Jail, probation for passenger in $15,000 heroin bust near Hampshire
A Wisconsin woman riding in a car that held $15,000 in heroin when pulled over by police near Hampshire last year has been sentenced to jail and probation.
Taffinesha T. Strickland, 28, of Sun Prairie was ordered to serve 67 days in jail and 30 months' probation after pleading guilty to possession of 15 to 100 grams of heroin, according to Kane County court records. She also must pay $12,705 in fines and court costs, after admitting to the felony charge.
Strickland pleaded guilty in exchange for prosecutors dismissing the most severe charges from the April 2017 traffic stop on Interstate 90 near Hampshire, including armed violence and manufacture/delivery of more than 100 grams of heroin. Both of those charges carried a punishment of six to 30 years in prison, with no chance of probation.
Strickland can be resentenced to as much as 15 years in prison if she violates probation. A message left with her defense attorney, Brian Walker, was not immediately returned.
According to authorities and court records, Strickland was a passenger in a vehicle driven by Nathaniel Simmons, 34, of Fitchburg, Wisconsin, when he was pulled over for following too closely.
Authorities found a 9 mm handgun, two cellphones and heroin packaged in plastic bags inside the vehicle and speculated the pair were headed to Madison, Wisconsin, to deliver drugs, records show.
Simmons, who has two previous felony drug convictions in Cook County, pleaded guilty to a felony heroin charge earlier this year and was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $11,730.