INFORMANT BACKED OUT ON POLICE

Hoping to make a big drug bust in May, police rigged Cynthia Corwin with a
wire, gave her some money and told her to buy some crack cocaine.

She reneged on the deal, she admitted Monday, when she took the wire off
and prevented police from listening in on the conversation.

Police say she also smoked the crack cocaine she was supposed to buy as a
police informant in their attempt to implicate two men on drug charges.

Corwin, indicted on tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice,
charges that carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison, told Hamilton
County Common Pleas Court Judge Melba Marsh Monday she took the wire off,
bought the drugs and hid them under the cushion of a chair she was sitting in.

But assistant prosecutor Ryan Nelson told the judge, "She smoked the crack.
She was caught with a crack pipe on her."

Police arrested her at the scene of the attempted sting May 17. They also
arrested the two men, Scott Thompson and Timothy McFarland. Thompson has
been indicted for possession of cocaine and two counts of trafficking in
cocaine, charges carrying a maximum sentence of 19 1/2 years. McFarland was
indicted for trafficking in cocaine, a charge with a maximum sentence of 1
1/2 years in prison.

The judge wasn't sure Corwin should have been charged.

"I have difficulties with this," Marsh told both sides in the case Monday.
"The police sent her in. Just because she didn't deliver the way they
wanted her to deliver - can they charge her for, uh, non- performance? When
she walked out, she's still an agent of the state."

The judge asked the prosecutor and Corwin's attorney to return to court Friday.