Local News in Brief : 76-Year-Old Sentenced

A 76-year-old wheelchair-bound grandmother known as Big Mama by local street gang members was sentenced Friday to four years in prison for cocaine dealing.

Hazel Campbell was sentenced by Torrance Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki after she pleaded no contest to a charge of selling 1.15 grams of rock cocaine to undercover Los Angeles police officers.

Deputy Attorney General Susan Disney said that while Campbell was not a large woman, she was known as Big Mama because of her authority as a seller of drugs to street gangs.

She is in a wheelchair because of a fractured hip suffered in a fall, but she also suffers from arthritis, a heart condition and the effects of polio contracted when she was a child, Disney said.

Investigators said Campbell’s cocaine dealing was uncovered during an investigation of her daughter, Jewell Balewa, for MediCal fraud by the state attorney general’s office.

During the investigation, Balewa asked undercover investigators to find a new cocaine connection for her mother, Disney said. Balewa indicated that she felt her mother was being “ripped off” by a supplier.

Balewa is serving a four-year prison sentence for MediCal fraud.