Photo: Brittany Coleen Thomas
A rural Mountain Home woman pled guilty to drug charges during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Monday and was sentenced to six years in prison with two suspended and four to serve.
By way of the judicial transfer, 29-year-old Brittany Coleen Thomas will go to one of the Community Correction Centers in the state for addiction treatment.
According to the probable cause affidavit, two investigators from the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office went to Thomas’ home in late August last year and, while there, observed Thomas “attempting to hide something under the bed.”
The object was reported to be a glass pipe used to smoke methamphetamine which was taken into evidence.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Thomas was on active supervision by the probation/parole office from Arkansas Community Correction on earlier convictions.
Several small plastic bags containing what was described as “methamphetamine residue,” along with at least two bags containing less than one gram of a substance field testing positive for the illegal substance were discovered.
A spoon was found bent in a way indicating it had been used to prepare methamphetamine for injection. The spoon also had markings on it, a sign it had been held over a fire source as is done when preparing methamphetamine for injection. The spoon also field tested positive for methamphetamine.
The investigators also looked into a nearby out building where Thomas was reported to spend time and found another glass pipe used for smoking meth.
After the sentencing, Thomas’ lawyer requested his client be allowed to live with her grandmother while waiting on a bed to open in one of the Community Corrections Centers.
The grandmother stood beside Thomas at the podium, as the request was being made. She told the judge her granddaughter had been living with her since Jan. 5.
Judge Putman approved the arrangement. “It’s good to see your grandmother here with you. Many defendants come to court alone because their families have given up on them,” he told Brown.
Thomas also had drug charges filed against her in Craighead County in late April last year. She is scheduled to go on trial on those charges March 16, according to electronic court records.
In the Craighead County case, she is accused of possessing methamphetamine and paraphernalia used to ingest the drug.
She was arrested when employees at a Jonesboro convenience store called police to report a vehicle had been parked at one of the gas pumps at the store for much longer than necessary.
Thomas explained her extended stay at the gas pump stemmed from the fact she was upset over a fight she had with her boyfriend.
Jonesboro police found a cigarette package containing a small cellophane packet with a white crystal substance and a glass smoking pipe. The white substance was reported to have tested positive for methamphetamine. The pipe contained residue also testing positive for the drug.
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