BANGOR – Judith Ellis’ four children will spend the holidays without their mother after her sentencing Tuesday at U.S. District Court.

Ellis, 37, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after changing her plea to guilty on one count of conspiracy to distribute OxyContin. Described as a minor player in a prescription drug dealing operation led by her live-in boyfriend, Jack Randall, Ellis apparently made no request to have her sentence postponed until after the holidays. Her children, who range in age from grade school pupils to adolescents, did not attend her sentencing.

Her court-appointed attorney, Norman Kominsky of Bangor, said Ellis arranged for the care of her children before her sentencing. He said the children were not in state custody but declined to elaborate on who has custody of them.

U.S. District Judge George Singal presided at the late-afternoon sentencing. He made note of Ellis’ “young children” and their need for their mother.

The judge also called “disturbing” Ellis’ apparent “earlier conduct with drugs in the presence of young children.

“I hope, Miss Ellis, [the consequences of] this crime you will take to heart and we will never see you in court again,” Singal said at the conclusion of the sentencing.

A soft-spoken woman with long, thin hair, Ellis was handcuffed and led out of the courtroom after the sentencing hearing. She did not speak when offered the chance to address the court

Ellis also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 months in prison for a probation violation. The sentence will run concurrently with the OxyContin trafficking sentence.

Ellis had not completed a two-year probation sentence when she and Randall were arrested last August for conspiracy to distribute OxyContin, a powerful painkiller.

Attorney Kominsky said Ellis was on probation after a conviction for mail fraud.

Randall and Ellis were the focus of an investigation into their alleged distribution of OxyContin tablets when they allegedly sold 10 10-mg. tablets to an area man last summer. The pills cost about $1 a milligram.

The man who bought the tablets reportedly was working as an informant for the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency when he visited Randall’s home on Boynton Street in Bangor. According to a court affidavit, he told the agents he bought prescription drugs from Randall on several occasions.

The transaction was monitored by an MDEA agent. During a subsequent interview, the informant told the agent that Randall took the money and Ellis handed over the pills.

Earlier in the day, Randall appeared before Judge Singal and changed his plea to guilty on a charge of obstruction of correspondence. Randall apparently had opened an envelope addressed to another person and took its contents. A day earlier, Randall changed his plea to guilty on a charge of conspiracy to distribute OxyContin. He remains jailed and will be sentenced pending completion of a presentence report.