By Sharon Coolidge
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A Hamilton County Common Pleas Court judge on Wednesday told a Delhi Township mother convicted of giving her children and their friends wine coolers and marijuana that she was a "sorry excuse for a parent."

Judge Steve Martin ordered Melony Wikette to spend a year in prison after she was convicted of endangering children, corrupting another with drugs and abusing harmful intoxicants.

Additional charges stemming from the drug use were dismissed when Wikette, 28, pleaded guilty April 29.

"You took your kids along on drug deals. You knew what you were doing," Martin said during her sentencing. "You held a position of trust with the kids, and you breached that trust."

Wikette and her boyfriend, Chris Drescher, are accused of giving the woman's 12-year-old twins and five other sixth-graders nitrous oxide, marijuana and alcohol in January and February. Drescher, 33, of Delhi Township, remains jailed in Hamilton County pending a June trial.

The children passed out, felt dizzy and heard voices after using the drugs, authorities said.

Drescher introduced the preteens to nitrous oxide, telling them it was harmless helium and that if inhaled would make their voices sound funny, authorities said. When blended with oxygen, nitrous oxide is used legally as laughing gas. But used illegally, the gas is inhaled and produces a short high. It replaces oxygen in the lungs and can kill a user by asphyxiation.

On one occasion, Wikette gave the children brownies made with marijuana and on another, she and Drescher took the children to buy marijuana at a Delhi Township man's home, authorities have said.

A school resource officer discovered the alleged drug use in February after asking the students about excessive absences.

"It was a stupid thing to do," Wikette said Wednesday. "At the time I wasn't thinking. He suggested it and I went along."

E-mail scoolidge@enquirer.com