Judge Gives Misty Croslin 25 Years for Drug Conviction

CNN.com- Misty Croslin, the last person known to see a 5-year-old Florida girl before she was reported missing in February 2009, was sentenced to 25 years in prison Friday on an unrelated drug charge.

Circuit Judge Wendy Berger also ordered Croslin to pay $500,000 and to follow her prison time with five years of drug-offender probation.

Croslin had pleaded no contest in the St. Johns County courtroom to a single count of trafficking oxycodone.

She faces sentencing on October 19 in a Palatka, Florida, courtroom for a conviction on similar charges.

At the time Haleigh Cummings went missing, Croslin was 17 and residing in the family's mobile home with her then-husband, Ronald Cummings, Haleigh and her 4-year-old brother.

Croslin and Ronald Cummings were both arrested in January along with three others after allegedly selling about $3,900 worth of drugs to undercover officers, authorities said. The two divorced after Haleigh's disappearance.

Croslin told police she tucked Haleigh and the brother into bed about 8 p.m. February 8, 2009, and went to sleep two hours later.

She said she awoke at 3 a.m. to find Haleigh missing and a cinder block propping open a back door. Ronald Cummings reported Haleigh missing when he returned from work at dawn.

Authorities previously said physical evidence contradicts Croslin's account of events that night. However, police have stopped short of naming Croslin as a suspect.

In televised interviews, Croslin has said she does not know what happened to Haleigh but believes "the other side of the family" knows where she is.

Police have said Cummings and Crystal Sheffield, the girl's mother, are not considered suspects. Authorities believe Haleigh is dead and are treating the case as a homicide investigation.