Pair jailed on warrants, drug charges after stop
An East Butler couple remains behind bars while awaiting preliminary hearings in connection with a traffic stop in Butler last month that allegedly turned up suspected heroin and other drug contraband.
The defendants — Racheal M. Downing, 35, and Thomas J. Downing, 35 — were also found to be wanted on warrants following the stop April 20 on Center Avenue.
Racheal Downing is in the Butler County Prison on $18,000 bail. Blair County also has a detainer on her stemming from a 2017 forgery case.
Thomas Downing is in the county prison on $1,000 bail. He's also being held on his own detainer for a bench warrant in Beaver County in a previous trespass case.
Butler police arrested the pair following a traffic stop around 10 p.m. on the 300 block of Center Avenue. Racheal Downing was driving the car, which was stopped for a traffic violation.
Police said she gave officers a bogus name. Officers subsequently learned that she and her passenger, Thomas Downing, both had warrants out for them.
According to charging documents, police searched Thomas Downing and found a stamp bag of suspected heroin in his wallet. They also found a crack pipe and Chore Boy copper scrubber in the car's center console.
District Judge Sue Haggerty arraigned Racheal Downing on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia, false identification to police, driving with a suspended license, driving a vehicle without valid inspection, and failing to use turn signals, stemming from the traffic stop.
Thomas Downing was arraigned on a charge of possession of a controlled substance.
Preliminary hearings for both defendants are scheduled May 6 at the office of District Judge William Fullerton in Butler.
Haggerty also arraigned Racheal Downing on charges in two unrelated arrest warrants.
In one of those warrants, Butler Township police accused her of illegally attempting to buy a rifle in December 2015 at the Clearview Mall Rural King store in Center Township.
She gave inaccurate information on a background check form while trying to buy the gun, documents said. The would-be purchase was denied after her information was entered into the Pennsylvania Instant Check system, which is operated by state police.She is charged with unlawfully attempting to buy a firearm, a felony, and unsworn falsification to authorities, a misdemeanor, in that case.On the other warrant that was issued to the Altoona Police Department in Blair County, she is charged with forging the signature of another woman on a ticket she was given following a traffic stop June 28, 2017.Haggerty arraigned her in that case on a felony charge of forgery and misdemeanor charges of false reports to incriminate another person, unsworn falsification to authorities, and false identification to law enforcement authorities.Thomas Downing's bench warrant was related to his owing fines and court costs in a felony trespass case filed by the Economy Borough Police Department in 2016.
