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Braulio
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Dawn Wilson finally freed.
Here's a link in the Sacto Bee about her release etc.
I'm glad she's safe and all but I think there are details in her story that have not come out - something just doesn't smell right to me - but that's
just my feeling.
And then you have someone from the Bustamante clan putting in their 2 cents - funny - yeah - like he's not familiarwith the case - and his family
doesn't know any narco-types.
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http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/11728520p-12616615c...
DUBLIN - It is a gift of unparalleled worth: Freedom.
It belongs now to Dawn Marie Wilson.
After 17 months in a Mexican prison, and three more months locked up on this side of the border, the 49-year-old San Diego woman walked away Friday
from the Federal Correctional Institution in the East Bay city of Dublin.
Her crime: Carrying a large quantity of prescription drugs in Mexico without a Mexican doctor's prescription.
For this - for the urge to save time and money - the seafaring woman who lived with her fiance aboard a boat learned a harsh lesson about the laws
of foreign countries, the rights of Americans and the indifference of U.S politicians where so-called drug cases are concerned.
Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, is so disturbed by her case that he wants to hold congressional hearings.
"This is going on, and people had better understand what can happen to them," he said. "And our government has got to figure out how to deal with
Mexico."
Filner was the only U.S. official who helped bring Wilson to this precious moment, when she was reunited at the Dublin-Pleasanton BART station with
her devoted companion, Terry Kennedy, who waged a relentless campaign for her release. He slipped onto her finger the diamond ring he had designed,
two dolphins encircling the stone that belonged to his mother.
"It's been this dream of mine for 20 months," she said.
Yet for all the joy, for all the hugs and tears and loving exchanges, there remains a cautionary tale for anyone who has ever flirted with the idea of
buying medication in a foreign country.
Much has been written about Canada, and the rush by U.S. citizens to import cheaper medication from our neighbor to the north.
A lot less has been said about Mexico, where farmacias in border towns post brightly colored signs, advertising a smorgasbord of popular prescription
drugs.
It is in this cultural climate - here at home, and in Mexico -that Dawn Wilson fell into the trap.
The terrible journey began in April 2003, when Wilson and Kennedy agreed to rendezvous at the couple's 45-foot trimaran, Manta, docked in Puerto
Escondido.
They had been living on the five-bedroom boat and, together and separately, had cruised the waters of Baja California for two decades. On this
occasion, they planned to take friends on a diving vacation.
But first, Wilson wanted to make a side trip to Tijuana to buy a three-month supply of her anti-seizure medication, Dilantin. She said she had also
picked up several bottles of diabetes medication in San Diego, which she agreed to deliver to her ex-husband in Mexico.
Exactly which prescription drugs were in her backpack would later become a matter of dispute, contributing to her legal troubles. But Wilson is
unwavering; she was carrying that medication, she repeated Friday.
But bad luck awaited. On April 11, 2003, she had a minor traffic accident in the port city of Ensenada. She spent the night with friends, then set off
on foot the following morning to meet the insurance adjuster.
She never made it.
A Jeep-load of Mexican police officers pulled her over, asked her questions and searched her backpack. They found the pills - but no Mexican doctor's
prescription, as required by law.
What happened next is, as the couple tell it, a story line ripped from the film "Midnight Express." They say her bank cards disappeared, with about
$4,000 later drained from her accounts. She was shuffled in the darkness from one location to the next. A Mexican attorney took thousands of dollars,
then failed to present a defense - including the fact that she had a medical condition, or that she lived on a boat and often stocked up on medicine
and other supplies.
Wilson was never quite sure of the charges against her and could not understand the judicial proceedings. But when they were finished, Dawn Wilson - a
woman with no criminal record on either side of the border - was sentenced to five years in prison. Instead of a five-bedroom boat, her new home was a
cramped, filthy cell at Ojos Negros federal penitentiary in Ensenada.
The long wait had begun.
Terry Kennedy always assumed the U.S. government would rush to the rescue. After all, Wilson - his "lady," as he calls her - had valid U.S.
prescriptions. He had medical paperwork detailing her seizure disorder.
A Vietnam veteran, Kennedy believed the absurdity of her predicament would strike a chord with politicians.
He was wrong.
For months, the 61-year-old boater sent e-mails and letters to every public figure he could think of - from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to U.S. Sen.
Barbara Boxer to Oprah Winfrey. He pleaded, he cajoled, he raged, he despaired.
Back in the States, a boating friend built a Web site dedicated to Wilson's plight. Her ordeal held particular interest to many in the boating
community, who were swapping stories about her arrest and imprisonment.
Wilson's following grew as the California-based sailing magazine Latitude 38 chronicled her saga.
Kennedy visited her regularly in prison, where he was appalled by conditions. He was alarmed that she was not receiving her anti-seizure medication,
and that medical care for a painful broken hand had been minimal.
Yet despite the couple's perceived isolation, one U.S. politician - Bob Filner - had heard their pleas. Wilson was not from his district, but her case
disturbed him. Initially, he helped Kennedy find more reputable lawyers to guide Wilson's appeals.
But Filner would ultimately prove to be a powerful and influential ally.
After Wilson's final appeal was rejected in June, Filner went to work on a new tack. Why not get her transferred to the United States under the
prisoner exchange treaty with Mexico? Under the arrangement, the U.S government can't change a sentence imposed by Mexico, but it can make a paroling
decision - which could mean early release.
Filner began making calls.
The couple had hope again.
While Filner and others maneuvered for her transfer, other similar cases were surfacing.
In July, a 66-year-old Phoenix retiree, Raymond Lindell, made national news after spending eight weeks in a Mexican prison for buying 270 Valium
tablets for his wife in Nogales, without a Mexican prescription. A 22-year-old Susanville man, David Andrews, was locked up for two months this summer
in Tijuana after stocking up on Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication.
The U.S. government has cautioned citizens. On the U.S. State Department Web site, a travel sheet on Mexico recommends that "U.S. citizens not travel
to Mexico for the sole purpose of buying prescription drugs.
"The Mexican list of controlled medication differs from that of the United States," it warns, "and Mexican public health laws concerning controlled
medication are unclear and often enforced selectively."
Alfonso Bustamante, director of international relations for the city of Tijuana, was not familiar with Wilson's case. But he knows there is a problem,
both with Americans not understanding Mexican law and with "corrupt pharmacies" willing to step outside the law to make a sale. The city, he said, is
beginning to crack down on those pharmacies and has created a brochure for visitors explaining Mexican law.
"We don't want your people coming down here and buying something illegal we know can get you in trouble," he said.
The U.S. Consulate in Tijuana - which Kennedy claims turned its back on his fiancee - has indicated that her case was not as black and white as it
might seem. A spokeswoman said last summer that the list Mexican police gave the consulate of the 445 pills Wilson purportedly was carrying made no
mention of Dilantin or its equivalent, but was an assortment of prescription painkillers, sedatives, anti-anxiety medication and diet pills.
Still, no one has ever asserted that Wilson was carrying illegal drugs, such as heroin, methamphetamine or marijuana.
The issue has always been prescription drugs.
Wilson got her transfer to the U.S. prison system in September, where the processing and paperwork proved daunting - even to Filner, an experienced
government man. "The paperwork is just so ridiculous," he grumbled this week, as the process seemed hopelessly stalled. "It's paper to these people,
not a person."
In the end, a U.S. probation officer recommended a sentence of zero to six months for her crime - time she had already served in Mexico, and then
some. The U.S. Parole Commission concurred but placed her under six months' supervised release.
The couple have little money left and no certain place to go. Wilson walked out of prison with a few toiletries, instant coffee and a long list of
things to do, among them walk on the beach.
A calm, easygoing woman with deep dimples, Wilson said she'd like to help a Christian organization counsel women released from Mexican prisons.
She definitely will help Filner in congressional hearings. "You bet I will," she said. "I don't want anyone to go through what I had to go through."
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Reach Marjie Lundstrom at (916) 321-1055 or mlundstrom@sacbee.com.
[Edited on 12-11-2004 by Braulio]
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Skeet/Loreto
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God Bless You Dawn Wilson
After what this woman has been through, she would now like to help a "Christian organization".
Says somthing about Christains that most unbeleivers just don't understand!!
God with God Dawn Wilson!
Skeet/Loreto
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Anonymous
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Woman's ordeal in Mexican prison over
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20041212-9999-1m12w...
By Gregory Alan Gross
December 12, 2004
More than a year and a half after being arrested in Ensenada for possessing prescription medicines without a prescription, Dawn Marie Wilson is free.
In between was a nightmarish maze of crooked lawyers, misleading documents and false confessions, and a Mexican bureaucracy almost as impenetrable as
the fetid Ensenada prison where Wilson spent 18 months.
What finally sprang her was the doggedness of her fiance, Terry Kennedy, the persistence of a Congressman, Rep. Bob Filner, D-Chula Vista, and a bit
of creative diplomacy by U.S. consular officials.
"What a hell she went through," said Filner in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C. "It was like being in a Kafka novel; everything you do that
you think is reasonable and rational just ends up making things worse. The laws are enforced very selectively.
"You just have to push every button you can."
Wilson, 49, said in an interview broadcast last night on Fox6 News in San Diego that Filner "was the only government official who would help us."
Wilson was transferred in October across the border first to a U.S. federal prison in El Paso, Texas, and then to another federal facility in Dublin,
a San Francisco Bay Area suburb. She was set free Friday, Filner said.
An avid sailor, Wilson was living aboard a trimaran with Kennedy off the Baja California coast when she was stopped April 12, 2003, and searched by
police in Ensenada, who accused her of hitchhiking.
She'd been walking to a mechanic's shop in Ensenada to check on her car, which had been damaged in a crash the day before.
Wilson was arrested after officers searched her bag and found a three-month supply of Dilantin, an anti-seizure medication, as well as diet pills she
was delivering to a friend. She was found guilty by a Mexican federal judge ? there are no jury trials in Mexico ? and sentenced to five years in
prison.
"She was originally stopped by cops who liked the way she looked, and then they took her credit cards. A typical shakedown," Filner said. "Then
apparently a different police group showed up, and the first group had to arrest her to justify their own crimes."
Things turned even more bizarre after that, Filner said.
"They put papers in front of her that she couldn't understand and had her sign them. She thought she was signing a statement of fact," said Filner.
In reality, what the authorities made her sign was a confession, he said.
"She got a lawyer who stole her money. We got a reputable lawyer for her," Filner said. "We tried to talk with officials in Baja California, but it's
very, very difficult."
While Kennedy and Filner tried to cut through the bureaucratic maze and pursued the appeals process, Wilson remained inside the Ojos Negros federal
prison in Ensenada, Filner said.
"She had seizures while she was in prison, and received no medicine for them," the congressman said. "She broke her hand at one point and had no
treatment for that."
Just as shocking to Filner was what he described as a blase attitude on the part of U.S. Embassy and consular officials toward Wilson's predicament.
"I was appalled by their lack of aggressiveness in defending a U.S. citizen," he said. "All they said at first was, 'You have to follow Mexican law.'
"
The prison was "nasty . . . filled with drugs, alcohol, prostitution, c-ckroaches," Wilson said in last night's interview on Fox6 News.
Eventually, a U.S. consular officer in Tijuana managed to invoke a U.S.-Mexico treaty that allows for prisoners to be swapped across the border and
serve out their sentences in their own country, under the sentencing guidelines of the home country.
Filner urged the U.S. Parole Commission to release Wilson as soon as possible.
"In this country, the sentence for her offense is three months," he said. "She'd already served 18."
Contributions from many people and news media attention to Wilson's plight back in the United States were instrumental in winning Wilson's freedom,
Filner said.
"The press was vital," he said. "The officials down there don't like the publicity."
Even though she's free, it's not completely over for Wilson.
"She still has to report to parole officers," Filner said. "It's just ridiculous."
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jrbaja
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Good thing it didn't happen in Malaysia
because if it had, she wouldn't be around to write a book about her nightmare.
On the other hand, she survived and has enough support that the incident will probably make her rich.
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JESSE
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Saw her on TV this morning saying that "it wasnt worth it" to go down to Mexico to get prescription drugs, later she was saying that she used to spend
a lot of time in Mexico, wich makes me want to ask the following question:
If you have lived and traveled Mexico for such a long time, how come you didnt know that what you where doing is very ilegal?
I am glad shes out, but i don't like the fact that she got special treatment, why? because other americans who legitimately are framed or trown into
jail for nothing, will end up spending more time in jail because of situations like this.
I am happy for her family, and i am sad for the families of future individuals.
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jrbaja
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I hear what you are saying Jesse
but 20 month in jail isn't that special of treatment!
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David K
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If the pharmacy KNOWS it is illegal to sell without a Mexican Dr.'s perscription and sells it anyway... to a foreigner who may not know local laws...
are they not MORE guilty?
The woman was given the drugs by the pharmacy after all, she didn't make them in a lab!
20-60 months in jail for not having a doctors perscrition in your hand, borders on cruel and unusual treatment... for a disabled woman with no
criminal record.
[Edited on 12-14-2004 by David K]
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elgatoloco
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To qoute David Bowie........
''This is not, America.....la la la la la''
MAGA
Making Attorneys Get Attorneys
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jrbaja
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I seriously doubt
that she was given the drugs.
And in fact, if she didn't have a prescription for them, she paid a bundle to get them as opposed to acquiring them legally! Farmacia or not!
Kinda like the cartels supplying the u.s. drug market eh. Are they making money because of the demand? Or the supply?
And if she had ever acquired them legally here, she would have known that.
But, she did it anyway.
I as well am glad she is safe and out. But I know a LOT of people that come here just to buy drugs because they are cheaper here and you don't need
a prescription to get them.
I recommend doing it legally. After all, it's only about $25.00 to see a doctor, get the damn prescription, and do it legally HELLO!!!
Pretty nasty consequences for not abiding by the laws, even in the u.s. if you don't have influential parents!
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David K
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Am I missing something or are you?
1) they were not illegal drugs, just medical ones requiring a Rx.
2) it is illegal for a farmacia to sell those drugs without a Rx.
3) Farmacia sold them anyway!!!
4) Didn't the farmacia break the law, first?
5) When the foreigner walked outside the farmacia (without a Rx), she then was in violation of the law (thanks to the farmacia who willingly sold her
those drugs, putting her at risk).
6) She was arrested for having those drugs without a Rx. Then the 'humans' took $4,000 out of her bank account with her card, nice touch to start her
Mexican jail experience with.
If there is something I got wrong here, then let me know.
Because she was a gringa is no reason to make her guilty, automatically.
When will the farmacias have to obey the law? Probably never if they are never made to suffer like Dawn did...
[Edited on 12-14-2004 by David K]
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Anonymous
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First, let me say that I am glad the woman is now free. Anyone who has spent more than a few nights in jail knows that the experience is unique and
terrible. She was obviously caught up in a number of situations that created her dilemna and extended her suffering. I agree, the punishment does not
appear to fit the crime. (Remembering that we only know what we hear; there could be more to this case ?)
However, quoting Rep. Bob Filner,
"In this country, the sentence for her offense is three months," he said. "She'd already served 18."
It is not legal in this country either, to run around with large quantities of drugs, prescription or not, without a prescription, some of which drugs
were for a friend.....
This woman along with many others each year, get into trouble because they try to save time or money, it's the american way! (I'm an american business
owner)
The people that go south with presciptions and don't buy excess refils for convenience, have no problems. There is quite a community of retirees near
the border that travel en mass for shopping and prescription-filling weekly or monthly. They are told to bring two copies of their prescription so
they will have one with them after purchase and not buy more than the presciption, even if offered.
I'm sure many of you have raised kids.....
They push the limits until they get shut down. They always view the punishment as too severe. They always justify and slant their explanations of
their actions... It is always someone else's fault...
I have done this myself in past years but now, I have to be an adult.
I think I'll stop letting my kids take non-presciption drugs or guns into mexico anymore ??? (kidding)
I'm not saying the laws are right either. How is it that residents of the richest country in the world must cross both borders to obtain affordable
drugs ?
Maybe a question for George and company (who's around to ask anymore ?)
Hopefully I haven't gone too far with my opinions - I'm afraid the "Off-Topic"ers might slam me.
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Anonymous
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Hey, I'm not anonymouse !
The last post was me.
DIVER
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jrbaja
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Something tells me
the farmacia didn't go looking for her
And I haven't said a word about what color she was, don't care!
And most everyone knows that you can get some drugs without a prescription here.
She just happened to have been caught for getting them without one. STUPID !!
Especially having a large amount of them!
Anyone who has spent time in Mexico knows of the things you can get away with here and to blame the farmacia for someone buying drugs without a
prescription seems a little ridiculous.
But then, so does voting for George Bush!
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elizabeth
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Diet pills? A large quantity? For a friend?
And BTW...penalty for possession of a prescription drug in California without the prescription is 6 months county jail...transportation of a
controlled substance can get you 3, 4, or 5 years in the State Prison.
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bajalera
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Prescriptions needed in Mexico?
Since when? You can walk into most farmacias and get practically anything without one. When I lived in Escondido and couldn't afford a family
physician, I used to go to TJ for a three-month's supply of birth-control pills (sold over-the-counter, and considerably cheaper there).
During a drive down to La Paz a couple of years ago, Steve suddenly developed a dental abscess--and a pharmacist gave him pain-killers that
theoretically require a prescription. And there are RNs here who prescribe drugs that only MDs can order in the U.S.
While there may be stringent laws on the books in Mexico, enforcement is apparently optional. Does this actually surprise anyone?
bajalera
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
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jrbaja
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Americans drug problem
I'm sure there are some, but I don't know of one doctor down here who hasn't refused to give a prescription for diet pills without first demanding a
change in diet and excercise.
Usually the people get upset and go to a farmacia anyway!
Diet pills Perhaps getting off the nalgas flojos would be a step in the right
direction rather than illegal drogas
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elizabeth
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There are a lot of drugs sold over the counter in Mexico that are not available without prescription in the US. The drugs that are not supposed to be
sold in Mexico without prescription are not the antibiotics, birth control pills, etc, but the ones that are controlled substances. I found this out
about 30 years ago when I went to a farmacia in Mexico with the empty prescription bottle I had for valium in the US because of a back problem. I was
told then by the pharmacist that valium needed a prescription from a Mexican doctor.
I do agree that the farmacias that sell controlled substances are also culpable and should be subject to penalty.
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JESSE
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Ms Wilson knew exactly what she was doing, she knew this potentially could get her in big trouble, and she decided to go ahead and do it anyways, her
ignorance of the law defence was simply ridiculous, she knows Mexico, and she knows better. Theres plenty of laws in the US that are considered very
harsh by Mexican standars, and do many Mexicans get off simply because they say they didnt know better? off course not.
She got off easy as far as i am concerned, iam glad shes out, but i am not glad about the way she portrayed herself as a victim in order to avoid the
full penalty of the laws she broke.
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JESSE
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One thing is for sure, the REAL facts about this arrest will never be made public.
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Anonymous
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She was wrong to buy without a prescription.
The fact that the cops took her ATM card and emptied her account is a real shame and only makes the authorities in Mexico look even worse in the minds
of many.
elgatoloco
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