Tammi Bloom

Sentence: 19 years, 7 months (re-sentenced to 15 ½ years)
Offense: Cocaine and cocaine base conspiracy
Priors: None
Year sentenced: 1999
Age at sentencing: 32
Projected release date: June 29, 2012

Tammi grew up in Miami and left home at age 18 to move in with her husband. She earned her nursing degree in 1986 and worked for several health care providers and in area hospitals. Tammi was happy, raising her two children and working in a professional field she cared deeply about. Unbeknownst to her, however, Tammi’s husband of 15 years was distributing cocaine in the Miami area, primarily from the apartment he shared with his mistress in Ocala, Florida.
 
Police arrested Tammi’s husband and his mistress in Ocala. They searched the Miami house he shared with Tammi and found cocaine, crack, three firearms and drug ledgers.  Tammi stated that with the exception of a small bag of cocaine in her husband’s nightstand, she had no idea the drugs evn existed. The cocaine was well-hidden, even from her, in a septic tank in the backyard.  The guns were also located in an area of the house used by her husband.  A criminal informant (CI) told authorities that Tammi was present at one of two cocaine sales her husband conducted at the Miami house.  According to the CI, Tammi’s job was to count the money from her husband’s transactions.  Tammi, who lived with her husband and their two children in Miami, says she knew nothing about her husband’s mistress or his cocaine business. She was held accountable for the entirety of drugs found in the search as well as those sold by her husband in Miami: 2.41 kilograms of cocaine and 510.05 grams of crack.
 
Although the Court recognized that Tammi was a minor participant in the offense, she received the longest sentence of anyone convicted in the conspiracy. Her husband received 17.5 years and his mistress received 6.5 years.  A drug associate of her husband’s in Ocala was sentenced to 14 years. 

Tammi’s sentence was enhanced because of the guns found in the search and because she testified to her innocence at trial.  With no criminal record, Tammi’s sentencing guideline range was 235 to 293 months. The judge sentenced her at the lowest end of the guidelines
 
At the time the conspiracy took place, Tammi was working full-time at United Health Care and attending additional nursing classes to advance her education.  Her son and daughter, now adults, who were just 11 and 13-years-old at the time of her incarceration. When Tammi was sentenced to almost twenty years in prison, her elderly mother became the primary caretaker for both of Tammi’s children. In 2009, Tammi’s sentence was reduced by four years under the crack amendment. She is now eligible for release in 2012.