Croslin faces 25 years after trafficking plea

A soft-spoken Misty Janette Croslin could barely be heard Tuesday as she pleaded to a drug trafficking charge that guarantees she will spend at least the next 25 years of her life in prison.

Croslin, 19, was charged with trafficking between 28 grams and 30 kilograms of Oxycodone after selling 155 Endocet tablets to an undercover officer on Jan. 8.

The tablets, which totaled 70.7 grams, sold for $800, Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis said Tuesday during Croslin's court appearance before St. Johns Circuit Judge Wendy W. Berger.

Trafficking is a first-degree felony, punishable by up to 30 years in prison. There is a minimum mandatory sentence of 25 years and a $500,000 fine for trafficking in the amount Croslin was charged with.

Croslin will return to St. Johns County for formal sentencing on Oct. 8.

She pleaded no contest Monday in Putnam County to seven prescription drug trafficking charges.

She faces 25 years in prison for those offenses, too.

Croslin is still believed by many to hold the key to the February 2009 disappearance of HaLeigh Ann-Marie Cummings, daughter of Ronald Lemyles Cummings.

HaLeigh Cummings, who would have been 7 years old on Tuesday, disappeared from her father's blue doublewide trailer in the Hermit's Cove area of Putnam County the night of Feb. 9.

Ronald Cummings was at work in Palatka at the time.

Croslin, Cummings' live-in girlfriend, was babysitting HaLeigh and Ronald Jr., Cummings' son, who turned 4 after his sister's disappearance.

Cummings and Croslin were married March 12, 2009.

A St. Johns County judge finalized their divorce seven months later, on Oct. 15.

Law enforcement officers deny that the trafficking arrests were designed -- or have been used -- as a way to put pressure on the defendants to talk about the little girl's disappearance.

Lt. Johnny Greenwood, a spokesman for the Putnam County Sheriff's Office, said after the arrests that the cases are completely separate.

"It was totally unrelated," he said. "It's really ironic how it happened."

Croslin's family and others have suggested that pressure was precisely why the sting operation was set up.

The others arrested for drug trafficking were Cummings; Croslin's brother, Hank Thomas "Tommy" Croslin Jr.; Cummings' cousin, Hope A. Sykes; and Croslin's friend, Donna Michelle Brock.

Sykes was sentenced April 26 to 15 years in prison.

Tommy Croslin pleaded no contest to trafficking and drug possession on June 3. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Aug. 6.

Brock is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 1.