‘Freaky’ public defender gets prison for smuggling heroin to Missouri murderer
A self-styled “freaky” former public defender in Missouri has been sentenced to federal prison for smuggling heroin to a convicted murderer with whom she had a romantic relationship, authorities said.
Juliane L. Colby, 44, slipped the drugs to an inmate at the Western Missouri Correctional Center in August 2019 by hiding them in an envelope marked “legal mail,” according to prosecutors.
The former staffer with the Jackson County Public Defender’s Office was sentenced Tuesday to one year and one month behind bars without parole.
She pleaded guilty in February to one count of conspiracy to distribute heroin for smuggling the 3.25 grams of black tar to her love interest, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri.
Colby, of Shawnee, Kansas, slipped the drugs in an envelope that also contained documents from an inactive court case along with photos of herself, prosecutors said.
The heroin was packed into eight small baggies taped behind the flap of the envelope, which had a fake return address for a law firm and was addressed to another inmate who was housed in the same unit as Colby’s beau, authorities said.
Court documents show Colby “began a romantic relationship” with a man identified as “Conspirator 1” while she worked as an attorney on his defense for the state public defender’s office in 2017.
Colby, who was indicted in March, was fired from her job as a mitigation specialist with the public defender’s office that year after communicating with a man awaiting trial for murder on a phone illegally smuggled into the prison, KSHB reported.
Court documents show Colby and Ce-Antonyo Kennedy, then 19, had traded dozens of messages using the smuggled phone starting in February 2017, including many that were sexually charged.
“Question, have you only dated black girls?” one message sent by Colby read, according to the filing.
“Honestly yeah but I’ve been with all kind before,” Kennedy replied. “[Why?]”
“Just curious … Asians are the best, just so you know,” Colby later wrote. “I know people say, once you go black you never go back.”
The frisky attorney then claimed she was “great at what I do” in another message.
“I’ve been told I’m the best by every guy I’ve ever been with,” she continued.
“LOL, I want find out for myself,” Kennedy replied while asking if she was in her sexual peak.
“I’ve always been in a sexual peak and I’m Asian so I’ve always been a freak!” Colby wrote.
“Freaky enough to give it to me in a jail visitation room?” Kennedy asked.
“That’s not really being freaky, that’s gambling! Lol,” Colby shot back.
Kennedy then asked if Colby would consider his request if they could access a private room without guards or cameras, court documents show.
“Just so you know, it has nothing to do with not wanting to be with you,” Colby wrote. “But if I got caught, I could lose my job, my law license and my social work license. I just couldn’t take that risk.”
Kennedy was convicted in April 2017 of second-degree murder in the shooting death of a 14-year-old girl at a Kansas City water park.
Colby faced criminal charges for acting in concert in possession of a cell phone in a correctional facility, but she entered a diversion program and charges were dismissed in 2019, federal prosecutors said.
Colby regularly visited Kennedy in August 2019 as he served his sentence for the 2015 slaying of Alexis Kane, who was beaten and shot at The Bay Water Park in south Kansas City.
Colby and Kennedy had several phone calls during which they used codewords to discuss their plan to mail heroin into the facility, as well as a previous successful smuggling delivery. The calls were recorded, federal prosecutors said.
With Post wires
