Nanny faces prison, deportation
Charges come ust before her immigration hearing
Thursday, May 01, 2008
By BRENDAN KIRBY
Staff Reporter

Gloria Sanchez came close to permanent U.S. residency that would have put her on a path to citizenship and allowed her to step out from the shadows where she had dwelled for a quarter-

century.

Now, the 44-year-old Montrose nanny faces prison time as a drug criminal.

A week before her long-sought immigration hearing last June, she was charged with conspiracy to possess methamphetamine with intent to distribute it.

On Wednesday in Mobile, U.S. District Judge William Steele sentenced her to five years in prison. After that, she faces almost certain deportation to Mexico, which she left as a teenager.

Steele heard an impassioned plea for leni ency from Ashley Jones, a mother of three who employed Sanchez for seven years and worked almost as long to help her get citizenship.

"I just love her so much," said Jones, who wept during her appearance. "I trusted her with my children, and they loved her dearly."

At the recommendation of prosecutors, Steele gave Sanchez a break for her cooperation against co-defendants who include her own family members. She also benefited from an utterly clean criminal history.

"You seem to have lived a double life," the judge said.

Sanchez pleaded guilty in August, admitting that she conspired to sell 2.68 kilograms of methamphetamine about 6 pounds and 3,000 pounds of marijuana.

Prosecutors said she was part of a Mexico-based drug ring.

Last June, Robertsdale police found $150,000 worth of methamphetamine and marijuana, along with $4,000 cash inside a trailer and a car on a lot where Sanchez lived off Bear Drive.

Baldwin County Sheriff Huey "Hoss" Mack Jr. said the drug case was one of the biggest in the Robertsdale area in recent years.

Sanchez will have an opportunity to cut her prison term if investigators apprehend others involved.

Defense lawyer Richard Shields expressed disappointment in the length of the sentence, and said he had hoped for three to four years. "If the fugitives are not arrested within that time, it is fair to say they're not going to be," he told Steele.

Jones blamed Sanchez's involvement in drugs on her "inability to say 'no'" to her grown children.

Sanchez's son, Jose Luis Sanchez, 25, was sentenced in January to time served and then turned over to immigration for deportation for his role in the conspiracy. Her 22-year-old daughter, Christy Sanchez, is scheduled to be sentenced next week.

Steele said Wednesday that methamphetamine has wrought terrible destruction. "What that drug does to people is just unbelievable," he said. "It is absolutely the worst I've ever seen in the 25 years I have been handling criminal cases in one capacity or another."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gloria Bedwell said homegrown methamphetamine labs have declined markedly in Alabama in recent times since the Legislature made it harder to buy large quantities of cold remedies and other over-the-counter drugs used as meth ingredients.

She said the local labs have been replaced, however, by international rings that supply U.S. customers in much the same way that the cocaine cartels do.

"It's become more and more common," she said outside the courtroom. "We're finding them in larger quantities."


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