Murphy – It’s been said that love makes people crazy, silly and dumb.
At the beginning of a relationship, people sometimes lose touch with reality, invent stories in their head, then throw patience and good judgment out the window, according to Dena Domenicali-Rochelle, a psychoanalyst and licensed clinical social worker based in New York.
Scientists have also found that love makes people euphoric, with studies showing men are more willing to take unnecessary risks for a romantic partner.
Local resident Jonathan Neal Deaton fell in love with a drug trafficker, according to his attorney. Their relationship materialized while Deaton struggled with addiction to methamphetamine, which ironically ended a prior relationship with the mother of his child.
“Jonathan truly believed he was in love and loved in return,” defense attorney Rich Cassady wrote in a motion seeking leniency from the court. “Jonathan mistook the hedonistic lifestyle into which he had fallen as love; and thus, a replacement for [his daughter and her mother], which he had knowingly surrendered to the demands of his addiction.”
Cassady’s motion seeking a lenient sentence argues that meth ruined Deaton’s life, resulting in separation from his daughter and her mother, which created an emotional hole in his heart. Deaton then “indulged in his emotions” and threw himself into a new relationship, where he was willing to rationalize bad choices in exchange for love.
In January 2020, Deaton’s lover, Cristin Marie Livingston, asked him to facilitate a drug buy as a favor while she served a weekend stint in the Cherokee County Detention Center. The buyer turned out to be an undercover officer.
“Up until this time, Jonathan was practically unknown to investigators,” Cassady wrote to the court. “Jonathan had not engaged in any of the activities in which Cristin and the others were involved. But for Cristin, on this occasion, he readily agreed.”
Deaton facilitated the sale of 141 grams of meth, which lab tests revealed was 96 percent pure. He pled guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine in November.
Last week, a federal judge sentenced Deaton to serve four years in prison, with three years of supervision upon release. Deaton must also participate in any available educational and vocational opportunities and a substance abuse treatment program while incarcerated.
“Methamphetamine takes, and takes, and takes, until there is nothing left to take,” Cassady wrote in his motion. “It took Jonathan’s decision-making ability, job, money, family, child, self-respect, shame and now his liberty.”
Livingston and fellow drug dealers Raymond Dale Queen and James Travis Phillips have also admitted to their roles in the conspiracy. Deaton and Livingston lived in the basement of Phillips’ home on Hounds Run Lane, where the deal took place. Queen dictated terms of the deal from a different room because he didn’t want to meet “new people,” according to court documents, which say Deaton consulted with him before handing meth to the buyer.
Court documents say investigators also conducted controlled purchases of meth from Livingston, Phillips and Queen in 2019. The trio is expected to be sentenced later this month.