A Filipino mother who overstayed her visa and sold dangerous drugs to allegedly support her use of “shabu” or ice was sentenced on May 19 to six years and 11 months in jail after pleading guilty to a charge of drug trafficking.
Meliza Ortega, 34, wiped away tears as Justice Remedios D’Almada handed down the substantially reduced sentence after she discussed the appropriate jail term with the prosecution and defense lawyers.
Her guilty plea spared the Filipina of a likely sentence of about 11 years.
Ortega had already served a one-day prison sentence for breach of condition of stay by overstaying her visa as a domestic worker back in 2010. At the time, she had run way from her third employer in Hong Kong due to allegedly unbearable treatment.
The former maid, who came to Hong Kong in 2006, was arrested on Jan 5, 2015, in a police anti-drug operation in Mongkok.
A prosecution report said two police officers went to the second floor of a residential building on Mong Kok Road at around 11:25 am to conduct a search when the lift opened and the defendant emerged.
The officers saw her enter Flat A, which had a wooden door, and left the door unlocked, so they followed and saw her enter a room in the subdivided flat. The police forced the door open and saw the defendant and a local woman inside.The officers seized packets of drugs meant for delivery to customers consisting of 95.14 grams of ice, 9.81 grams of cocaine and 29.6 grams of heroin. The officers also confiscated $750 and two mobile phones from the Filipina.
During interrogation, Ortega admitted that she was also using shabu, a vice she acquired when she stayed with friends after she ran away from her employer in 2010.
She became an easy recruit to deliver drug orders because she was jobless and needed to send money to her family. She admitted she herself used a small quantity of shabu to banish her loneliness as she missed her daughter, now 18.-- Vir B. Lumicao
