OKLAHOMA CITY – A woman convicted of a federal drug trafficking charge wasted little time in asking to be let out of prison.
Sharleen Thelma Nickle was indicted in Oklahoma City’s Western District federal court in June 2019 on a charge of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute in Cleveland County the month before.
Nickle, 53, pleaded guilty and was sentenced on 7 January 2020 to seven years in federal prison.
Six months later Nickle filed a motion with the warden where she was incarcerated, asking for compassionate release; her request was denied.
On 14 December 2020 Nickle filed a motion with the Oklahoma City federal court, requesting compassionate release on the grounds that she was “worried how COVID-19” might affect her at the Federal Medical Center Carswell at Fort Worth, Texas, where she is confined.
She claimed she is in a high-risk group because she has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, “a heart condition”, and had a non-malignant ovarian tumor surgically removed in 2019.
U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick denied her request on 23 December 2020. “[I]n the world we currently live in, there is no indication that a reduction in sentence would save Defendant from contracting COVID-19 upon release,” he wrote.
He also noted that Nickle requested leniency less than a year after she was sentenced to seven years for her crime. The 84-month sentence she received was “well below the guideline range of 121 to 151 months,” he pointed out.
Nickle was convicted on narcotics charges twice before in state courts, records show.
She pleaded “no contest” in 1994 to a charge of trafficking in controlled substances in McClain County. She was incarcerated in prison for a month and a half and was on probation for the next 10 years, records of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC) show.
In 2012 Nickle was arrested in Grady County on a charge
of possession of precursor substances with intent to manufacture methamphetamine. She claimed she was innocent because she had bought Sudafed every month to control allergies that afflicted her and her children.
Nevertheless, a jury convicted Nickle of the felony charge and recommended a 14-year sentence. She was imprisoned from 13 November 2013 until
5 July 2017, and then was on probation for another year, DOC records reflect.
Nickle appealed that conviction, but the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the judgment in January 2015.
—Mike W. Ray, Southwest Ledger