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Jacqueline Seldon,a quadriplegic accused of running a drug and gun ring in Syracuse, makes a court appearance last year.

(Ellen M. Blalock | eblalock@syracuse.com)

Syracuse, NY -- Jacqueline Seldon sat for five hours in her car where a masked gunman had just stolen $1,400 from an undercover detective.



The robbery occurred during a botched gun deal she is accused of planning.

Two Syracuse police officers spotted her parked Chrysler 300 on the South Side of Syracuse on Aug. 28 at 10:20 p.m. They ordered her to unlock her doors and get out.

Seldon, 36, didn't move.

She was paralyzed, not only by fear, but by a spinal cord injury that rendered her a quadriplegic.



A baton blasted through her back window. She screamed as the officers dragged her onto the ground, where her head met with the shards of glass from the broken window.



Blood poured from a cut above her left eye, and she was taken away in an ambulance.

After her head was stitched up, the former Oneida High School cheerleader and mother of a 15-year-old was questioned, arrested and charged with first-degree robbery.



The woman who couldn't open a car door would later be pegged by prosecutors as the "ringleader" of a five-person drug-and-gun trafficking operation in the city.

Seldon, who is scheduled to appear in court today, had been the target of a months-long undercover investigation cut short by the robbery.

Growing up

Jacqueline Seldon in her youth

Jacqueline Marji was born in Yonkers on Aug. 25, 1976. Her parents, who immigrated to the United States from Jordan, worked hard to provide for their four children, Seldon said.



Her mother, Basimah, worked in a makeup factory and her father, Munib, at Stewart Stamping Company.



Seldon's mother said the neighborhood in Yonkers was rough. She recalled her daughter cutting class as early as the second grade.

The family moved to Oneida when Seldon was a teen. She was a good student, said her younger sister, Jennifer Jackson, but had a poor choice of friends. The family thought she'd make a good lawyer because she was a combination of argumentative and persuasive, said Jackson.

Seldon made the cheerleading squad at Oneida High School, but dropped out before graduation, according to her mother.

Jackson, who is a former heroin addict and current drug and alcohol counselor, said her sister began using drugs in her teens, and often lies about her past when meeting new people.

A young Jacqueline Seldon

Seldon claimed in an interview to have attended Syracuse University for a year, and said she also earned an associate's degree in accounting from the University of Phoenix. The registrar's office at Syracuse University didn't have a record of her attendance. Neither did the University of Phoenix.

Seldon started smoking joints laced with crack cocaine, known as "woo," in the 80s, said Jackson.

Soon she was hooked on crack cocaine, said Jackson, and became "a slave to her addiction."

Early crimes



Seldon gave birth to a son in 1998 -- the same year she was also placed on five years' probation after pleading guilty in Onondaga County Court to fourth-degree grand larceny.



She admitted to stealing a woman's credit cards to purchase a $600 gold necklace and warranty at a Kay jewelry store, clothes and shoes from The Finish Line, jewelry from The Piercing Pagoda, shoes from Karaz shoes, clothing from Kaufman's, jewelry from JCPenney, and toys from Toys R Us.

Her co-defendant in that case wrote a letter to Judge Kevin Mulroy blaming Seldon for the crime.



"I did not, did not participate with Jackie she used me," Robert Mitchell wrote. "I hope she pays for what she's done."

In 2000, Seldon was sent to the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County after violating probation by testing positive for marijuana. She was sentenced to one-to-three years by Judge Jeffrey Merrill.

"I'll be honest with you," Merrill said to her during sentencing. "I've known you long enough. You've been given numbers of chances over the years and you dusted every one of them off."

Marriage and tragedy

After Seldon got out of prison, she went back to the courthouse to marry her now-estranged husband, Christopher Seldon.



She didn't tell her family, and her parents didn't approve of the wedding, said Jackson.

Seldon said that although she is still technically married, she has been on her own since becoming handicapped.



Seldon was riding back to Syracuse from LaGuardia airport on Jan. 25, 2003, she said. She fell asleep in the backseat while the driver, who was high on marijuana, headed home.

Jacqueline Seldon, pictured with her brother, Chris.

Seldon said the driver, who she didn't name, hit a parked van on the side of the road. The car spiraled into oncoming traffic and was t-boned.



Seldon said she must have lost consciousness, and was trapped under the driver's seat when she came to.



She lifted her head to call for help, and her exposed neck bone snapped her spinal cord.

She hasn't moved her legs since. She has severely limited use of her arms.

After the accident, Seldon said she didn't have much will to live.

"I was very angry, bitter," she said. "I wanted to kill myself, tried to kill myself."

Jackson said she believes her sister suffers from clinical depression and, possibly, bi-polar disorder.

For years after her accident, Seldon rarely left her bed. She needed help to brush her teeth and hair, to dress, to eat, to use the bathroom.

Her mother, who now lives in a housing facility in Oneida for the elderly and disabled, said she tried unsuccessfully to care for her.

She said her daughter, despite being bed-ridden, found ways to buy drugs.



When she would try to move Seldon to keep her from developing bed sores, she often found welts on her daughter's legs from the pill bottles she would attempt to conceal underneath her, Basimah Marji said.

Jackson said the family stopped providing care for Seldon because she refused treatment for her addiction.



"We had to detach with love," she said.

At the time of her arrest, Seldon was living in an apartment on Murray Street in Syracuse. She was cared for by a co-defendant in her case, whom she didn't charge for rent.



Reputed gun and drug dealer

An undercover detective first met Seldon in July 2012. Seldon only knew him as a "white, hippie dude" who went by the name "Matt."

The detective allegedly bought ecstasy from Seldon four times last summer. For these transactions to happen, a friend would help Seldon into her car, drive her to the meeting place, handle whatever goods were being sold, count the money and put it into Seldon's pocket, according to police reports.



Prosecutor Mike Ferrante said Seldon's ability to text helped her accomplish various drug and gun sales.



In late July, "Matt" allegedly told Seldon he wanted to buy a few guns. Seldon is accused of selling one handgun to the detective on July 26 and two more on Aug. 1 in Syracuse.



According to Ferrante, the investigation into Seldon's alleged dealings grew out of an earlier gun-trafficking investigation that resulted in the 2011 conviction of Syracuse resident Shawndell Everson, whom Seldon once referred to as her "brother."

Everson was sentenced in March 2011 to serve 143 years in state prison for his role in an operation authorities said was responsible for importing more than 50 guns a year to Syracuse. Authorities said many of those guns were coming from Cleveland, Ohio.

Seldon was never charged in connection with Everson's dealings.

"Is it true, in one of the news reports, they said I had something to do with Shawndell Everson?" she asked in March. "That's (expletive). Shawndell Everson's case died with Shawndell Everson.

"I'm not this gun and drug dealer everyone says I am," she added later. "Come on. Look at me."

Yet on Aug. 28, the undercover detective, who was wearing a wire, allegedly planned to meet with Seldon at the dead end of McAllister Avenue to purchase another handgun.



The detective's supervisor wrote in a report that, like other times when the detective had dealt with Seldon, her driver left the car while she discussed the terms of the sale.

Several other officers in the special investigations unit were running surveillance nearby. They reported hearing "excitement" over the wire around 5:30 p.m. and moved into action.



A man in a mask, armed with a silver revolver, had approached the car and robbed the detective of $1,400 in marked bills, according to police reports.

One officer hiding in the tree line saw the alleged gunman, later identified as Imperial Davis, run into a house at 220 McKinley. There, Davis was apprehended and a mask, gun and bag of "Lorazepam" pills were recovered.



Immediately following the robbery, Seldon's "driver" hopped back in the car, drove down McKinley Avenue and parked. He fled the scene and left Seldon in the passenger seat.

Seldon has been indicted on charges of first-degree robbery, four counts each of fifth-degree criminal sale and fifth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, two counts of third-degree criminal sale of a firearm and single counts of attempted third-degree criminal sale of a firearm and attempted second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

She has been offered a slightly reduced 20-year prison sentence if she waives her right to a trial and pleads guilty to the top count of the indictment, Ferrante said.

After multiple court appearances and months in jail, Seldon said she wished she had found a way to escape from police before her arrest. She had $600 in her pocket, she said, and her caretaker had offered to throw her in the back of her jeep to get her away from the scene.

"I sat there for hours," she said. "I wasn't running, but I didn't know they were going to almost kill me...How did they not know I was a quadriplegic?"

Prison life

Seldon, who faces up to 25 years in prison on the robbery charge alone, spoke about her past, her present and what little hope she has for the future in an interview at Bedford Hills.

Seldon had her hair pulled back with a hot pink Scrunchy when she spoke from the medical unit of the prison in March. She wore a sweatshirt that swallowed her small upper body, and a catheter swirled out from under the blanket covering her legs.



Seldon said her lawyer, Tom Marris, advised her before her interview not to speak about the specifics of her case. She explained her activities on the street in general terms.

"OK, let's say you're selling a ring, a diamond ring," she said. "And you want $400 for it, and I know someone who will buy it, so I tell them you'll sell it for $500. That way I can keep a hundred. I want a percentage ... But I'm not the one out there selling it.

"I know I made a mistake, but I don't think I deserve twenty years in jail," she said. "I don't think I need to be painted as a kingpin or a mastermind of some sort. I don't know how else to say it."

Seldon doesn't think she'll ever walk again if convicted and levied with a heavy prison sentence.



Though a doctor told her after she began wiggling her toes that she had a chance with intensive therapy, she said that won't happen in prison.

"That's not going to happen here," she said. "You know that as well as I do."

Seldon said she tries to distract herself from her situation with romance novels. She fantasizes about leg braces and a jet pack that could free her from her chair.

As soon as she puts a book down, though, she said her mind begins replaying the day of her arrest and subsequent dealings in court.



"I dream, honestly, every night, of the DA having a heart," she said. "I really do. You don't know how many times I replay the scenes in my head. He says, 'we'll give you a chance,' and I'm able to go home, to walk again, to have a life back.

"It's just a fairy tale dream," she said. "But it keeps me going."



For now, Seldon stays in the bed in her cell until noon.



At 1 p.m., a jailer wheels her into the common room and she catches half an hour of General Hospital or whatever is playing on one of two channels available in the prison's day room. She is wheeled back in for roll call and is sometimes fetched again and brought to the common room in the evening, she said.

"I'm going to die in here," she said repeatedly during the interview, struggling to lift her hands high enough to wipe the tears from her eyes.

No one in Seldon's family has visited her since she was transported to Bedford Hills in August. Seldon said she wants to write to her son but doesn't know his address.

Jackson said she hopes some form of drug treatment will be made available to her sister no matter the outcome of her current court case.



She uses her sister's story with her patients to show the costs of addiction. She said she wants Seldon to find some kind of peace, and maybe one day, help others with her story.

"Maybe that's how she could find her freedom," she said.

Seldon has written letters to her brother, Chris Marji, and to Jackson, asking them to help her find another lawyer to sue the police department for brutality stemming from her arrest. In her letters, she says she is finished with "the game" for good.



She'll give whoever helps her 10 percent of her settlement, she writes.

Her letters have gone unanswered.