DANVILLE WOMAN PAROLED IN PERU

Aspiring model jailed for smuggling cocaine awaits OK to return home

After an arduous bureaucratic struggle, an Illinois woman sentenced to 6
years in prison on drug charges has been freed on parole from a Peruvian
prison.

Jennifer Davis, 22, was released this week from Santa Monica de Chorillos
women's prison in Lima and immediately called her parents near Danville, the
parents revealed Wednesday.

Davis is expected to remain in Lima for three to six months while
authorities finish processing papers for her parole transfer to the United
Sates.

Although she has been released from jail, Davis cannot leave the country
until Peruvian officials approve the transfer, according to Chris Widmayer,
a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who was active in trying to
win her release.

Still, the news is welcome relief to Davis' family, including her
15-year-old sister, Melissa, who was watching television in their home when
she was startled by her sister's phone call around 9:50 p.m. Tuesday.

"It was Jennifer, and she was all excited . . . and I thought, 'Oh my gosh,
my sister is free,' " Melissa said.

The teenager ran down the hall, yelling the unexpected news to her parents,
who already were in bed.

"We heard her scream, and I thought, 'Oh lord, please no more bad news,' "
Jennifer's father, Denny Davis, said Wednesday.

But Jennifer's mother, Claire, said she knew it was good news as soon as she
heard her younger daughter's footsteps in the hall.

"I just felt it," said Mrs. Davis, who described a "nightmare that started
in September 1996," when her daughter, an aspiring model living in Los
Angeles, was arrested at Lima's airport with more than 7 pounds of cocaine
in her luggage. She had agreed to carry it for a drug ring in exchange for
$5,000 and a vacation to Lima.

Durbin took an interest in the case because although "what she did was wrong
and she should be punished, the conditions in the Peruvian prisons are so
inhumane, it's beyond what any person should endure," Widmayer said.

After Davis' transfer is approved, the Justice Department is expected to
appoint a magistrate to escort her back to the U.S., where she is expected
to serve the remainder of her parole.

"We're praying it doesn't take that much time, but she's out of prison;
that's the main thing," her father said. "Now we don't have to lie in bed
wondering anymore whether she's OK, if she's going to make it through this."

Peruvian and U.S. Embassy officials in Lima could not immediately confirm
the release, and Davis' parents would say only that she is in a "safe,
secure place."

Davis was released along with her Los Angeles roommate, Krista Barnes, 20,
who also had been arrested and for the last two years and 10 months has been
in prison.

Both received relatively lenient 6-year sentences after agreeing to
cooperate with investigators to convict high-ranking members of the drug
ring. Both also have promised to return home and warn other youths about the
dangers of involvement in drug trafficking.

In a 1997 prison interview with the Tribune, Davis said she tried to back
out of the drug deal in Lima but couldn't because members of the drug ring
had her passport.

"They said, 'You're not going to get caught,' " she said. "It was sure a
free trip, a trip to a nightmare in hell. Boy, was I stupid."

After a complicated appeals process by Peruvian members of the drug ring,
Peru reconfirmed Davis' sentence May 10, and she had waited for word of
parole since.

Under Peruvian law, she and Barnes have been eligible for parole for the
last 10 months, after completing the required one-third of their prison
sentences.

Davis' call home Tuesday night was a particular thrill for her younger
sister, who also had been the one to receive the bad news in September 1996.

"We're very, very happy, and Jennifer's on Cloud 9 right now," said Davis'
mother, who said her daughter, who has had access to only dirty water in
buckets to wash herself, said that a hot shower and "going grocery shopping
and filling up two carts" are among the first things on her wish list of
things to do upon her return.

"It's all simple things that the rest of us take for granted--like opening
and shutting a door many times," said Denny Davis, who said that though his
daughter deserved to be punished, it should have been more humane.

"I spent the better part of 23 years as a prison guard and was an MP
(Military Police while in the Marines) and had never seen anything that
compared to what I saw when I first arrived down there," he said.

Ralph Ruebner, a professor at John Marshall Law School who has been one of
the lawyers for the women, visited them in April 1997 while they were
incarcerated.

"I can tell you, sanitation is unheard of," Ruebner said Wednesday. "Running
water is unavailable. There is no electricity. There is infestation of rats
and other animals. Insects are a problem. Basically, in these prisons there
is no available food that is edible and no water that is drinkable."

Inmates survive on food and supplies provided by families on the outside, he
said.

Denny Davis said his family tried to send all of the Americans in Peruvian
prisons sustenance in the form of food and prayers.

He said, "We knew the kids weren't being fed, and when we ate we prayed that
the nourishment that we took somehow would be given to the kids."