An Arizona woman who admitted to pouring bleach in her husband’s coffee in an attempt to kill him has been sentenced to three years of probation.
Melody Felicano Johnson, 39, was charged with attempted murder and pleaded guilty to two lesser felony counts of adding poison or a harmful substance to food or drink, CNN reported. She faced up to two years in prison for each count but was sentenced to three years probation and mental health treatment.
Her defense attorney asked that she be sentenced to time served since she had been in jail for one year after being unable to pay her $250,000 bond. The bond was high because Johnson was considered a flight risk after recently purchasing a home in the Philippines, People Magazine reported.
When Pima County Superior Court Judge Javier Chon-Lopez gave her the light sentence, he cited her now-estranged husband, Roby, who said he didn’t want his wife to go to prison.
In a criminal complaint last year against Johnson, Roby said he believed his wife “was trying to kill him to collect death benefits,” according to a copy obtained by KVOA.
Court documents also showed that Johnson placed trace amounts of bleach in her husband’s coffee every day for months. Roby reportedly told investigators that he first noticed a bad taste in his coffee in March 2023 while he and his wife were going through a divorce but still living together. At the time, he was stationed in Germany as an airman.
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Roby also told investigators that he used pool testing strips to find that his coffee pot “showed high levels of chlorine,” according to NBC News. He then set up hidden cameras in the laundry room, over the coffee machine, and one between the two areas that apparently caught Johnson pouring bleach into a container and then pouring the contents of the container into the coffee maker.
Roby said he pretended to keep drinking the coffee so that he could wait until the couple returned to Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, where he would file a police report.
Johnson only admitted to putting bleach in her husband’s coffee twice in 2023, KOLD reported.