WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) - Federal prosecutors are recommending that a Delaware woman who pleaded guilty to illegally buying three guns for her drug-dealing boyfriend not serve any time in prison.
Ashley Houghton, 33, faces sentencing Monday after pleading guilty to making false statements to federally licensed gun dealers and to federal law enforcement agents. Advisory guidelines call for a sentence of five years in prison.
But prosecutors are asking for a sentence of three years’ probation, with the first six months under home detention. They said in court filings that such a sentence takes into consideration Houghton’s troubled background, including her history of drug abuse and mental health issues, and the substantial steps she has taken toward rehabilitation.
Houghton’s boyfriend Kenneth Bijansky, with whom she has two children, is scheduled for sentencing in March. He faces a minimum of 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime.
Prosecutors say Houghton bought a rifle and two handguns from Cabela’s at Christiana Mall after falsely stating on the required paperwork that she was buying the guns for herself and providing an address for her mother’s house instead of her own. She later told her mother to lie to federal agents.
Prosecutors also noted in court documents that after authorities arrested Bijansky, Houghton herself began to sell drugs. She was arrested in August 2019 after bringing her two children to an arranged heroin sale to an undercover police officer posing as a customer. She was arrested again about a month later after threatening to harm her two-year-old daughter.
Houghton was sentenced last February to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to drug dealing and endangering welfare of a child in connection with the first arrest, but the sentence was suspended for one year of probation. She was sentenced in July to two years in prison after pleading guilty in connection with the second arrest to terroristic threatening to commit a crime likely to result in death or serious injury, and to child abuse. That sentence was also suspended for one year of intensive supervision.
Prosecutors said in court documents that Houghton has been drug-free for the past year, is working two jobs and is motivated to stay clean.
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