California woman sentenced in Texas to 2 years for drug possession, intent to distribute

LUBBOCK, Texas — A suburban Sacramento, California woman was sentenced in federal court Thursday after law enforcement found more than 160 lbs. of marijuana in her rental car on Christmas Day in 2013.

This sentence resulted from an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Abilene (Texas) Police Department. 

Christini Lynn Brashear, 45, of Rocklin, California, pleaded guilty in November 2014 to an indictment charging one count of possession with intent to distribute marijuana.  She was sentenced to serve two years and must surrender herself to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons on May 8, 2015.

According to documents filed in the case, on December 25, 2013, Abilene police received multiple calls regarding a small sport utility vehicle that was on Interstate 20 traveling east at approximately five miles per hour. Officers located the vehicle and found it parked on the shoulder of the freeway with Brashear asleep at the wheel. Officers called for emergency medical assistance and advised Brashear she was being taken to the hospital. She consented to an officer driving her car to the hospital to avoid having it towed, and she admitted using and possessing methamphetamine, which she turned over to the officers.

The officer driving Brashear’s vehicle noticed a strong odor of marijuana coming from inside the vehicle and later confirmed that the smell was coming from several duffle bags in the back that contained approximately 166 pounds of marijuana, individually bagged in one-pound clear plastic bags. The vehicle also contained multiple cell phones, two road atlases, and a note pad with hand-written directions to Houston, Texas. Rental papers for the vehicle show that it was rented to Brashear in Sacramento, California, on December 22, 2013, and it was due back to that location on December 26, 2013.