WOMAN GARNERS ATTENTION AGAIN IN DRUG CASE

Tara Anderson made headlines 17 years ago as a law student who said a
sitting judge had offered her cocaine at a party.

Earlier this year, the now 44-year-old Tara Anderson Thompson is
seeing her own legal career brought down by cocaine use.

She was found guilty last month in federal court of conspiring to
launder drug money. The federal conviction comes on top of her guilty
plea to state drug charges. She said she couldn't point to a reason
for her drug use, though she said she was depressed about the breakup
of her second marriage.

Thompson faces a maximum of 20 years in prison but is likely to spend
only months in jail if she goes at all. Either way, her law career is
over much as a judge's time on the bench ended in 1988 when she
accused Larry Richter and another lawyer of offering her drugs at a party.

The allegation never was proved, but Richter chose not to seek
another term on the bench. He later won a seat in the state Senate
and made a run for attorney general. Richter refused to comment.