(Ed.'s Note: Some time ago, before "The Troubles" started in northern Mexico and Tamaulipas, my parents would travel to visit relatives near Soto la Marina on the state's southeastern coastal region. They would return laden with home-grown goodies like bags of dried piquin peppers, bottles of honey, and long strips of chicharrones. They declared these at the bridge, and were sent on their way. The story below shows how even innocuous things like that can land people in trouble if they fall in the hands of overzealous customs agents.)
By Lynh Bui
The Washington Post
Leon Haughton likes honey in his tea. Which is why during his Christmas visit to relatives in Jamaica, he made his regular stop and bought three bottles from a favorite roadside stand before heading home to Maryland.
It was a routine purchase for him until he landed at the airport in Baltimore. Customs officers detained Haughton and police arrested him, accusing him of smuggling in not honey, but liquid meth.
Haughton spent nearly three months in jail before all charges were dropped and two rounds of law enforcement lab tests showed no controlled substances in the bottles.
By then, Haughton, who according to his lawyer had no criminal record, had lost both of his jobs as a cleaner and a construction worker.
“They messed up my life,” Haughton said. “I want the world to know that the system is not right. If I didn’t have strong people around me, they would probably leave me in jail. You’re lost in the system.”
Months after his release, he is only now fully rebuilding his life after the setback devastated him and his family of six children.Leon Haughton likes honey in his tea. Which is why during his Christmas visit to relatives in Jamaica, he made his regular stop and bought three bottles from a favorite roadside stand before heading home to Maryland.
It was a routine purchase for him until he landed at the airport in Baltimore. Customs officers detained Haughton and police arrested him, accusing him of smuggling in not honey, but liquid meth.
Haughton spent nearly three months in jail before all charges were dropped and two rounds of law enforcement lab tests showed no controlled substances in the bottles.
By then, Haughton, who according to his lawyer had no criminal record, had lost both of his jobs as a cleaner and a construction worker.
“They messed up my life,” Haughton said. “I want the world to know that the system is not right. If I didn’t have strong people around me, they would probably leave me in jail. You’re lost in the system.”
Months after his release, he is only now fully rebuilding his life after the setback devastated him and his family of six children. Haughton’s status as a legal permanent resident with a green card complicated his case. Because he was arrested at an airport for alleged drug felonies, his case triggered an federal detention order that extended his time in jail, court testimony shows.
Twenty days after his arrest, a state police lab test looking for drugs in the bottles came up negative. Yet the 45-year-old father sat behind bars for two more months total before the last of the charges were dropped after a second all-clear in a federal lab test.
“Someone dropped the ball somewhere,” Haughton’s lawyer Terry Morris said. “An innocent man spent 82 days in jail for bringing honey into the United States.”
'I don't have drugs'
After landing at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Dec. 29 around 10 p.m., U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained Haughton for more than two hours before Maryland Transportation Authority Police put him in handcuffs, according to charging documents. The bottles with gold-colored screw tops labeled “honey” in his bag, they told him, had tested positive in a drug field test for methamphetamine.
Haughton fainted. Police took him to a hospital. Then they took him to jail.