Woman to be Sentenced on Jail Drugs Charge

A woman who served time for a 2010 hit-and-run fatality on a Rancho Peñasquitos freeway and admitted having marijuana and illegal prescription drugs at the Las Colinas Detention Facility after a subsequent arrest is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday in a downtown courtroom.

Nicoll Koval, 25, pleaded guilty to the drug charges in July.

At an earlier hearing, Deputy District Attorney Michael Runyon told a judge that deputies were alerted to the smell of marijuana at Las Colinas on June 8.

Deputies followed Koval and fellow inmate into a bathroom and found a marijuana cigarette, Runyon said. A search of the women's quarters turned up other illegal drugs, including prescription muscle relaxants, according to the prosecutor.

In a separate case. Koval pleaded guilty in June to helping Sandra Lamb, a sentenced prisoner, sneak methamphetamine into the jail.

In the hit-and-run case, Koval pleaded guilty last year to a felony charge in the death of Albert Lee Holman, who was hit while walking on the side of state Route 56 shortly before 3 a.m. on Oct. 19, 2010. Koval fled the scene and didn't turn herself in until the next day.

Following her guilty plea, Koval served eight months of a one-year sentence before being released on probation.

-City News Service