B.C. grandmother gets 6 1/2 years in U.S. prison for smuggling ecstasy

She says she only smuggled tens of thousands of ecstasy pills into the U.S. a decade ago to protect the life of her son, who was indebted to B.C. drug traffickers.

Now grandmother Tina Howe is going to spend almost seven years in jail.

Howe, 58, pleaded guilty in September to her role in a conspiracy to import and distribute B.C. ecstasy in Washington state.

This week, U.S. District Court Judge James L. Robart handed her an 80-month jail term.

Howe and her co-accused, Maria Cooke, drove a blue Dodge minivan through the Sumas border crossing on June 23, 2007 with a hidden roof compartment containing 155,168 ecstasy pills.

On the I-5 near Blaine, the compartment split open and the pills scattered across the highway. They threw more pills in a ditch before abandoning the vehicle.

When state troopers arrived, they saw a pink and blue haze of dust from traffic smashing the pills. The pair were arrested.

Howe confessed to U.S. law enforcement agents that she had also made two earlier smuggling trips on behalf of an unnamed drug trafficking organization.

“While the drugs that she trafficked posed great harm to the lives of this district, Ms. Howe also acted with the purported desire to protect her own son’s life,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Siddharth Velamoor said in a sentencing memo filed in court.

Despite Howe’s early cooperation, she went into hiding for several years after she was released on bail and allowed to return to B.C., “evading detection by law enforcement by choosing to ‘live off the grid,’ ” Velamoor said.

Velamoor called Howe’s decision to abscond for nearly 10 years “obviously reprehensible.”

“Her absence resulted in significant cost to the court system, to law enforcement agents in both the United States and Canada, and even to her co-defendant, Ms. Cooke,” Velamoor said. “Ms. Howe now claims that she purportedly attempted to turn herself in to law enforcement at various times after she first absconded. There is absolutely no evidence that she actually did so.”

Her daughter-in-law Amanda said her spouse, Jaymie Howe, had explained to her that his mom committed her crime for him.

“Jaymie expressed how he wanted to get out of dealing and turn his life around, which led to people wanting him dead,” Amanda wrote. “Yes, this is a crime, but it was also an act of trying to save her son’s life. Being a mother myself, I completely understand.”