Pubdate: Sat, 11 Dec 2004
Source: Capital Times, The  (WI)
Copyright: 2004 The Capital Times
Contact:  http://www.captimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/73
Author: Mike Miller
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

HEROIN DEALER, A GOOD MOM, GOING TO PRISON

Patricia Mims was described Friday as an unrepentant heroin dealer who
continued her ways even while on probation.

But she also was described as a single mother who raised four
daughters to be successful members of the community.

In the end, Dane County Circuit Judge William Foust decided the heroin
dealer had to serve a prison sentence for selling heroin that killed
two men in an east side motel in September 2003.

Foust sentenced the woman known on the streets as "Big Momma" Mims to
10 years in prison and five years of extended supervision.

Mims, 46, was put on probation for selling heroin only two months
before she sold the fatal amount that killed David Bechtel, 47, of
Janesville, and Gregory S. Elmer, 43, of Monona.

"The nature of the offense here calls out for confinement," Foust said
as he sentenced Mims. "I keep returning to the fact you had just been
put on probation for selling heroin," the judge said, when she sold
more "and you killed two people" as a result.

Mims was sentenced to 1 years in prison and 2 years of extended
supervision in 2003 for a heroin dealing arrest a year earlier. But
that sentence was stayed and she was put on probation for four years.

It was while serving that probation period that she was arrested after
selling the heroin that killed Bechtel and Elmer. Foust made Friday's
sentence consecutive to the previous one, so Mims must serve a total
of 11 years in prison before being released on supervision.

Assistant District Attorney Kenneth Farmer, who asked for a total term
of 20 years with 15 years in prison and five on extended supervision,
called the continued sale of heroin by Mims a "callous and
irresponsible act."

Farmer also provided a list that showed Mims had been involved in
numerous heroin sales, many to undercover officers, since she began
selling heroin in Madison, at least by 2001.

But defense attorney Jay Langkamp said that while Mims sold and was
addicted to heroin, she was also a woman who provided well for her
family.

Monica Mims, 24, one of the four daughters, said her mother provided
emotional and financial support for her children. "She's the backbone
of our family," Monica testified, adding her mother seemed truly
remorseful after the deaths of Bechtel and Elmer.

A presentence investigation by the Department of Corrections said Mims
grew up in abject poverty in the rural South, living in a shack with
no running water. The family moved to Chicago and Mims almost
immediately became the mother figure for her siblings.

When her own children were born, she decided to move to Madison to
seek a better life for her children, and to the extent those children
are either in college or have decent jobs, the move was a good one,
but it also led Mims into her own drug use and eventually heroin dealing.

"She is a decent person; she is a nice person," said Langkamp, adding,
however, that Mims was also a slave to heroin and part of the "human
misery" it produces.

Mims apologized for her actions and said she was sorry for all the
families who suffered, and appeared to include herself in that. "I've
always been there for everybody else" in their times of need, she
said, "but I was never there for myself."

Bechtel and Elmer were using several other drugs the night of Sept.
12, 2003, when they then sent a friend, Lisa Vision, out to get
heroin. Mims was Vision's usual supplier and Vision called her and set
up a buy. Returning to the hotel, she "cooked" the heroin and then
used it along with Bechtel and Elmer.

Vision left the hotel and later called a desk clerk and asked her to
check on the two men. They were both dead.
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MAP posted-by: Derek