Chelsea Briggs, 24, of 368 Virginia Street, New Martinsville, was sentenced Sept. 5 to one to five years in the West Virginia Penitentiary for Women for conspiracy to deliver heroin. However, this sentence was suspended and Briggs was placed on three years of supervised probation. She will also be assessed for drug court.

When given an opportunity to address the court, the rather emotional Briggs noted that she did not want her addiction to make her “who I am.”

“I’m a mother first,” she said, “and I love my son very much. He helps me a lot every day with recovering, more than he knows . . . He’s so little.”

She continued: “I’m very aware of the bad decisions I’ve made and my actions that I’ve made in the past. I’ve been clean for almost two years, and I’m very proud of that. I hurt a lot of people whenever I was under the influence, and it’s very hard on me . . . it’s still one of the hardest things to deal with, hurting people you love. Now with my head clear, and for the past two years, I’ve been really focused on my recovery. I take it very seriously. I work a lot. It keeps me very busy. I have courses, and I take care of my son. I want to continue to be a mother to my son.”

“I understand that being on drugs in my past life was very wrong, and I don’t want to ever go back to that,” Briggs noted. “Being clean, you see things very differently. Now, I feel that I have come so far.”

“When dealing heroin, you are very selfish,” she said. “You don’t really care about the outcome. I don’t even think you care if you live. I’m sure I’ve thought about that . . . I know I have. I just can’t express it enough . . . It’s so fulfilling being clean and sober and actually being able to take care of my son.”

Briggs’ attorney, Kevin Neiswonger, stated that he wanted to stress that he didn’t think it was fair to look at the case as how it started . . . as a murder case. “I think sometimes we all . . . even I have the tendency . . . of thinking she got a huge break. It really isn’t that way. She pleaded guilty to what she did.”

He added: “We filed a joint motion after the first term, after the indictment came down and more evidence came out. The evidence showed she didn’t commit the crime she was charged with. She went in and gave statements to (New Martinsville Police Department Detective) Donnie Harris. The evidence supported what happened. She conspired, but there’s no evidence that she delivered. This is a person that’s never been in trouble before, by the grace of God, even though she was doing some bad things. She’s standing before the court admitting to exactly what she did. I think Mr. (Tim) Haught (Prosecutor) would agree with me that had the state and police saw everything and know everything, they wouldn’t have asked for the indictment they did. She didn’t plead to a reduced charge. She pleaded to what she really did.”

“I’d like to go to the first day I saw her in jail,” Neiswonger said. “She was sitting in jail, distraught. She said ‘I used to be a bad person. I used to do some bad things. I did some bad things. I’ve been clean for 14 to 16 months . . . how unfair is it, that my past is popping up.’ With that, she accepted it. She said ‘I want to go talk to them. I want to set the record straight.’ I remember walking out of the meeting and Donnie Harris looking at Mr. Haught and saying, ‘You know Tim. She’s a different person.'”

“Ms. Briggs told me she had changed and had been clean,” Neiswonger said. “I’ve heard that many times in the last 19 years. We’ve become a bit jaded and have a tendency to not believe it. I believe it. I believe if you put her in drug court, she’d excel and help other people. She’s very honest about what drugs do and how they almost ruined her life. She’s already got her second chance. Her second chance happened when she became sober. Thinking of how she’s been on home confinement for seven months, I tend to forget that she was on home confinement. What frustrated her was she was never drug tested. She was begging me to do drug testing. She’s proud of her sobriety. She wanted to show she was clean, and that’s the only thing she ever complained about, was when was she going to be drug tested . . . She loves to tell people she’s sober.”

Briggs’ step-father, Derek Anderson, then testified on behalf of Briggs. He stated he has been Briggs’ step-father for 18 years. “I’ve not thought of myself as a step-father. I’ve raised her as my own, and I’m very proud of the fact that she’s turned her life around and she’s doing an excellent job. I come to you to ask you for mercy for her. She has a son, who dotes on her. He would say, ‘Where’s my mommy? Where’s my mommy?’ . . . I don’t want to see the boy’s face disappointed ever again.”

“She’s been on house arrest going on eight months,” Anderson noted. “I’ve never heard her complain once about being on house arrest. I told her that this is what we have to do as a family. You have to do this, and we will come back out on the other side better than we do going in. I’d like to piggy-back on Attorney Neiswonger’s statement about drug court. She’d be an excellent candidate, just because what she’s gone through and come out as a winner . . . It’d be a waste of state money to incarcerate her, when it could go toward saving lives. She was an addict who was on heroin. Not a lot come out alive, and that’s all I ask, is for you to consider the fact that she can help if not hundreds, but thousands, explaining to them what she went through, how she defeated the great Satan called drugs . . . That’s what we need in this nation today, is more understanding of what people are going through. Children are going through an epidemic. I hear a lot of people in my circle say, ‘Once they do this, they have a choice not to do this. They have a choice to pop a pill or stick a needle in their arm.'” However, Anderson noted that once someone makes this choice, “They become part of the monster.”

“I think she helped defeat the monster, and I’m asking you sir, to help her, and most of all, to help the people she can help. I’m asking you to show a little lenience please, just for the little boy, who we raised . . . She is a great human being who has walked through that side of life, and came through the other side. I guarantee you will never see her again.”

Briggs’ mother, Karen Stout, then spoke on her daughter’s behalf, stating that her family “has been through hell.”

“For a time, I love my daughter, but I didn’t like her,” she noted. “I’ve always told my children that not everything you do in life just affects you . . . It affects the people who love and who depend on you. I’ve seen that little boy, after she got arrested in January, dove himself on the floor and cried for hours. He was inconsolable. I’ve seen him miss his mother, because of the things she was doing. All we could do was hold him and love him and be there for him.”

“(Chelsea)’s decided on her own to get clean. She didn’t have a court to force her. She wanted to be there for her son. I’m proud of her today. I like her, and I love the prison she’s become. The sobriety has given her a strength and life I’ve never seen. She’s become a different person. I’m proud of her, and I ask that you keep a mother with her son.”

“As the court is aware, doing justice is a very difficult thing,” Prosecuting Attorney Timothy Haught noted. “I know this court is aware of that, and in the 14 years I’ve served as prosecuting attorney I’ve learned that as well. I will say this at the outset, I concur with what Mr. Neiswonger said. If I believed that Ms. Briggs . . . that I could prove that she delivered that heroin, I would not have pled this case. This case would’ve gone to trial. I don’t know how James Austin Conner got the heroin that killed him. I know Ms. Briggs had communication with him leading up to the date of his death, concerning the sale leading up to his death. I know that she met with him that day, but I can’t prove the heroin that killed Mr. Austin came from Ms. Briggs. I presented the case to the grand jury, because I felt the inference would be drawn . . . reasonable people based on evidence could draw the inference that she in fact delivered the heroin.”

“Now subsequent to the indictment, we had some people come forward, which caused me to rethink about the possibility that Ms. Briggs was not guilty of the offense of felony murder, and people might not understand that . . . If you sell drugs, even if you don’t intend for the person to die, because it is a felony, you can be charged with murder. People don’t understand this. They don’t understand generally what felony murder is. If I believe that she was guilty of felony murder, we wouldn’t be standing here today.”

“Detective Harris and I met with Mr. Neiswonger and Ms. Briggs at length after other evidence came forward . . . and I don’t think, I don’t know who give Mr. Conner that drug. I know he took it voluntarily. I don’t know who gave it him, and I don’t believe Ms. Briggs is the one who did based on what we have here. So we are here today . . . I agree with Mr. Neiswonger. We are here on the conspiracy. Based on text messages between him and Ms. Briggs . . . having said that, I will agree with Mr. Neiswonger that Ms. Briggs is not the same person that she was on the date this conspiracy occurred. Detective Harris . . . if he were here to testify, would say the same thing, and Detective Harris . . . frankly . . . I think was shocked at the improvement Ms. Briggs has made, and so we are here today on a conspiracy. Based upon what the LS/CMI said, she’s a medium risk . . . she’s a low-medium, barely crossed over the line as a medium. Based on that, I’m not opposed to the court granting some sort of alternative sentence. She has successfully completed her home confinement. I’m not made aware of any violation of her home confinement, which was a condition of her bond.”

Hummel described the five purposes of sentencing being “retribution, specific deterrents, general deterrents, incapacitation, and rehabilitation.”

“You are an addict, right?” Hummel questioned. Briggs agreed.

“It’s not that it has gone away,” he stated. “It’s that you’ve managed it. The demon of addiction lurks below the surface. It’s always going to be there. There are two Chelsea Briggs’. While Mom didn’t say it. She knows of two. The one she loved, and the one she liked and loved.”

Hummel questioned what sort of retribution there could be for “a person like that, who delivers heroin . . . deadly heroin in our community. It’s despicable. Even as you said at the plea, you were going to take his money and run. You were still there.” Hummel reiterated that he was sentencing Briggs for only what she pleaded to-the conspiracy to deliver.

As to specific deterrents, Hummel stated that this was Briggs’ first opportunity for deterrents. “I suppose the home confinement leading up to now was a mechanism.” Hummel noted that with general deterrents, it would be what the community takes away from the case.

As to incapacitation, the judge noted, “It’s a great opportunity for incapacitation,” noting that Briggs had been incapacitated. As to Briggs’ son, Hummel sternly noted, “Frankly, I’d rather keep a heroin addict away from a child than give the child back to them.”

“The irony of the drug court suggestion is that you may not qualify,” he stated. “You are clean.” Hummel stated that he would have Briggs assessed, but she may not qualify and drug court might actually make her worse if she, as a medium-low risk, is with others who are at a higher risk. He stated that if she qualified, she would be admitted to drug court immediately.

“If you don’t qualify for drug court, I’m going to put up some specific terms and conditions for supervised probation. You will do some public speaking at high schools . . . probably three to five separate occasions, but you will be given that opportunity to help. In fact, I might have you do it even if you qualify for drug court.”

Briggs was originally indicted by the January 2014 grand jury with murder and delivery of a controlled narcotic substance, both to have allegedly occurred on Oct. 4, 2012. The alleged murder victim and heroin recipient was James Austin Connell.

On July 15, Briggs’ charge of murder was dismissed in Wetzel County Circuit Court as Prosecutor Haught stated that after the indictment there had been some strong exculpatory evidence that had come forward. Furthermore, Haught had stated that there was weakness as to whether or not Briggs delivered the heroin to the alleged victim and whether the heroin the alleged victim had consumed, causing his subsequent death, was delivered by Briggs. Briggs pleaded July 15 to conspiracy to deliver heroin.