hhThank goodness CMPD has enough manpower to mount a four-month undercover operation to bust an Ecstasy ring at Club Onyx off of South Blvd. Lord knows strippers hopped up on MDMA are a major public menace in Charlotte. I doubt CMPD had trouble finding officers to volunteer to work this case.

All they needed was lots of singles and the ability to keep a straight face while saying, “Hey baby, got anything to make a man feel good?”

Onyx has been the location of gun-play in the past, but that would seem to be primary because of the intersection of guns and violent repeat offenders, not the Ecstasy per se. Nonetheless, Christina Hairston, Lakisha Johnson, and Ashanti Gregory were charged with 21 felony drug offenses. And here’s the weird part.

ggHairston (left) was arrested on 17 felony drug warrants way back on October 7th, including four MDMA trafficking charges. Each one of those carried a $100K bond. Hairston has been in the Mecklenburg County jail ever since. No wonder she gave up two other names. She’s not getting out of jail anytime soon otherwise.

This is clearly one case our local criminal justice system is devoting big resources towards. Compare that to, oh, let’s say Byrone Coleman. Coleman was arrested on Sunday on felony indecent liberties with a child charges. As of right now, he is still in the county jail.

But last October Coleman was convicted of felony common law robbery and given 30 months probation. It is worth noting that the original booking charges in August were three felonies — first degree burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, robbery with dangerous weapon — and that Coleman spent almost two months in the county jail after his arrest on those charges. Oh, and a couple weeks prior in July 2007 Coleman spent two weeks in jail — less than one third the time stripper kingpin Christina Hairston has already put in — on four more felony charges, including breaking and entering and possession of stolen goods. As near as I can tell those charges were simply dropped.

Clearly what happened last October was that Mecklenburg County prosecutors pled Coleman down to the single felony count and time served and turned him loose.

To offend again.

Yes, in March of this year Coleman was arrested again — on felony indecent liberties with a child charges. He spent 19 days in jail. Hairston, the stripper, is working on 50 days in jail right now. Must reflect our values, it is our system. Right?

How much do you want to bet that when Coleman is released on his latest felony child abuse charges, Christina Hairston is still in jail for selling Ecstasy to undercover cops in a strip club?