Newport Beach Woman Gets 4 1/2 Years in Drug Sale

A Newport Beach woman married to a convicted drug dealer was sentenced Monday to serve 4 1/2 years in federal prison for selling cocaine.

Carol Maciel, 41, was arrested June 27 at a Costa Mesa hotel after selling the drug to an undercover agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency. She was charged with selling about $9,300 worth of cocaine. Maciel also had arranged to sell the agent a kilogram of cocaine for about $55,000, according to court records.

Maciel’s partner in the sales, Jackie Anderson, 33, of Santa Ana, previously pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Richard Keller said he did not think Maciel was a major drug dealer, but he was concerned that her 17-year-old daughter was involved in the transactions. Two of Maciel’s teen-age daughters, her mother and her mother-in-law accompanied her to court and cried throughout the sentencing hearing.

“I’m very sorry and it will never happen again,” a tearful Maciel told the judge. Maciel, who wore a white business suit and pink blouse, is held without bail at the Sybil Brand Institute.

“This issue of protecting society is extremely important,” Keller said. “I feel cocaine is a very, very serious societal problem and one that doesn’t have a ripple effect, but a tidal effect.”

Maciel’s husband, Pablo, is serving a prison sentence in the La Mesa Federal Penitentiary in Tijuana, according to her attorney, Barry Utsinger.