Marylou Bickett was ordered to serve six months in jail after she failed to provide proof she was in California as a term of court-supervised probation on a gross misdemeanor charge.
Bickett, age 37, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess a controlled substance in July and in September was ordered to pay a fine as requested by her attorney, along with court-supervised probation and condition she provides proof that she is in California a week following her sentencing hearing.
The charge originated from Bicket conspiring to possess methamphetamine, a controlled substance, in early February 2020 in Winnemucca.
Bickett is from California and told the court that she just wants to go back home to her kids. Bickett appeared in court in September and said that she had been in Winnemucca since her July arraignment hearing due to a lack of funds to be able to return for her sentencing hearing.
During the time between her arraignment and sentencing hearing, Bickett told the court that she had hit a jackpot at a local casino and would be receiving nearly half a million dollars in the days following the sentencing hearing.
Her attorney, Humboldt County Public Defender Matthew Stermitz asked the court to allow her to pay a fine for the gross misdemeanor and leave Winnemucca to go back to California to be with her family rather than be placed on formal probation and reported that California doesn’t always allow probation for gross misdemeanor charges to be transferred across state lines.
Bickett was ordered to 364 days in jail, with the jail time suspended and the condition that she pay a $1,000 fine, $1,460 in restitution for being in possession of a stolen vehicle (the formal charge dropped in plea negotiations), a $153 DNA collection and analysis fee, $25 administrative assessment fee and $250 public defender fee, along with three months of court supervision with the condition that she is somewhere other than Winnemucca.
A week following the sentencing hearing when Bicket was supposed to provide proof that she had paid her fines and was back in California, Bickett appeared in Sixth Judicial District Court from the Humboldt County Detention Center after being arrested on felony charges of burglary and possession of a controlled substance on September 21.
At a later probation violation hearing, she told the court that after she won the jackpot at the local casino, the jackpot was placed in someone else’s name because she only had a copy of her identification on her person when she won the jackpot.
She said she had been speaking with the gaming commission to try to get everything straightened out as the money had been paid to someone else and that she couldn’t leave Winnemucca as the court-supervised probation had ordered her to do at the sentencing hearing.
Since Bickett admitted to violating several terms of her probation including leaving Winnemucca and paying fines and fees, Sixth Judicial District Court Judge Michael Montero ordered Bickett to serve six months in the Humboldt County Detention Center with 37 days credit for time served.
In a separate case on the same day, Wesley Alexander Franklin was ordered to serve 12 months of probation on a mandatory deferred judgment after admitting to one count of felony possession of a controlled substance, a category E felony in Nevada.
Franklin was ordered to pay $500 in public defender fees, a $3 DNA collection fee and $25 administrative assessment and ordered to no purchase/possession/consumption of controlled substances or alcohol.
