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Woman gets 24-year term for drug conviction
By GRAHAM BRINK
© St. Petersburg Times, TAMPA -- An Ohio woman who once faked her way into Yale University was sentenced Wednesday to 24 years in prison on drug charges. U.S. Customs agents arrested Tonica T. Jenkins, 26, and her mother Tonica Clement-Jenkins, 52, in Tampa last year after they tried to purchase 22 pounds of cocaine for $70,000 in cash, police said. The younger Jenkins told authorities she was a paid FBI informant, but a spokesman for the U.S. Customs Office Service said the pair were not working for the FBI on the day of their arrest. In April, both women were convicted of conspiracy and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. On Wednesday, Jenkins' mother received 16 years in prison. The drug convictions are just part of a bizarre string of events that began when officials discovered the younger Jenkins had faked her way into one of the most prestigious universities in the country. Last year, Jenkins was sentenced to two years of probation after pleading guilty to larceny and forgery charges for making up recommendations and transcripts to get into a graduate neurobiology program at Yale. She was ordered to repay $16,000 in scholarships. Prosecutors said Jenkins got into Yale by creating transcripts with good grades and glowing letters of recommendation from Cuyahoga Community College and Central State University, both in Ohio. The forgeries were discovered in December 1997 after Jenkins failed to take exams for her courses, feigning illness. Last year, after Jenkins was arrested on the drug charges, she and her cousin, Kyle Martin, grabbed a woman off the street in East Cleveland, Ohio, drugged her and had dental records made so it appeared the woman was Jenkins, according to police. The idea was then to kill the woman so that the authorities would think Jenkins was dead and Jenkins would then avoid the drug charges in Tampa. Authorities in the Cleveland area charged Jenkins and Martin, 32, of Springfield, Ohio, with attempted murder. Police said the murder plot came apart April 21, when the abducted woman, who had been hit on the head with a brick, escaped from Jenkins' East Cleveland home. Police said Jenkins and Martin had picked the woman because she resembled Jenkins. For two days they kept her under the influence of crack cocaine and marijuana. The pair took the woman to the dentist under Jenkins' name, creating records that were to be used to identify the body after it was burned and dumped at an abandoned building, police said. - Contact Graham Brink at (813) 226-3365 or brink@sptimes.com.
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