A BRITISH woman who was facing 60 years in prison in America after she was caught with £15m of cocaine will be home in 24 months after she struck a plea deal.
Kim Hall, 29, was stopped at Chicago’s O’Hare airport with 43kg of the Class A drugs packed into two suitcases.
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She was charged with possession with intent to supply and was facing a lengthy sentence.
But she has today been sentenced to just six years in jail in return for a guilty plea.
Beautician Hall will serve half and the year she has spent on remand will also be taken into account meaning she will back home in UK in two years.
Her family are overjoyed at her hugely reduced sentence – scaffolder dad John, 60, said: “We are over the moon.
“We feel we are the luckiest people on the planet – it’s better than winning any lottery.
“She is not a criminal and never has been.
“We are still a bit concerned as to which prison she is going to serve her sentence in but regardless of that at least she only has to endure two years now and not 60.
“It’s a huge relief for the whole family.
“Her release is two years away but we can start planning – I don’t mean any sort of big party but planning to get her life back on track and that will take some time because of everything she has suffered.”
Hall, of Middlesbrough, told The Sun last year how she was coerced into bringing two suitcases home from a holiday in Cancun by two British men.
She said: “One of them dragged me off the bed by my hair and held a handgun to my head.
“He said: ‘I’ll f*cking shoot you.’ It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
When she landed at Chicago’s O’Hare airport on August 18 last year for her connection to London, Homeland officials carried out a random check and found the cocaine.
She said later: “There’s no way that I would knowingly transport drugs. I’m not a drug trafficker.
“When the full realisation of what it all meant hit me I cried and cried, I was pleading with them to let me call my mum and dad.
“I was hysterical and could hardly breathe. I was in a daze, thinking, is this really happening to me?
“There’s no way that I would knowingly transport drugs in any way, shape or form.”
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