Laundry Day

On November 9, 2009, I was arrested for trafficking marijuana. I was busted at the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint near Sonoita, Arizona on Highway 83, heading towards Tucson. I was coming from Patagonia where I have lived since the early 90's. On that horrible day, I was told that I would be carrying twenty pounds of pot in my back seat with some laundry. I agreed to it because my utilities had been turned off for two and a half months. I was desperate. Twenty pounds was scary, but it...
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On November 9, 2009, I was arrested for trafficking marijuana. I was busted at the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint near Sonoita, Arizona on Highway 83, heading towards Tucson. I was coming from Patagonia where I have lived since the early 90's. On that horrible day, I was told that I would be carrying twenty pounds of pot in my back seat with some laundry. I agreed to it because my utilities had been turned off for two and a half months. I was desperate. Twenty pounds was scary, but it was in the back seat, which was better than in the trunk. All my laundry was separated in bags by colors and whites in the trunk. There was a lot of it, since my utilities had been off for so long. This I had done a few days before I agreed, with much coaxing, to take twenty pounds to Tucson. When I pulled out of the driveway in my "Bat Car," a flat black Crown Vic, a bad feeling came over me. I wrote it off as paranoia. The back seat looked good to me. I couldn't tell there was pot in my car, so I took off in spite of my gut feeling. A car was ahead of me making sure the way was clear, and there was no dog at the checkpoint. There was also a car in the rear watching my backside. That was a joke! At the check point, the officer looked in my car and asked me where I was going. He was real nice and pleasant. I told him my utilities and had been off for some time so I was going to do my laundry in Tucson. He asked me if I minded if they took a look in my trunk. I told him, "Of course you can." When they opened the trunk, I saw that my laundry had been dumped out of the bags and it was the shape of the trunk lid! My heart fell out of my chest and I thought I would pass out! Visibly I was calm, hoping to pull it off.