Former model Yuyee Intusmith now serves 15 years in prison for cocaine smuggling
The Supreme Court today dropped the appeal of the former leading model Alissa "Yuyee" Intusmith in a drug smuggling case in 2012 which she was convicted to 15 years in prison by the Criminal Court.
The court’s decision thus ended her petition against the earlier ruling by the Criminal Court (first court) in June 2014 which sentenced her to 20 years in prison and to pay a 2 million baht fine for the smuggling of 251 milligrammes of cocaine on board a flight from Vietnam to Suvarnabhumi airport in November 2012.
However the first court commuted the prison sentence to 15 years, and fine reduced to 1.5 million baht after finding her testimony useful for the court’s trial.
Yuyee or also known as Chatchaya Cuesta Ramos, 44, appealed the sentence by the Criminal Court (Court of First Instance) to the Appeals Court.
But in September 2015, the Appeals Court upheld the first court’s sentence.
She later appealed to the Supreme Court.
In today’s hearing of her appeal, the Supreme Court dropped her appeal and agreed with the ruling of the two courts to pass on the 15 years imprisonment.
Yuyee was escorted to hear the verdict from the Central Women Correctional Institute where she has alteady served two years and nine months after the first court’s ruling.
She had attempted to seek temporary release on bail but her attempt was rejected as the two courts feared that she might run away if bail was granted.
In addition to serving 15 years in prison, her prison term was extended by another three months for having protected animal in possession as earlier ruled by Minburi Provincial Court.
Thai former model Alissa “Yuyee” Intusmith was arrested at Suvarnabhumi Airport on November 10, 2012 with a bag of cocaine in her possession.
Yuyee was reportedly acting suspiciously so customs officer searched her and found five miligrams of cocaine along with “medication pills.”
The former model claimed she had used the drug while she was in Vietnam and that it was for personal use only – not distribution.
She was charged with drug possession and held until her ex-husband Francisco Xavier Cuesta-Ramos, a Spaniard, posted her 10,000 baht bail.
In July of the same year, police raided her home in Bangkok’s Saphan Sung district after people reported that she was keeping protected wildlife and found dozens of forest animals and birds, some of them protected.
For her part, Yuyee said she was only taking care of the animals before releasing them back into the wild.
Former model Yuyee Intusmith now serves 15 years in prison for cocaine smuggling - Thai PBS English News