A Weatherly woman was sentenced to a county prison term on Monday after pleading guilty to a drug charge. She also entered a guilty plea in a pending driving under the influence case.

Valerie April Weston, 37, pleaded to one count of criminal use of a communication facility, felony, for an incident on March 24. She pleaded to DUI of a controlled substance for an incident on Oct. 20, 2020, filed by Weatherly police following a traffic stop along Plane Street.

In exchange for the drug plea two felony counts of PWID were dropped in a plea deal with the district attorney’s office.

Judge Joseph J. Matika accepted the pleas.

Drug arrest

Weston was one of three people arrest when borough police assisted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms with a federal search warrant at the house Weston lived in with her juvenile son.

Police found packaging material for heroin and fentanyl, a scale and multiple empty glassine bags with small rubber bands indicative of packaging heroin or fentanyl. In Weston’s nightstand was a small plastic container containing methamphetamine, a grinder with a white powder residue, as well as needles used to inject narcotics; found in her home and in her possession was a small package of five glassine bags containing suspected fentanyl, all easily accessible to the child living in the residence, and a .22-caliber revolver loaded with five live rounds of ammunition registered to a deceased man. Weston said the gun was given to her by a friend, and that she didn’t know it was a real firearm. Weston’s cellphone showed text messages facilitating multiple deals for narcotics with multiple buyers.

Arrested with Weston were Kevin Lindemuth, 41, of Weatherly, and Alec Buchman, 25, of West Hazleton.

Weston has a history of drug addiction. Matika noted she has seven prior criminal convictions.

Matika said, concerning her young son, “Not much of a role model.” He said her continued use of illegal drugs will eventually lead to her death. He said, “Ever think you might be orphaning him?”

She said she went through a rehabilitation program but relapsed.

Matika said, “I’ll give you one last chance.”

He then sentenced her to serve six to 23 months in prison and ordered her to render 100 hours of community service, get a drug and alcohol evaluation and follow any recommendation for treatment, supply a DNA sample, pay court costs of about $1,000 and pay a $50 per month supervision fee while on parole. She was granted work-release privileges.

She was given credit for 110 days already served. She will not be paroled until a pre-parole plan is investigated by the adult probation office.

Lindemuth’s and Buchman’s cases are pending. Both recently had pretrial conferences with the DA.