Mom relieved as addicted daughter gets federal time on robbery charge
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 | 9:57 AM NT
CBC News
Sonya Harvey was sentenced to 30 months in prison following a conviction for armed robbery. (CBC)A bittersweet and unconventional moment occurred in a St. John's courtroom Tuesday as a judge agreed with a mother and ordered a daughter to serve a federal prison sentence.
Sonya Harvey, whose troubles with drug addiction and crime have become well known over the years in the St. John's area, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for an armed robbery conviction.
Any sentence over 24 months must be served in the federal corrections system, where drug counselling and treatment is considered much better than provincial jails.
Harvey, 25, whom a judge once described as the poster child for drug addiction because of well-publicized troubles with the painkiller OxyContin, had gone through out-of-province treatment programs. But she said she relapsed earlier this year, becoming hooked on cocaine.
Her mother, Maureen Harvey, had been hoping her daughter would be given a federal prison sentence for the crime, committed at a downtown St. John's convenience store.
"Obviously, as the judge said, her access to the programs is going to be dependent on her willingness to participate," said Maureen Harvey, who spoke out often about the harrowing effects of OxyContin addiction several years ago while police and health officials grappled with a then-booming street trade in the drug.
"My thoughts are that she's very willing to participate right now, and hopefully she'll take full advantage. That's been the words she's had with me, right from the very get-go."
Judge Gloria Harding warned Sonya Harvey that she needed to get herself together for the sake of her eight-month-old baby.
She was credited with two months for the time she served awaiting trial.
