Woman sentenced to 25 years in prison
Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that a Lee County woman was sentenced to 25 years in prison for heroin trafficking and conspiracy to traffic heroin. Cynthia Mitchell was convicted by a jury in July 2009 of trafficking in four or more grams of heroin and conspiracy to traffic 28 grams or more of heroin. The case was prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution.
Mitchell, 50, was originally arrested in March 2008 after narcotics detectives with the Fort Myers Police Department and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement learned she was planning to travel to Miami with a confidential informant to purchase heroin. The informant, Mitchell, and Mitchell’s co-defendant Ernest Nash drove to Miami to purchase 28 grams of heroin. The informant and the defendants then drove back to Fort Myers where Mitchell and Nash were arrested.
Mitchell was sentenced to the mandatory minimum sentence for her crimes by the Honorable Judge Jack Schoonover for the 20th Judicial Circuit. In April 2009, Nash was also convicted in a separate jury trial of trafficking in heroin and conspiracy to traffic in heroin. He was subsequently sentenced to 30 years in prison.