Former Jamaican beauty queen Marsha Gay Reynolds freed of cocaine charge in the US

Former JetBlue Airways flight attendant Jamaican Marsha Gay Reynolds was released from jail on Monday by a federal court in Los Angeles, California in the United States after being sentenced to time served in relation to her guilty plea on a charge of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine.

Reynolds, 33, was arrested and charged in December 2016 after she attempted to smuggle nearly 60 pounds of cocaine in her carry-on baggage onto a plane at the Los Angeles International Airport.

Online news outlet, My News LA, quotes U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder as saying that the Jamaican “obviously provided substantial assistance to the government,” adding that prosecutors would have had a far more difficult time convicting Jamaican drug dealer Gaston Brown without her help.

It reports that Brown, 41, was convicted at trial in February of conspiracy and other federal charges and is expected to be sentenced in August.

“Before her testimony against Brown led prosecutors to recommend an unusually lenient sentence, Reynolds had faced a mandatory minimum of 10 years behind bars for her guilty plea in December 2016 to a single federal count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine.” the news outlet reports.

“Reynolds declined an opportunity to make a statement, referring the judge to a letter she filed in her case under seal. Snyder called the letter “compelling,” and mentioned that the defendant had spent her time in custody to her “maximum advantage” by taking various betterment classes.”

Defence lawyer Stuart Goldfarb said Reynolds acted as a “mule” — someone who smuggles drugs on their person or in their luggage across borders in exchange for cash.

“She never had any problems before she made this bad decision,” he said outside court.