The British woman facing 60 years for ‘smuggling cocaine’ has allegedly been caught trying to escape the US.
Kimberly Hall was detained at Chicago’s O’Hare airport last summer when she was about to board a connecting flight back from the UK.
The beautician was allegedly smuggling 43kg of cocaine in two suitcases which she says she was forced to carry back from her holiday in Mexico paid for by two British men she previously met in Portugal.
Hall claimed they had asked her to take the bags containing $250,000 (£187,550) in cash, and that she was unaware they were full of drugs. She says she is ‘not guilty of what they’re saying’ she is.
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Having been charged with two class X felonies, controlled substance trafficking and possession with intent to deliver, it is said the 29-year-old has now made a bid to get herself deported.
When she was indicted in September, Hall was ordered to hand over her passport and wear an ankle monitor.
But she was eventually freed from the electronic tags, and it’s claimed she then presented herself to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
Here, she allegedly tried to trick them into deporting her, as she gained permission to book a flight back to get home.
Then, when Cook County Prosecutors heard about this supposed scheme, it’s said it all totally backfired.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the Brit’s electronic monitoring was revoked, and she was sent to jail. It’s not clear if the ICE officers were aware of Hall’s charges when they assisted with her making a return to the UK.
Judge Michael McHale wrote that she was ‘almost successful in her attempt’ to leave the US and had a flight back booked and ready before officials realised what was going on.
Her attorney, Brandon Carter, claims she had honestly been seeking information about finding a job when she was detained.
In a recently filed request for her release, he argued that she had been improperly detained, reasoning that Donald Trump’s administration is ‘wildly unpredictable’.
“It’s abnormal. That’s what caused this whole fiasco,” Carter said of ICE’s attempt to deport Hall. “From my understanding, the prosecution was barely able to keep her here.”
Claiming she did not seek out ICE authorities in a bid to be deported, the attorney’s motion said: “The kiosk official saw the electronic monitoring device on Ms. Hall and assumed it was from ICE and instructed her to go to their office in the same building.
“When she spoke to an ICE official she was arrested and placed in custody.”
The motion argues that the judge didn’t detain Hall because she was ‘dangerous or a flight risk’, but due to unpredictability of the administration.
“In this city there are thousands of undocumented people, some of whom have pending criminal cases but they get pretrial release,” Carter said. “So if you want to use that logic, anybody who has questionable immigration status with a pending criminal case can be denied pretrial release. I think that’s definitely improper.”
A hearing to determine whether Hall should remain behind bars has been scheduled for 16 May.
Jess Battison