GRANDMOTHER SENTENCED TO LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE IN AL FOR DRUGS GETS CHANCE AT FREEDOM
Published Thursday May 2, 2019
By Beth Shelburne
BIRMINGHAM, AL (WBRC) - It was a green, nylon men’s gym sock stuffed full of heroin and pills. Geneva Cooley had taken a train from New York City to Birmingham in order to pick up the sock and deliver it for a man she thought was a friend. He offered to pay her $1500 for the job, and she accepted. Cooley was a daily heroin user and needed the money.
He met her inside the station and handed her the sock, which she stuffed into her pants in the bathroom. When they walked out of the train station together, police were waiting. The event reeked of a setup.
Cooley had the sock full of drugs in her possession for mere minutes, but this began the events in 2002 that torpedoed her life from an addict, desperate for money, to being charged with drug trafficking under one of the most punishing sentencing laws in the nation.