Search warrant mistake frees Cary women from prison

A one-letter mistake is making a big difference for a pair of Cary women sentenced in 2007 to eight years in prison on charges they ran a significant drug-dealing operation out of their apartment.

A state appellate court Thursday released a decision overturning the women's convictions and ordering them freed because police listed the wrong apartment letter on the search warrant that led to their arrests.

The unanimous ruling voided the warrant, and therefore all the evidence collected as a result, because police mistakenly identified the women's address as apartment "D" then searched their apartment - "C."

"Thus, the warrant created an ambiguity and confusion as to which apartment was to be searched," Justice Robert D. McLaren wrote in the 14-page decision. "The apartment's location, to the exclusion of all other locations, was not clear and unambiguous."

Because there is no chance of proving Lisa A. Urbina and Alex J. Fahey without evidence from the search, the appellate court reversed their convictions and sentences.

The ruling overturns a decision by McHenry County Judge Sharon Prather, who before the women's convictions ruled that even with the mistaken address, the warrant contained enough information to make clear police wanted to search the apartment of Fahey and Urbina.

Fahey, 21, and Urbina, 30, were arrested in April 2006 after members of the North Central Narcotics Task Force raided their apartment in the 200 block of Crystal Street and found $90,000 in cocaine and marijuana, as well as a loaded handgun and 235 rounds of ammunition.

The raid culminated an investigation begun when a confidential informant tipped off investigators to drug activity in the apartment and made "controlled buys" in agents' presence.