Kim Hall is accused of smuggling 43kg of cocaine
10:16, 26 Aug 2025Updated 10:29, 26 Aug 2025
Kimberly Hall (Image: Cook County Sheriff Office/MEGA)
A woman who is accused of trying to smuggle cocaine worth millions and was facing 60 years in American jail could be home in 12 months.
Kimberley Hall, 29, was travelling to Manchester Airport when she was stopped at Chicago’s O’Hare airport after two suitcases packed with 43kg of cocaine were found.
She was later charged with possession with intent to supply and faced a lengthy sentence.
But a reported plea deal currently being discussed means she will serve just a fraction of the maximum term she once faced, the Mirror reports.
Hall appeared in a Chicago court yesterday and had reportedly been due to plead guilty in order to get a reduced sentence between four and six years.
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Hall is expected to serve half of the sentence and the year she spent on remand will be taken into account. It could mean she will return home in one or two years.
Yesterday’s hearing was adjourned with both sides set to thrash out details of the deal, the Mirror says. Her final sentence is due to take place in the next month.
Kimberly Hall is awaiting trial in the US(Image: Cook County Sheriff’s Office)
The prosecution is expected to agree to a reduced term after accepting she was forced by two British men to take the suitcases, which she believed were filled with $250,000 (£185,744) to the UK from a holiday in Mexico.
‘It’s better news than we could ever have hoped for’
Her family were overjoyed at the prospect of a massively reduced sentence.
“We are over the moon,” her scaffolder dad John, 60 told The Sun. “It’s better news than we could ever have hoped for.
“When we first heard talk of a plea deal we didn’t dare to hope. I couldn’t get the figure of 60 years out of my head and feared the worst.
“But instead of the worst case scenario we are now looking at just about the best we could have hoped for. Kimberley has suffered terribly through this ordeal through no fault of her own, we all have.
“It’s been a long, hard struggle financially and emotionally but we always had faith in her and always supported her. She is not a criminal and never has been. She is just a naïve young woman whose decision making was affected by her bipolar condition.
“Thankfully the courts recognised all of that and it means we will be getting her home much sooner than we have always feared.”
The beautician, from Middlesbrough, was offered a free holiday to Cancun, Mexico, by two British men she met on a previous break in Portugal and was then asked towards the end of her trip to take two suitcases home with her.
She says she was told they were filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
She told The Sun how the men threatened her and held a gun to her head. She added: “I agreed to it because there was no reason not to. It was just money and I didn’t see anything wrong in it.
“One of them dragged me off the bed by my hair and held a handgun to my head. He said: ‘I’ll f****** shoot you.’ It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
She was later taken to Cook County Jail and charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to deliver.
Her lawyer Brandon Carter said she would not return to crime if she was released early.