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Special-education teacher Janice Fontes apologized in federal court Tuesday to her children, grandchildren, school, students, church and community for her role in trafficking methamphetamine into Hawaii.
U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor told Fontes that her concern should be with the families in which the methamphetamine wound up. Gillmor also told Fontes that her actions were doubly reprehensible because as a teacher she works with young people.
Gillmor sentenced Fontes to 57 months in prison after Fontes pleaded guilty in August to conspiring to distribute and possessing with intent to distribute more than 200 grams of methamphetamine. Gillmor also ordered that following her release from prison, Fontes will be under court supervision for five years.
Fontes, 51, has until April 1 to turn herself in to begin serving her prison sentence.
She admitted in 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.
The ex-boyfriend, Raul Balboa Garcia, pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy charge in September. Gillmor sentenced Garcia earlier this month to 10 years in prison.
Fontes was working at Leilehua High School in Wahiawa when Honolulu police arrested her in May. The state Department of Education placed Fontes on paid leave while it conducted an internal investigation, which a department spokeswoman says should be finished soon.
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