Woman found with needles gets max for probation violation
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Amy Kaminsky got a break from Judge Elizabeth Kobly once.
So, she knew when she came back before her Thursday in municipal court on a probation violation that there would be no more breaks.
She was sentenced to 90 days in jail on a violation of her no-contest plea in September for having drug- abuse instruments. The jail time is the maximum for the charge.
“I gave you the one and only break you’re ever going to get from me,” Judge Kobly said. “Now I have no other choice.”
Kaminsky’s lawyer, Tim Cunning, told the judge his client was prepared for jail and even dressed for it.
When she was sentenced in September, Kaminsky, 27, of North Belle Vista Avenue, said she had been addicted to heroin off and on for 10 years and repeated that Thursday. She said she has been clean since she got out of the Mahoning County jail in November after her arrest on another charge of possession of a drug abuse instrument.
Judge Kobly said she hears the same from heroin addicts before her all the time – that they are sober and on the path to sobriety. She said the constant protestations of sobriety seem jaded to her now.
“It’s a ridiculous heroin cycle you folks do to me every day of the week,” Judge Kobly said.
Kaminsky said she has done her best to stay off drugs. Cunning said his client turned to heroin after she became addicted to opiate-based pain medicine she was given after being injured in a car accident.
“I wanted to get clean,” Kaminsky said. “I did.”
“Telling me you’re clean means nothing,” Judge Kobly said.
Kaminsky was given two years’ probation Sept. 3 by Judge Kobly after she was arrested by police May 28 when they found a needle on her. At the time, the judge fretted over her two children and how they will fare as the children of a heroin addict.
Her probation was violated with her arrest Sept. 28 in a Market Street parking lot, when police found a spoon, crack pipe and used syringe on her.
Cunning said he knows his client cannot predict how long she can stay off drugs, saying the battle she fights against her addiction is a daily one.
“She cannot with any degree of certainty assure anyone she can stay clean,” Cunning said. “She knows she is going to jail.”
He said that his client’s addiction makes her a criminal but not a bad person. Jail, Cunning said, is meant for bad people. “She is fighting this battle as best as she can.”
Cunning also said that a relapse is not uncommon for someone fighting a drug addiction and that his client has had several years of sobriety in her favor.