Why a Brooklyn Judge Refused to Send a Drug Courier to Prison

Chevelle Nesbeth was nineteen when she was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport, last year, for smuggling about 1.3 pounds of cocaine into the United States. At a boyfriend’s request, she had visited Jamaica, where she was born. Friends there, who had purchased her round-trip airline ticket, asked her to bring two suitcases to someone in the U.S. The drugs were in the handles of the luggage. She said she didn’t know they contained drugs, but there was enough evidence to contradict her story beyond a reasonable doubt. A jury in a Brooklyn federal district court convicted her of felonies for importation and possession of cocaine, with intent to distribute.

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