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Teacher sentenced to 57 months in prison for meth trafficking

Nelson Daranciang

A Leilehua High School special education teacher was sentenced to 57 months in prison Tuesday for trafficking methamphetamine into Hawaii.

U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor also ordered that Janice Pualani Fontes will be under court supervision for five years when released from prison. Fontes, 51, was sentenced for conspiring to distribute and possessing with intent to distribute more than 200 grams of methamphetamine.

Fontes has until April 1 to turn herself in to begin serving her prison sentence.

She admitted last August to receiving parcels of drugs from a supplier in California and sending the drug proceeds back to California. In exchange, she said the supplier, her ex-boyfriend whom she had hoped to marry, paid her $2,500 per month.

Fontes was working at Leilehua High School when Honolulu police arrested her last May. The state Department of Education placed Fontes on paid leave while it conducted an internal investigation, which a department spokeswoman says should be wrapping up soon.

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