Bloomington mother extradited to Colorado

A routine traffic stop brought an arrest of a young woman, and an uproar from the community. Darcee Leonard, a 21-year-old mother, recently moved to Bloomington from Colorado.\nIn 1999, authorities in Colorado arrested Leonard on three drug-related counts, including a felony charge of possession of illicit substances with intent to distribute. Undercover officers found two quarter-ounce bags of hallucinogenic mushrooms and a small amount of marijuana in her apartment, which is near a school.\nThe Jefferson County District Attorney filed a special offender provision, which ensures Leonard will serve the 4 to 16 years of jail time the felony charge carries.\nLeonard said she was released upon her agreement to be an informant, but authorities never contacted her about the issue again, she said.\nPam Russell, a Jefferson County District Attorney spokesman, said her story doesn't hold up.\n"She never made her first court appearance," Russell said. "She never had contact with the D.A., so she didn't work out a deal."\nOfficers arrested Leonard on a "book-and-release," Russell said.\n"There was a pending investigation," she said. "Because she was selling drugs at the school, we were going to make it all one big case."\nThat's when Leonard skipped town, Russel said.\n"We found an eviction notice on her door and a note that she left town," she said.\nLeonard recently moved to Bloomington with her son Elijah and boyfriend, Erich Nolan. On March 23, Leonard had been stopped for a traffic violation, and then taken to jail for an outstanding warrant for her arrest still lingering from the 3-year-old Colorado drug issue. \nLeonard's attorney David Colmann said she had no knowledge of the warrant. Colmann noted that Leonard did reside in Colorado two years after the initial arrest was made.\n "She was not fleeing the charges," he said. \nLeonard was held in the Monroe County Correctional Facility for forty days without being able to breast-feed her 17-month-old son.\n"The communities voice wasn't about Leonard's legal situation, it was about her son," said supporter Vanessa Cantrell, mother of a 9-month-old daughter. "It's about Elijah's right to be nurtured by his mother's breast." \nThe Bloomington hospital donated a breast pump to ease the discomfort felt by the lactating mother. But hospital officials advised against having her milk transported because of liability concerns about the handling of the milk.\nLeonard's attorney sent requests for breast-feeding privileges, but no reply was returned. Colmann said he is "surprised and even embarrassed" that the courts and jail officials wouldn't be sympathetic to the mother and child's nurturing needs. \nMonroe County Sheriff Steve Sharp agrees that breast-feeding in jail is acceptable in some situations, although not in Leonard's. \n"Leonard is obviously a young woman with a drug problem," he said. \nAnd with 220 inmates in a prison built for 135, Sharp said he lacked the staff and the space to accommodate the request.\nLeonard's supporters signed a petition requesting a trial on the issue, and although their petition was disregarded, a court date was set for May 10. The trial will not be held because Leonard was abruptly transported to Georgia late at night on May 3.\nLeonard is now in prison in Georgia and on her way to Colorado. Local activist Mark Haggerty confirmed that Leonard was allowed to see Elijah for one hour before she was transported from the Bloomington jail. \nHer supporters have turned their focus to the treatment of people in local jails who are not hardened criminals.\n"Very few people in jail are violent people," he said. "And Darcee Leonard is the tip of the iceberg for the inhumane treatment of people in prisons and the justice system"