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Maria Full of Flour
Back in 2003, Janet Lee was a freshman at Bryn Mawr College (a university in the ‘burbs of good ol’ Philadelphia). She was heading onto a flight to Los Angeles when she encountered a bit of a kerfuffle. Lee’s carry-on bag had three condoms filled with flour, which she was taking home to show her friends - apparently, these were “toys” used by the students to help relieve exam stress (I guess they’re like ghetto homemade versions of those little gel-filled stress balls). It will come as no surprise to you that the screeners were a little suspicious of these, although it came as a big surprise to Lee, who says she had no idea folks used condoms to transport drugs (“I was naive, really stupid,” she says).
Anyway, the screeners had a drug test done, and sumbitch if they didn’t come back positive for opium and coke. So Lee spent three weeks in the clink for trafficking charges, until further tests showed that the rubbers were, in fact, simply full of flour. Whoops.
The City of Philadelphia has now settled a lawsuit filed by Lee, on the eve of trial, for $180,000. The city of course says that this settlement is no admission of wrongdoing or liability. Because, you know, there’s no way it did something wrong in mistakenly determining that flour was opium and coke. Noooooo.
And speaking of Philly, go Eagles!!!
