Sturgis mom who hosted pharm party gets five years

| Thursday, November 20, 2008

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Meade County Times Tribune staff

STURGIS -- The Sturgis woman who admitted giving her teenage son a prescription painkiller will serve the mandatory minimum prison term for distributing a controlled substance.

"It's not a case of a drug dealer on the street giving pills to kids," defense attorney Bob Haivala said at Wednesday's sentence hearing for Tara Fairbanks, 37.

Haivala asked state Judge Warren G. Johnson for a reduced sentence because of mitigating circumstances. He said Fairbanks had admitted to an addiction lasting several years, and she thought her son was giving the Oxycodone pills to a friend who needed them for medical purposes.

Johnson sentenced Fairbanks to five years in prison, with credit for 63 days spent in Meade County Jail, with no time suspended. She faced up to 25 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

Meade County State's Attorney Jesse Sondreal said Fairbanks, who will serve her sentence at the women's penitentiary in Pierre, also is required to pay $600 in attorney fees.

The charges stem from a Sept. 6 party, where juveniles reportedly used alcohol, cough medicine and the drugs Fairbanks had given to her 17-year-old son. Fairbanks was arrested after several of the juveniles were taken to a hospital when their parents noticed they were not acting normally.

Fairbanks was already on probation for illegally obtaining prescription drugs at the time of her arrest. She admitted violating that probation, and 4th Circuit Judge Jerome Eckrich sentenced her to complete the two-year suspended sentence he had given her for that offense.

Sondreal said he had recommended that sentence should run concurrently -- at the same time -- with the five-year sentence for the distribution charge.

Fairbanks is scheduled for outpatient surgery Tuesday, Nov. 25, in Sturgis and will remain in Meade County Jail until then. Sondreal said Fairbanks may be transferred to the Pierre facility the following Monday.