Local News in Brief : 6-Month Term Levied Over Doctored Burrito
A North Hollywood man who laced his estranged wife’s burrito with a tranquilizer has been sentenced to six months in jail and placed on three years’ probation.
San Fernando Superior Judge Dana S. Henry on Thursday also ordered the man, James Regis Barnett, 48, to undergo psychiatric counseling.
Barnett, who pleaded no contest in March to a charge of administering a harmful substance, placed 2 1/2 ground-up Valium tablets in a burrito that he took to the Sunland home of his wife, Barbara Barnett, on June 11, 1985, according to his probation report.
Barnett said he put the drug in the burrito so that his wife would not become emotionally upset when he told her he had a girlfriend, the report said.
When his wife said her burrito tasted bitter, Barnett “told her to put more hot sauce on it,” the report stated.
Barbara Barnett became ill and was taken to a hospital by her daughter two days later, the report said. She was hospitalized for four days.
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