wept on the shoulder of her attorney as the judge handed down
the sentence. Her 8-year-old son, who was in the courtroom with his
12-year-old brother, hung his head and also cried.