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Woman who got drugs in jail from fiance says they're done
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Sara Wilson says she still loves the man who is spending more than two years in prison for mailing suboxone strips to her while she was an inmate at the Mahoning County jail.
But she no longer trusts him.
Wilson, 36, of Rhoda Avenue, spoke to Judge R. Scott Krichbaum in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court just before she was sentenced Thursday to 18 months in prison on three counts of illegal conveyance of drugs into a detention facility. She said the man, Jamie Stitzel, 34, is a heroin addict like herself and she cannot be around him if she wants to kick her addiction.
“My love hasn’t changed for him,” she said. “I just know we can’t be together.”
On Tuesday, Stitzel received a 27-month prison from Judge Krichbaum for the same charges. He was accused of mailing the strips to Wilson while she was in the county jail three separate times in October. Stitzel told the judge at his sentencing that he did it to prove his love to Wilson.
Suboxone strips are used by heroin addicts as part of their recovery to wean themselves off from the drug, but they are known to be abused.
Wilson, a mother of four who says she’s been a heroin addict for more than 10 years, said the “tipping point” was when Stitzel took a check of hers, cashed it and spent all the money on heroin.
After Stitzel pleaded guilty to his charges and was out on bond, he was indicted on charges of mailing more strips to Wilson after she was re-arrested and placed in the jail earlier this year. Wilson was not charged in that case because the strips were intercepted before they reached her and prosecutors cannot prove she knew about it, Assistant Prosecutor Martin Desmond told Judge Krichbaum.
Desmond said Wilson was arrested Jan. 15 in Boardman on a theft charge, bonded out and was picked up four days later on a parole violation. On Jan. 23, Wilson feigned an illness, was taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, distracted a guard by asking to go to the restroom, then bolted from her room and ran away, Desmond said. She was caught as she was about to get on an elevator and indicted last week on a charge of escape.
Desmond said he would stick to the plea agreement he made with Wilson, which was the same as Stitzel’s: 18 months on all three charges to run concurrent and no opposition to judicial release after 30 days in prison. For Stitzel, however, Desmond withdrew his recommendation because he was indicted on a new charge of the same crime.
Walter Ritchie, Wilson’s attorney, asked that the sentencing agreement be honored. Ritchie said his client wants to beat her addiction and get her children back.
“She knows what she has to do to stay clean,” Ritchie said. “But she hangs around with the wrong people, and she starts using again.”
Judge Krichbaum called the case “the continuing saga of the love ballad,” and said when Desmond described her escape, “maybe she was looking for love in all the wrong places.”
Judge Krichbaum did uphold the original sentencing agreement in his sentence.