OC Mail Thief: Please, Please Go Easy on Me & My Meth Habit!

Vargas: See, I was trying to lose weight with Meth and then . . . Oh, never mind

Orange County's Amanda Helen Vargas apparently has never heard of Jenny Craig.

Vargas stole other people's private mail in hopes of finding value information, cash or credit cards that ultimately could support a methamphetamine habit she claims she started a decade ago as a way to lose weight.

Vargas committed the federal offense while already on criminal probation, but--claiming rough circumstance growing up and bad treatment by men in her life--sought leniency this month from U.S. District Court Judge Josephine Staton Tucker.

To Vargas' delight, federal probation officers recommended a punishment of two months of incarceration.

But Assistant United States Attorney Lawrence E. Kole believed that Vargas deserved a tougher sentence: four months in prison plus four more months in a federal halfway house.

Inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana, Tucker handed the 33-year-old Vargas her wish: a two-month sentence plus three years of supervised probation.

She must also pay $3,576 in victim restitution.

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