YOUNG DRUG MULE PAYING HIGH PRICE

Jail Term: Woman, 20, caught up in smuggling because money looked good, will
not be free for a long time

We all do stupid things when we're young. Some of us, through luck,
cleverness or friends in high places, manage to escape serious
consequences. Others, like Sadie Villars, don't.

And Villars, raised in Surrey but living in Washington state, did an
exceptionally stupid thing, trying to drive across the U.S. border at
Lynden, Wash., with bags of ecstasy pills beneath her clothes. She
didn't even do a good job at the border-crossing bit, failing to
construct a story that matched her baggage.

"Sadie Villars arrived at Lynden late Monday evening, declaring that
she was returning home after having dinner with family in Canada,"
said a bulletin from U.S. Customs and Border Protection after Villars'
arrest in November. "When questioned about the contents of her
overnight bag, Villars became hesitant and changed her story."

A body search turned up three baggies holding 1,285 ecstasy
tablets.

Villars, the 20-year-old daughter of former B.C. Lions football player
Kevin Villars, was charged with felony drug possession with intent to
distribute and is now in SeaTac prison after pleading guilty. While
she awaits her June 28 sentencing, she's locked down 24 hours a day,
says her mother Theresa, 45, of Coquitlam.

"One day they had a window open, and it was raining, and she was
commenting to her fellow inmates about how she could smell the rain,
how she could remember the smell of rain," says Theresa, a bartender.

Her daughter, she says, is too scared to disclose details about her
involvement in the smuggling scheme, revealing to her mother only that
she was a "mule" carrying drugs for money and that her employers were
a group of South Asians.

"She is in fear for her life and never wants to return to Canada for
many years, 'til this is behind her," Theresa says.

Prosecutors had been seeking a five-year prison term, but Villars'
lawyer recently said the prosecution will likely ask for a two-year
sentence on June 28, Theresa says.

"She committed a bad crime," her mother says. "She has to pay for what
she's done."

Villars played high-level soccer in Surrey, and ran track during two
years of high school in Washington before she returned to live with
Theresa for her last year of high school.

"I never had a problem with Sadie at all. She was an awesome girl. She
adored her little sister, adored her in a big way, and that's probably
what's hurting her most now is the fact that she can't see her
sister," Theresa says.

At the time of her arrest, Villars had been working at a Starbucks in
Washington. Theresa believes her daughter agreed to the job as a mule
out of a desire to "keep up with the Joneses" that she'd developed as
a teen in Surrey's upscale Fraser Heights, and to show her parents
that she could make it living on her own.

Stories like Sadie's are becoming increasingly common as organized
criminals become more sophisticated and increase their smuggling
volume, says U.S. Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Thomas Schreiber.

"There is a high number of people that are just mules," Schreiber
says. "People that are operating a criminal organization, they don't
want to be near it. They don't want to get their hands dirty."

Theresa visited her daughter in prison a month ago and worries that
incarceration has already started to change her.

"Her attitude is getting a little bit harder, because she's just
trying to survive where she is," she says.