Mom guilty of getting heroin to jailed daughter who OD'd
COVINGTON - Her mom schemed with others to get heroin to her daughter in the Kenton County jail in September.
It wasn't the first time Kimberly Mullins helped her daughter, Jamie Green, get heroin in a jail. But this hand-off was the last. Green, who was 25, died in the jail Sept. 4.
On Tuesday, her mother pleaded guilty in federal court in Covington to conspiring with others to get the fatal cocktail that contained heroin and fentanyl to her addicted daughter.
Mullins and co-defendants Lisa Lattimore, 36, and Lynette Ball, 40, all pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge. U.S. District Court Judge Amul Thapar told the women they'll return to court in July to face sentences of 20 years to life in prison.
Green's family and friends sat close to one another during the hearing Tuesday and watched Mullins carefully. Mullins glanced over before the hearing, then chatted with her lawyer.
Tears spilled from Rachel Riffle O'Hara's eyes. She'd raised Green for several years and now has custody of Green's son, Jayden.
And the woman who is raising Green's daughter, Brooklyn, now 5, shook her head.
"I just have one question," Candace Brewer of Grant County said. "When the day comes, how do I tell this child what happened to her mom?"
Brewer, who is also extended family to Green and Mullins, has raised Brooklyn since she was two months old. But Brooklyn knows who her biological mom was, and had contact with her. Now she has a framed photo of herself with Green in her bedroom.
"I told her that her mom wasn't well. Her heart stopped," Brewer said after the court hearing. "I make sure she knows her mom's in heaven. I tell her, 'She still loves you.' " But eventually, Brewer said, Brooklyn will want to know details.
Green was a troubled child whose mother was in and out of her life.
Green had fought to get clean of heroin and was headed for a treatment program for addiction, according to her family. She was jailed in Campbell County from May 27 to Sept. 3 on a probation violation and then was transferred to Kenton County.
The plea agreement, read in court, states that Ball helped coordinate an exchange of a controlled substance between Mullins and Lattimore, who was a weekend inmate. Green called her mother to ask her to get her heroin. Mullins acknowledged in court that she's battled heroin addiction in the past.
Then, after Green learned from Ball that Lattimore was a weekend inmate, Green told Mullins of Lattimore. The two met to make the exchange of the drug, and Lattimore got it to Green, the document states. All three women told the judge that the statements in the plea agreement were true.
There are other defendants still facing indictment.
Michael T. Howard of Cincinnati is still accused of getting the deadly drug cocktail to Mullins while Green was in the Kenton jail and getting heroin to Mullins for her daughter when Green was in the Campbell jail. A charge against Mullins for helping facilitate such exchanges for her daughter in Campbell County was dismissed for her as a condition of the plea agreement.
Two additional defendants, Heather Tucker, whose address is unlisted in public federal filings, and Mabry Baioni, formerly of Bellevue, pleaded not guilty in February. Both were charged with intentionally distributing a substance containing heroin to Green during her stay in the Campbell County jail in Newport.
Green was found unresponsive in the Kenton jail after overdosing. Jailer Terry Carl said that Green wasn't under watch for withdrawal because it was assumed she'd had no drug involvement for months, since she was in the Campbell County jail. He said Green did not appear to be sick from withdrawal upon her arrival. Green was taken to St. Elizabeth Hospital where she was pronounced dead, and O'Hara, who was out of town at the time, got a call from the hospital.
Wiping more tears after the hearing, O'Hara said she was fine with Mullins' plea deal.
"Knowing that she's going to spend (at least) 20 years is OK with me," O'Hara said. "Kim made Jamie's life a living hell since she was born, and sadly, she succeeded in her death."
