A federal judge in Miami sentenced former federal grand juror Leslie Lynn Heburn to one year and one day in prison for using an alias Facebook account to warn a suspect's girlfriend of pending charges.

U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke handed down the sentence after Heburn pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice.

Heburn, a Miami resident, was serving on the grand jury as the U.S. Attorney's Office presented evidence to secure an indictment against Rocky Dejesus Molina, accused of illegal gun possession.

Prosecutors said Heburn had been sworn in as a grand juror on Jan. 19, 2017, and made aware of the legal repercussions of leaking case details from grand jury proceedings. Then about four months later, in May 2017, the grand jury received copies of the proposed indictment against Molina for firearms possession without a license and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

But Heburn broke these rules.

Prosecutors said she reached out to Molina's girlfriend using a pseudonymous Facebook account to warn her about the forthcoming indictment.

Following Molina's arrest later that month, his girlfriend reached back out to Heburn to ask for further details. Heburn responded by sending photos of the indictment, as well as sharing that Molina had been set up several times by an informant working with police.

Prosecutors said the juror knew she was breaking the law, because Heburn told Molina's partner she was aware of the legal repercussions of disclosing grand jury information.

Heburn pleaded guilty to to obstruction of justice on June 19.

According to Heburn's attorney Barry M. Wax, a private practitioner based out of Miami's Brickell area, his client has struggled with mental health issues for most of her life. In an Aug. 20 sentencing memorandum, Wax writes that Heburn had stopped taking psychotropic medication meant to help her with multiple psychiatric disorders.

Barry M. Wax of the Law Offices of Barry M. Wax. Courtesy photo

“This case may very well have saved Ms. Heburn from something worse, because as a result of her arrest, Ms. Heburn was ordered to attend mental health counseling, which she now does weekly. And, it has helped stabilize her,” Wax wrote. “Quite clearly, we also have a woman with significant mental illness which needs to be treated, not exacerbated by incarceration.”

The filing requested that Heburn be sentenced to supervised release with special conditions of regular mental health and substance abuse treatment in lieu of incarceration. Wax argued that sentencing Heburn to prison would disrupt both the physical and intellectual development of her two sons, aged 8 and 15, as well as the progress she had made regarding her mental health.

Wax expressed disappointment and frustration when speaking to the Daily Business Review about Heburn's sentence. Noting that Heburn had been compliant since being placed under the supervision of the court's pretrial services office, Wax said that although his client had committed the serious offense of which she was accused, “prison is not the place for individuals suffering from diagnosed mental illnesses.”

“Putting Leslie in jail for a year will be more detrimental to her continued treatment and will have a devastating impact on her children,” Wax said. “She is a different person than she was when I met her last year. I can only hope that whatever treatment she gets while she's incarcerated enables her to continue along the path that she is determined to follow.”

Wax added that his client's sentencing is indicative of a larger problem concerning how mental health issues are treated both in court system and in prison.

“Certainly the sentence is a reasonable sentence in the greater scheme of things, but once again, the criminal justice system is being used as a substitute for the lack of mental health treatment facilities in this country,” he said. “I know that Judge Cook wanted to deter other individuals from committing this crime in the future and that's understandable. But prisons are no substitute for appropriate mental health treatment.”

Read Barry M. Wax's Sentencing Memorandum for Leslie Lynn Heburn: