Washington Women Get 60 Days for Smuggling Monkey Into Country
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
SPOKANE, Wash. — A mother and daughter were each sentenced to 60 days in jail for smuggling a rheses macaque monkey into the United States.
Gypsy Lawson, 28, of Spokane, and her mother Fran Ogren, 57, of Northport, were also each placed on three years probation.
The sentences were handed down Tuesday in federal court in Spokane.
Airline itineraries showed the two flew from Spokane to Bangkok, Thailand, in November 2007, then home a few weeks later. Federal agents raided Lawson's Spokane home in January 2008 and seized the monkey.
They say she smuggled the sedated monkey into the United States under her shirt, pretending she was pregnant.
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