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Briefs

Woman sentenced to six years in methamphetamine lab case

By Times Staff Writer
Published July 8, 2005

INVERNESS - Julie Dawn Cline, one of two women accused in December of running a methamphetamine lab out of an apartment, was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday afternoon.

Cline, 29, of 307 Washington Ave. was arrested first in November after she was accused of cooking meth. After posting bail, she was arrested again in December. Authorities said Cline and Nancy Elizabeth Mellott, 25, were making the drug in a lab in Cline's apartment at Candlewood Court Apartments, a subsidized housing complex just off State Road 44 E. Detectives found more than 14 grams of meth - a combination of pseudoephedrine, iodine, red phosphorus and water - inside Cline's apartment.

Cline told Circuit Judge Ric Howard she wanted to apologize to her children, ages 6 and 9, for putting them through such heartache. Howard chastised Cline for cooking meth, and he pointed out that her first arrest came the day before Thanksgiving. "Most families are thinking about cooking turkeys and pies. You're cooking methamphetamine," Howard said. Cline had pleaded no contest to a variety of drug-related charges and agreed to a maximum of six years in prison. Mellott was sentenced March 17 to three years in prison on the charges.

[Last modified July 8, 2005, 01:02:17]