WOMAN PRESSURED TO SMUGGLE DRUGS: LAWYER

A woman on trial over drugs found two years ago inside Collins Bay
Penitentiary admitted yesterday that she brought in the dope, but told the
jury she felt she had no choice because she thought her husband's and
children's lives were in danger.

Sherry McBride, 41, testified that three large, bald-headed strangers
pushed their way into her Days Road apartment and threatened to have her
husband, John Major, killed and to hurt her two daughters unless she
smuggled for them.

"I decided to do what I was told instead of risking my husband and my
children," she said.

Major is a federal inmate and McBride's lawyer, Geoffrey Griffin, has
invited the jury to conclude that the men who visited McBride were involved
in "muscling," a facet of prison life previously explained to them by
Collins Bay's preventive security officer, Robert Frankovitch.

Frankovitch testified that the inmates who do it - "they're predators,
really," - intimidate other inmates who are physically weaker, have less
status, or fewer friends. Frankovitch said the tactic is used to steal the
possessions of weaker inmates, force them to do favours or buy things for
their oppressors.

Frankovitch agreed with Griffin that an inmate being muscled has limited
options, those being to fight, give in or go into protective custody. He
also conceded Griffin's suggestion that inmate culture doesn't always make
a distinction between protective custody and informant or "rat" status.

McBride told the jury the three mystery men showed up at her apartment one
day in early May 2000, around 3 p.m. as she was preparing to pick up her
six-year-old daughter at school.

"They came to my house and they knew where my kids went to school," she
said, sniffing back tears. She described the men as "thugs" and at another
point said "they just looked like those skinheads."

The strangers told her she would have to carry "a quarter pound of
marijuana," into Collins Bay on May 26, 2000, her next scheduled three-day
trailer visit with Major, she testified. She told the jury they gave her
three balloons secured with tape and told her she'd have to go to Toronto
to pick up a fourth.

McBride told the jury she paid her way to Toronto's Union Station on May
22, as instructed, and there "an Asian gentleman" picked her out and handed
her a package. Four days later, she hid the balloons and the fourth package
in the back of her pants and bra before entering the prison with her
six-year-old daughter.

Pick Them Up

She testified that she had been told to leave the drugs in the trailer at
the end of her visit and that someone would pick them up. But, the trailer
visit didn't last past that first day.

In earlier testimony, Frankovitch said he received a tip that McBride would
be bringing in drugs on May 26. He organized a raid on the trailer around 9
p.m. and seized a condom packed with 28 grams of heroin and three balloons
containing 84 grams of marijuana, which the Crown contends are worth in
excess of $28,000 inside area prisons.

Frankovitch also told the jury that it was Major who took him to the drugs,
which were hidden between the box-spring and mattress in one of the
trailer's bedrooms.

Federal Crown prosecutor David Crowe asked McBride if she's been contacted
by anyone about her failure to deliver the drugs and she said she hasn't
but "I look over my shoulder every day."

She wasn't aware of Major being approached by anyone either, but said he
wouldn't necessarily tell her.

McBride and Major are charged jointly with two counts of possession of
drugs for the purpose of trafficking. McBride told the jury yesterday that
she hasn't been allowed to visit Major since being charged and can only
communicate with him by letter and phone calls.

Griffin urged the jurors to acquit McBride, who he says experienced
"probably one of the most frightening things that anyone could experience."
He argued that "she had no way out," until now. "You can free her from this
predicament," he told the jurors. "You can set her free."

Mr. Justice Douglas Rutherford of the Superior Court of Justice will
instruct the jury this morning on the law as it pertains to this case.
They'll begin their deliberations afterward.