Because she's an older woman in frail health, 61-year-old Dawn Piasta isn't going to jail, Judge Charles Zambito told the admitted drug dealer before sentencing her today to five years probation.
One tiny slip-up while on probation, Zambito told Piasta, and she's going to state prison.
"I want to impress on you that there is going to be no leeway for you," Zambito said.
Piasta said she understood, but she's already violated the terms, by her own admission, of her pre-sentencing release from jail once. She told a probation officer preparing her pre-sentence report that she smoked marijuana in mid-March.
Normally, Zambito said, that alone, as a violation of her plea bargain, would at a minimum have meant a jail term. But since the Genesee County Jail isn't set up to house female inmates and it would be hard to place her in a neighboring county jail given her health conditions and age, his options were limited.
Piasta has admitted to criminal possession of a controlled substance, in the fifth degree, and criminal possession of a controlled substance, in the seventh degree.
She was arrested in November, accused of selling crack cocaine to an agent of the Local Drug Task Force.
Her defense attorney, Michael Locicero, lobbied for a probation-only sentence because of Piasta's age, health and the circumstances of the charges, which he attributed, at least in part, to intimidation by other people.
"She realizes the gravity and nature of what she got herself into and she's not asking to be absolved of her responsibility," Locicero said. "I ask the court to take these factors into consideration and give her a probation-only sentence."
That wasn't Zambito's plan, he said, before conferring with jail officials on the limitations of housing her for a few months. Given the issues in the community with drug abuse, he said, he thought some jail time would be more appropriate.
"I agree with the D.A.," Zambito said. "You violated the terms of your plea offer and the sentence for your felony conviction could be two-and-a-half years in state prison. I'm not going to do that. My inclination was shock probation (a term in jail followed by probation) even before the violation. I understand the possibility of intimidation, but you are the one who chose to open your home to drug users and drug dealers and start using drugs yourself."
