Houston Granny Gets Life Sentence For First-Time Drug Offense

What to make of this one? There's a good round up of coverage at this link. Her position – and that of the ACLU – it would seem is, she was duped by a Mexican "businessman" into putting her name on the titles for three buses to be used to smuggle tons of Cocaine in secret compartments.

In that scenario, a bit player with no good intel to offer, who wouldn't plead out, received the harshest sentence. "Castillo received the harshest sentence of the approximately 68 people involved in the scheme …. Well, it looks good on paper and drug enforcement in America is a paper-loving bureaucracy on many levels.

The federal government didn’t offer a reward for the capture of Houston grandmother Elisa Castillo, nor did it accuse her of touching drugs, ordering killings or getting rich off crime.

But three years after a jury convicted her in a conspiracy to smuggle at least a ton of cocaine on tour buses from Mexico to Houston, the 56-year-old first-time offender is locked up for life, without the possibility of parole.