Teacher imprisoned for tipping off drug dealers

Cheating husband claimed as motive

Broward schoolteacher Porsha Session is either a vengeful wife hell-bent on getting payback against her philandering husband or she is a loyal pawn trying to protect him, depending on whether you believe the defense or the prosecution.

Regardless of her motive, the 31-year-old Boynton Beach woman was sentenced to three years in federal prison for tipping off a group of violent drug dealers that they were under investigation. She was taken into custody immediately in the courtroom Wednesday.

Session told a judge that she had wanted revenge against her police officer husband because he

cheated on her with a mistress, who he married after they divorced.

But federal prosecutors said in court that they think she was actually standing by her former man. They suspect she may be covering for her ex-husband, Lauderhill police officer Davlin Session.

Even her own attorney, Fred Haddad, said he initially shared prosecutors’ suspicions and thought her story made no sense. He changed his mind and started believing her after making her undergo a liedetector polygraph test, which he said indicated no deception.

Haddad told the judge that he advised Session to tell the truth to federal agents who were investigating whether her then-husband had leaked information. She steadfastly maintained that she was not lying, he said.

Prosecutors acknowledged in court that they had been unable to find evidence to consider criminal charges against the police officer but said the timing of the phone calls his thenwife made to the suspects was extremely suspicious.

Prosecutors declined to comment more outside of court but implied during the hearing that they thought Session could be taking the fall for possible misconduct by her ex-husband.

The former couple have a 5-year-old daughter who primarily lived with her mother.

Session cried as she told U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks she blamed “my disregard for the law and my vengeful spirit.”

She insisted that she was solely responsible for her criminal acts and apologized to her ex-husband and his current wife for embarrassing them and their family and for “his integrity as an officer being questioned.”

She pleaded guilty earlier this year to federal obstruction of an official proceeding, a grand jury investigation, and admitted she made six phone calls to one of the suspected criminals and warned him that an insider was helping law enforcement.

The judge said he agreed with prosecutors that something about Session’s story did not logically add up. But he couldn’t rule out that she may have acted irrationally because of emotional distress over her failing marriage.

“Sometimes things just can’t be explained,” Middlebrooks said.

Prosecutor Jeffrey Kaplan had recommended a punishment of eight years in federal prison, significantly more than the 15 to 21 months recommended by sentencing guidelines. The defense asked for house arrest.

The judge said he believed a three-year prison term was appropriate.

“This is a very serious crime, with very serious consequences,” he said.

Session appeared stunned when she learned her fate. Supporters, who filled the courtroom and overflowed into the hallway, gasped and wept as she was taken away.

Session’s actions compromised the undercover investigation and an insider informant who was secretly working with federal authorities was “outed,” federal prosecutors said. The 23-year-old man died of a gunshot wound two months later under suspicious circumstances that were officially ruled a suicide, they said. He has not been publicly identified.

Prosecutors said there is no evidence that the “outing” of the informant directly led to his death. “However, the actions of defendant Session did set off a chain of events that certainly have to be considered as a factor in the death … which was ruled a suicide,” they said.

Officials with the Lauderhill Police Department declined a request for comment Wednesday. They confirmed Davlin Session still works for the department as a patrol officer with a base salary of $85,671.

Porsha Session told investigators she snooped in her then-husband’s work email and found a memo that contained sensitive details about the investigation.

Prosecutors said that Davlin Session realized that one of his relatives was listed as a phone contact on one of the suspect’s phones during a meeting of officers and agents that ended about 2:30 p.m. March 14, 2013.

They said records showed that Porsha Session began making calls to one of the suspects 30 minutes later at 3 p.m.

Though the suspect hung up on her twice after listening to her for less than 30 seconds each time, she kept calling, prosecutors said. There were a total of six calls between the suspect and Session in five hours.

Session told the judge she decided to call because she received a letter at school that day notifying her that she might lose her job because of an altercation she had with her husband’s mistress at a local store. The misdemeanor case was later dropped.

At the time, Session was a teacher at Cypress Elementary School in Pompano Beach, and she made the first few calls from a cellphone she borrowed from a fellow teacher, prosecutors said.

Session worked as a fourth-grade teacher at Deerfield Beach Elementary until April 25. She was reassigned, with pay, to a position that did not involve students after her guilty pleas, district officials said. The nine-year school district employee was receiving an annual salary of $49,000, records show.

The undercover investigation, which started in October 2012, was focused on a “crew” of seven Jamaicanborn men suspected of operating a significant drugdealing business in the Lauderhill and Fort Lauderdale areas.

Agents and investigators testified that the informant was able to provide them with extraordinarily valuable information about the group’s crimes. He said they were dealing drugs supplied by Mexican cartels in Arizona and California that were shipped by FedEx to Broward County.

Investigators said the group was violent, armed at all times and had committed targeted burglaries of the homes of law enforcement officers, military personnel and criminals who they knew had guns. The group also smuggled weapons from Georgia and Orlando to Broward County that were then illegally sent to Jamaica.

The defense ridiculed some of the investigators’ comments in court, emphasizing that several of the group’s members were later convicted of crimes in other states. Haddad also disputed agents’ allegations that investigators in MiamiDade County had bungled the investigation of the informant’s death.

Three of Porsha Session’s relatives and friends, including two lawyers — one of whom represented her in her divorce — asked the judge to show her mercy. They said she is a devoted mother and was a conscientious teacher who always did more than was asked of her to help others.

Session tearfully asked the judge not to send her to prison and apologized to her husband and his new family, the judge, the teacher whose phone she borrowed, her family, friends and former colleagues, and to the investigators who worked on the case.

“I also caused a lot of anguish to the investigators on the case,” she said. “I’m not against you but, at the time, I was only thinking of my own selfishness.”

Kaplan told the judge the informant was irreplaceable and Session’s actions put the informant and all the law enforcement officers lives in danger.

Middlebrooks agreed and said he could understand an enraged spouse throwing a rock through a window or getting in a physical struggle.

“This one isn’t quite so clear to me,” the judge said, “that you’d decide to disrupt a federal investigation because you’re mad at your husband?”

Session