Revere mother who brought drugs into Peabody courthouse to serve 15 months

SALEM – A Revere mother convicted of cocaine possession by a Superior Court jury earlier this month will serve 15 months in jail before being placed on probation for another three years.Marissa Connors, 35, of 570 Mountain Ave., Revere, was found guilty earlier this month of a lesser charge of possession with the intent to distribute cocaine and a second charge of possession of methadone following a jury trial.”I destroyed my life. I just want a second chance and I just want to see my children smile again and be the mother I used to be to them,” Connors told Judge Timothy Q. Feeley in a cracking voice before he passed down her punishment.Feeley sentenced her to a split term of two and one-half years in the House of Corrections, with all but 15-months suspended, and placed on three years of probation at which time she will be submit to mental health evaluation and must comply with any mental health treatment, not possess or use any non-prescribed substances and is subject to random screens.The judge agreed to recommend to jail officials that Connors be placed in the Women in Transition Program at the facility.Assistant District Attorney Marsha H. Slingerland successfully presented at trial that Connors was arrested on the morning of March 10, 2009 at Peabody District Court by a state trooper after authorities received information that she had illegal drugs in her purse.During a search, authorities discovered about one-gram of cocaine in her purse.Authorities then searched her white Pontiac sports car parked outside the court complex and found additional cocaine inside the center console along with a pill box containing one methadone tablet.At the time, Connors was at Peabody District Court on a pretrial hearing for a shoplifting charge.Slingerland urged the court to sentence her 3-to-5-years in state prison with probation emphasizing that she felt Connors is a “poor candidate for rehabilitation.”Slingerland pointed out her prior criminal record and arrests dating back to 1998 while asking Feeley to consider her character, behavior and conduct in the case as he considers punishment. She also reminded Feeley that Connors had admitted selling the cocaine.Defense lawyer Mark G. Miliotis insisted that his client needs treatment because of her mental illness and addictive behavior and in prison it is not available, he said.He described Connors as a functioning soccer/hockey mom and that she kept this from people closest to her, while stressing that she was not a big distributor and that she was up to nine grams of cocaine a day.”This case was about a woman who manipulated her way,” Miliotis insisted.”No one is ever fixed. She will always be an addict and she needs structure,” Miliotis said as he asked the judge for house time, meaning a jail sentence, instead of a state prison term, which means she would serve the entire punishment with no chance of early parole.In handing down the punishment, Feeley acknowledged Connors had no violence on her record and that she was a drug addict who sold drugs for her addiction, but had not moved beyond into theft to support her habit.Jurors, comprised of nine women and three men deliberated for about seven hours over a two-day span before reaching their decision on April 6.Because the jury was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Connors was in possession of over 14 grams of cocaine, they found her guilty of possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute, instead of trafficking over 14 grams of cocaine.The state expert testified at the trial that the quantity of cocaine range was 17 plus grams while the defense expert had the total amount at 13.34 grams, just under the 14 grams.A conviction of the trafficking over 14-grams of cocaine would have sent her to a mandatory state prison term of at least three years.The judge credited Connors the 72-days she has spent in jail in lieu of bail on the case.Connors was indicted by a grand jury in April of 2009 and had been free on $5,000 cash ba