unemployed mother pay her bills was sentenced to four years in prison yesterday.

Biting his lip, a tearful Quincy Santucci hugged family members as he was led out of Supreme Court. It was the 19-year-old Mount Hill, Pembroke youth's first criminal offence.

Defence lawyer Mr. Tim Marshall said the lack of a male role model in Santucci's life, the tragic death of his best friend and moving to a new neighbourhood, led him into bad company.

Santucci had pleaded guilty to importing 101.8 grams of 60 to 65 percent pure cocaine. Sentencing was adjourned pending a social inquiry report.

Customs officers discovered the cocaine hidden in a false bottom of a hair spray can in his toiletry bag when he arrived at the Airport on January 17 on a flight from New York, Crown Counsel Mr. Diarmuid Doorly said.

He had travelled to New York with an older male friend, Mr. Doorly said. He contributed $1,000 towards purchasing the drug and would have made $12,000, he said.

"I made a foolish mistake,'' Santucci said before being sentenced. "I assure you it won't happen again.'' Acting Chief Justice the Hon. Mr. Justice Ward gave Santucci the maximum discount for his "high degree of cooperation'' with Police. He said he had seen a confidential report showing Santucci's level of assistance.

The two months he spent in custody would be subtracted from the four-year sentence, Mr. Justice Ward said. Mr. Doorly had asked for a sentence in the range of five to eight years.

In his final submissions, Mr. Marshall said Santucci had nothing to do with buying and packaging the drug. His male companion did that.

Santucci was motivated to commit the crime because he and his mother had been facing "great economic difficulty'', the lawyer said. She had just been laid off from her hotel job and lost the mortgage on her house, causing them to move to a new neighbourhood where Santucci fell in with the wrong crowd.

He added Santucci may have looked up to the older man because he had had a difficult childhood in which his father refused to acknowledge him.

And when his best friend died after falling into a cesspit in the tragic industrial accident at the Robin Hood pub, he "was left alone again''.

Mr. Marshall said though Santucci was unemployed at the time, he was a hard worker, currently employed at a gas station. He wanted to be an accountant one day and any prison term would certainly affect his career plans.