'Cocaine Cassie' has been sentenced to six years in jail after a Colombian judge accepted a plea deal. Source: 9 News
Cassandra Sainsbury has been sentenced to six years in jail after a Colombian judge accepted a plea deal.
It means the 22-year-old South Australian could be out of prison in two-and-a-half years if she gets time for good behaviour.
Sainsbury had faced up to 30 years in Bogota's El Buen Pastor prison for trying to smuggle almost 6kg of cocaine on April 12.
Sainsbury has offered several versions of how she came to be carrying the drugs, but a judge yesterday accepted her claim she had been threatened into committing the crime.
She had said a mystery man named Angelo tricked her after she agreed to transport documents from Bogota to London, instead packing drugs into her suitcase and threatening her family.
Cassie Sainsbury's lawyer Orlando Herran outlines what happened in court. Photo / Ivan Valencia
Sainsbury's lawyer Orlando Herran spoke to media shortly after the hearing ended and, because the court was closed to media, his is the only available version of events.
He said Sainsbury was "lucky" to receive such a short sentence for a "large" amount of drugs. He said the leniency was because the judge accepted she was a "victim" and a "small fish".
"The judge manifestly felt that people who undergo this process are victims," Herran said. "Victims of deceit, victims of their own socio-economic conditions and victims of ignorance regarding Colombian law.
"Her story should serve as a warning, an example to other people considering whether to do these things," he said.
"The fact that she was threatened was an important consideration in the plea deal."
Herran said Sainsbury was threatened to respect the deal she had made to arrive at the airport with the drugs.
"The investigation has uncovered a larger operation and investigators suspect she was used as bait to distract the authorities while other people smuggled drugs out undetected."
He said she could have received an even shorter sentence if she had asked police for help, and that the judge had "sanctioned" her for not doing so.
"She isn't a criminal. She made a mistake, she allowed herself to be tricked and she didn't use the means at her disposal by not asking authorities for help," he said.
Cassie Sainsbury's lawyer Orlando Herran outlines what happened in court. Photo / Ivan Valencia
Herran said Sainsbury was also ordered to pay a fine of almost US$90,000 ($130,000) - equal to six years of the Colombian minimum wage, which he was trying to have reduced because she couldn't pay it.
This sentence takes into account the seven months Sainsbury has already served, so she could return to Australia by April 2020.
Herran said the sentence could also be commuted into home-based parole in Colombia, but she would need to establish a base in Bogota.
In the Colombian jail system, teaching English classes such as Sainsbury has been doing, counts as good behaviour..
