SHE'S STILL PAYING FOR GIVING IN

BEDFORD HILLS -- At age 15, Elaine Bartlett gave birth to her first son.
With the arrival of three more children, she tried to get off welfare.

Finally, in the fall of 1983, she thought she had found a way: with a
co-worker, Bartlett planned to buy and operate a beauty shop where she could
continue her trade as a hair stylist and manicurist -- and make enough money
to support her four children and live-in boyfriend.

To do it, however, Bartlett, then 26, needed to supply a substantial down
payment to secure her share of the shop. The $150 she earned weekly at her
current shop wasn't enough.

So she finally gave in to George.

George was the guy who'd been coming to the beauty shop for more than a
year. Bartlett knew George was a drug dealer, and he was always offering to
pay her big money in exchange for being a mule -- delivering drugs to customers.

"I was paranoid," Bartlett, now 41, said of her first -- and only -- drug
delivery. She and her boyfriend took an afternoon train from Manhattan to
Rensselaer to hand over the drugs. The four ounces of cocaine were tightly
wrapped in a bag and tucked into Bartlett's waistband, under her shirt.

Within an hour, Bartlett was in handcuffs. Two months later, she was slammed
with a prison sentence of 20 years to life.

"I was just dumbfounded," she recalled in a recent interview at the Bedford
Hills Correctional Facility, the state's only maximum-security prison for
women. The facility houses about 850 women, half of whom are incarcerated on
drug charges, officials estimate.

"I was scared I was going to die. I'd never been arrested, not even for
jaywalking or a parking ticket," she said. "I was no big drug kingpin. I
only had $5 in my pocket when I was arrested."

When she went to trial, Bartlett was offered a five-years-to-life sentence
as part of a plea bargain -- but only if she agreed to become a police
informant. She declined, and was shipped off to prison. Twice Bartlett has
applied for clemency, and twice she has been rejected.

The irony of the situation is that Bartlett grew up drug-free until she
turned 15, and then she only used marijuana, she says. That was no easy feat
in Harlem in the late 1960s, where "drugs were everywhere --
in the hallway, in the stores. I'd seen people OD, I'd seen people with
needles sticking out of their arms."

She accepts responsibility for her participation in George's scheme, and
admits she deserved "some kind of punishment." But a 20-year sentence, she
says, is too much.

"Had I known about the Rockefeller Drug Laws, there's no way I would have
ever went to trial. I committed suicide when I went to trial," she said.

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Content-Type: text/html; charset"us-ascii"

(html)
Source: Times Union (Albany, NY) (br)
Contact: tuletters@timesunion.com (br)
Fax: 518-454-5628 (br)
Authors: Lara Jakes, Capitol Bureau(br)
(br)
SHE'S STILL PAYING FOR GIVING IN(br)
(br)
BEDFORD HILLS -- At age 15, Elaine Bartlett gave birth to her first son.
With the arrival of three more children, she tried to get off
welfare.(br)
(br)
Finally, in the fall of 1983, she thought she had found a way: with a
co-worker, Bartlett planned to buy and operate a beauty shop where she
could continue her trade as a hair stylist and manicurist -- and make
enough money to support her four children and live-in boyfriend. (br)
(br)
To do it, however, Bartlett, then 26, needed to supply a substantial down
payment to secure her share of the shop. The $150 she earned weekly at
her current shop wasn't enough.(br)
(br)
So she finally gave in to George.(br)
(br)
George was the guy who'd been coming to the beauty shop for more than a
year. Bartlett knew George was a drug dealer, and he was always offering
to pay her big money in exchange for being a mule -- delivering drugs to
customers.(br)
(br)
"I was paranoid,'' Bartlett, now 41, said of her first -- and only
- -- drug delivery. She and her boyfriend took an afternoon train from
Manhattan to Rensselaer to hand over the drugs. The four ounces of
cocaine were tightly wrapped in a bag and tucked into Bartlett's
waistband, under her shirt.(br)
(br)
Within an hour, Bartlett was in handcuffs. Two months later, she was
slammed with a prison sentence of 20 years to life.(br)
(br)
"I was just dumbfounded,'' she recalled in a recent interview at the
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, the state's only maximum-security
prison for women. The facility houses about 850 women, half of whom are
incarcerated on drug charges, officials estimate.(br)
(br)
"I was scared I was going to die. I'd never been arrested, not even
for jaywalking or a parking ticket,'' she said. "I was no big drug
kingpin. I only had $5 in my pocket when I was arrested.''(br)
(br)
When she went to trial, Bartlett was offered a five-years-to-life
sentence as part of a plea bargain -- but only if she agreed to become a
police informant. She declined, and was shipped off to prison. Twice
Bartlett has applied for clemency, and twice she has been rejected.(br)
(br)
The irony of the situation is that Bartlett grew up drug-free until she
turned 15, and then she only used marijuana, she says. That was no easy
feat in Harlem in the late 1960s, where "drugs were everywhere -- in
the hallway, in the stores. I'd seen people OD, I'd seen people with
needles sticking out of their arms.''(br)
(br)
She accepts responsibility for her participation in George's scheme, and
admits she deserved "some kind of punishment.'' But a 20-year
sentence, she says, is too much.(br)
(br)
"Had I known about the Rockefeller Drug Laws, there's no way I would
have ever went to trial. I committed suicide when I went to trial,'' she
said. (br)
(br)
(/html)

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