County courts busy with drug, theft charges

Published 12:00 am Friday, July 29, 2005

An Ironton woman accused of drug peddling and an Ironton man accused of burglary were among those sentenced this week in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court.

William Webb, 19, of 125 Howard St., Coal Grove, was sent to in-house drug treatment after he pleaded guilty Wednesday to violating the terms of his community controlled sanctions.

Webb was found guilty in November of fourth-degree felony burglary. Part of his sentence was three years of community controlled sanctions which included successful completion of a drug treatment program.

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Authorities said he did not follow the rules set forth under his sanctions and this drew a rebuke during his Wednesday hearing.

"I don't want to send you to Orient but you've got to follow the rules," Lawrence County Common Pleas Judge Richard Walton said.

"It's just that simple. I'm not going to lecture you, you've probably been lectured enough, but this is up to you. There is no reason why you can't follow the rules and get through this."

Also Wednesday, Pamela Gordon, 43, 157 Township Road 310, Ironton, pleaded guilty to fourth-degree felony trafficking in schedule II drugs, third-degree felony trafficking in crack cocaine, second-degree felony complicity to trafficking in crack cocaine and fifth-degree felony possession of crack cocaine.

In exchange for her guilty plea to those charges, two counts of fifth-degree felony permitting drug abuse were dropped.

Lawrence County Common Pleas Judge Frank McCown sentenced Gordon to 17 months in prison on each of the first two charges, two years in prison on the third charge, and one year on the fourth charge, with all charges to be served concurrently.

She was also fined a total of

$10,000 and ordered to surrender her driver's license for two years. Gordon will report to authorities for transfer to prison in two weeks.

An Ironton man signed a bill of information Wednesday, waiving his right to have his burglary case heard by a grand jury.

Steven Todd Simpson, 34, of 814 Walnut St., admitted his part in the Jan. 9 break in at a Coal Grove residence.

Walton sentenced Simpson to four years community controlled sanctions under intensive supervised probation and ordered him to successfully complete the STAR Community Justice program.

Simpson must also make restitution to his victim and pay a $5,000 fine.

A Portsmouth woman will go to prison for two years after she appeared at a hearing in Common Pleas Court Wednesday. Renae Bateman, 30, was arrested in June 2004 on a charge of third-degree felony trafficking in drugs.

She pleaded guilty that same year, was sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to report to authorities at a specific time for transfer to prison. She failed to report to authorities as ordered. She was arrested in Texas earlier this year.