It was announced yesterday by U.S. Attorney Karen Loeffler that an Ohio woman has been sentenced in U.S. District Court in Juneau for a drug and money laundering conspiracy.

Judge Timothy Burgess of the U.S. District Court sentenced 31-year-old Brenna Sue Hauenstein to twenty four months in prison and three years of supervised release.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack S. Schmidt, Hauenstein was a part of a large-scale drug conspiracy operation dealing in oxycodone between Juneau and Sacramento, California. The prescription drug was ferried from Sacramento to Juneau through commercial package delivery services and drug couriers or mules on commercial flights.

The drugs were delivered to conspirators in Juneau, who distributed the oxycodone, then used bank deposits, wire transfers or couriers to deliver the money back to Sacramento.

This is the mode that Hauenstein used during the six months that she was in Juneau.

Hauenstein, the girlfriend of the conspiracy leader, Milan Thomas, was picked up by U.S. Marshals in the Columbus, Ohio area in early December of 2011 and pled guilty to one count of drug conspiracy and one count of money laundering conspiracy in March of 2012. Hauenstein’s boyfriend, Milan Thomas, was arrested in Minneapolis in February of 2012 and pleaded guilty to drug and money laundering conspiracy charges in Anchorage in May of the same year.

It was pointed out in court by prosecutors that Hauenstein would often bring her baby to drug dealsprosecutors said that this was disturbing even to her co-conspirators.

The defense told the court that Hauenstein was a victim of Domestic Violence and was coerced into dealing the drugs. The Judge did not see it that way, pointing out that Hauenstein had access to resources that would have made it easy to leave, but lessened Hauenstein’s sentence anyway.

The prosecution had asked for a three year sentence. Judge Burgess was swayed by Hauenstein’s relatively clean criminal history and school and work history since her arrest. It was that that showed potential for her future the Judge said.