All over the country we let violent criminals walk during the COVID lock down but a disabled veteran was just sentenced to 5 years in Alabama for possession of a plant.
Meet 33-year-old Sean Worsley, a disabled military veteran from Iraq who suffers from traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder.
Sean was arrested in Pickens County in 2016 after he was caught with medical marijuana he'd recently purchased legally in Arizona. He had a medical marijuana card, but he was charged with illegal drug possession because he was outside the state of Arizona at the time of his arrest.
The story of what happened to this man and his wife goes from bad to horrible as she eventually loses her job over the arrest which then leads to them losing their home (details in the article below).
Look, if he broke the law he should be held accountable for his crime but is this really worth a 60 month sentence? This sounds like a waste of time and resources for Alabama tax payers.
When they got to court, the Worsleys were taken to separate rooms. Eboni explained that Sean was disabled with serious cognitive issues and needed a guardian to help him understand the process and ensure he made an informed decision. Eboni claims that Sean told her that prosecutors told him that if he didn’t sign the plea agreement that they would have to stay incarcerated until December and that they would charge her with the same charges. Rather than see his wife go to jail he signed the agreement.
Sean’s plea agreement included 60 months of probation, plus drug treatment and thousands of dollars in fines, fees, and court costs. Because the Worsleys had lived in Arizona at the time of their arrest, his probation was transferred to Arizona, instead of Nevada, so they broke their lease agreement and moved back to Arizona. Sean’s Arizona probation officer however told them that their month-to-month rental did not constitute a permanent address. At her direction, they contacted Sean’s probation officer in Alabama, who told them to return to Pickens County. They were short on funds so tried to do it by proxy. Drug treatment was another part of the terms of the probation. Sean was denied treatment by the VA because smoking cannabis for medical purposes “does not meet criteria for a substance use disorder or meet need for substance abuse treatment.”