In a bid to get a lesser sentence, a former staffer in an Arizona prison where hundreds of Hawaiʻi inmates are held claims she was hired despite her history of mental illness.

A former prison staffer caught smuggling methamphetamine into the privately run Saguaro Correctional Center in Arizona says she was hired as a corrections officer there even after she told prison officials she had been hospitalized for serious mental illnesses.

That claim was made in a memorandum seeking to mitigate the sentence for Patricia Fay West, 57, who pleaded guilty last month to two felony charges after she was found trying to bring more than 6 ounces of meth into the Saguaro facility last year. A search of her home later turned up more than 2 pounds of the drug, according to court records.

West’s defense

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