Man gets ARD in drug cases
A Coraopolis man was placed into the county Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program in Butler County Court on Tuesday after being charged with drug-related offenses.
Chad J. Lemasters, 20, was placed into the program for 18 months by Judge Timothy McCune with the chance to have the supervision terminated after 12 months if he receives no violations. He was also ordered to complete 25 hours of community service.
The ARD program allows the ability to have the charges dismissed and expunged if successfully completed.
In a second case, he was sentenced to pay a $100 fine after pleading guilty to summary disorderly conduct.
Lemasters was initially charged with felony possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, misdemeanor possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia after an incident on April 25, as well as two misdemeanor counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count each of possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia after an incident on April 26.
The remaining charges in the April 26 incident were dismissed as part of the plea.
In the April 25 incident, Slippery Rock University police said they were dispatched to a dorm room for the smell of marijuana and, following a search, found marijuana, smoking devices and a scale, as well as nine small baggies of marijuana inside a package of kale snacks. Lemasters also was found with a bag of marijuana in his pocket.
The affidavit of probable cause states that Lemasters admitted to police that he sold marijuana.
In the April 26 incident, university police were at the Eisenberg classroom building looking for Lemasters, for whom they had an arrest warrant for the previous day's incident.
When he was found, police said Lemasters had a pill bottle containing marijuana, a smoking device and two baggies of pills, including 13 Xanex pills and 14 Smarties candies which police said had a black dot on them. The affidavit in that case states that Lemasters told police that they were candy with Xanex drops on them.
