CAMBRIDGE – The owner of a fashionable Cambridge clothing store is back in jail after losing an appeal of her conviction and three-year sentence for dealing crack cocaine.

Kristelle Lucia, 28, of Kitchener had been free on bail for more than 15 months after taking her case to the Ontario Court of Appeal.

But a three-judge panel rejected all of her arguments, upholding convictions in 2008 for possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking, possession of an imitation handgun and dangerous driving while trying to get away from police.

That means Lucia, owner of the high-end women’s clothing store Lucia i Lucia on Main Street, must begin serving the three-year jail term — less three months of credit for pre-trial custody — imposed by Justice Margaret Woolcott in 2009.

“It is clear that this was a purely commercial enterprise,” the appeal court judges wrote in a decision released Friday. “The sentence in this case properly reflects the need for denunciation and deterrence.”

Police had been watching Lucia off and on for several years after getting tips from three informants that she dealt crack and kept a gun in a Toyota Matrix owned by her mother.

They moved in to arrest her outside the store in 2006 after following her to brief meetings with known drug users.

Lucia hit a parked car and almost struck two officers while trying to escape.

Police found a pink and silver pellet gun under the seat and $4,300 worth of cocaine and crack cocaine in the console of the car.

Two calls from drug buyers came in to her cellphone while she was being arrested.

Once in custody, Lucia tried to bribe two officers – offering one up to five years of pay to “make this go away” and the other three years of pay to let her go.

During her trial, the petite, well-dressed woman also talked to one of the investigators about joining the police force in what Woolcott described as a “ludicrous attempt to ingratiate herself.”

A lawyer for Lucia — who had no prior criminal record — unsuccessfully argued on the appeal that police didn’t have grounds to arrest her or search her car.

Regarding the sentence, her lawyer urged the judges to replace the equivalent of three years in custody with two years less a day of house arrest so she could keep running her store.

Court heard the business is thriving and Lucia has done volunteer work in Kitchener-Waterloo since her arrest.

The lawyer also urged the panel to take into account that Lucia has a bipolar disorder, a claim Woolcott found to be unsupported by evidence at the original sentencing hearing.

Woolcott stressed Lucia’s lack of remorse and “pathetic attempt” to bribe police when she imposed the three-year term.

She also noted the destructive nature of crack and the fact Lucia never used it herself, concluding she was motivated by greed.

bcaldwell@therecord.com