A Lehighton man was sentenced to a long state prison term on Monday on a drug dealing charge and seven other cases he previously entered guilty pleas.

Anthony H. Pudvah, 32, was sentenced by Judge Steven R. Serfass to serve 36 to 72 months in a state correctional institution on a charge of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance. He entered the plea prior to being sentenced on seven other cases he had already entered pleas.

Pudvah’s still faces charges stemming from the fentanyl death of a Nesquehoning child. He is one of four defendants charged in the toddler’s February 2020 death.

State police at Lehighton charged Pudvah, his girlfriend, Rebecca Lynn Walck, 21; Gage Joshua Duch, 27; and Britney Grace Burke, 31, both of Lehighton, with involuntary manslaughter, endangering the welfare of children and possession of drugs.

Duch also faces an additional charge of tampering with physical evidence in the Feb. 11, 2020, death of his 3-year-old son, James.

The cases against the four are all pending, with all the cases at the pretrial conference stage, with Walck also having a pending motion scheduled for Sept. 21.

According to affidavits filed by state police, the parents of the child are Burke and Duch, and the family lived at 121 S. Allen St. in Nesquehoning at the time of the incident.

Walck and Pudvah also lived in the apartment and provided child care to the child on the day of his death. That case is still pending.

Pudvah previously pleaded to accidents involving damage to attended vehicle/property for an incident on Sept. 3, 2018, in Lehighton; theft for an incident on March 22, 2019, at the Walmart in Mahoning Township; two counts of retail theft for incidents at the Walmart store on April 15 and 18, 2019; driving under the influence on March 17, 2018, along Mill Road by Mahoning Township police; and disorderly conduct for an incident on April 4, 2019, in Lehighton along Bridge Street.

The arrest for the drug dealing charge was part of an ongoing investigation by Lehighton police and the county drug task force. Police received information that Pudvah was selling drugs in the Palmerton area.

At the time he was arrested he admitted going to Hazleton area to get drugs to sell in Carbon County. He told authorities he was selling about two bricks of heroin/fentanyl a week to customers in Carbon. When arrested, he had 438 baggies to drugs on him and $320 in cash.

Pudvah did not speak during the proceeding.

Defense attorney, Paul J. Levy, chief public defender, said Pudvah was a drug addict and that led to his life of crime.

He has been in jail since his arrest on the drug charges.

In addition to the jail term, Serfass ordered Pudvah to get a drug and alcohol evaluation and follow any recommendation for treatment, zero tolerance for drug or alcohol use, supply a DNA sample and pay court costs of about $1,000.

On retail theft charges involving Walmart as the victim, he was ordered to make total restitution of $427.32; in the accident-related case he must pay damages of $1,095.81 to Erie Insurance and a $25 fine and cost; and on a disorderly conduct charge he was fined $300.

On two DUI charges he was fined a total of $2,500 and had his license suspended for a total of 30 months.

He was given credit for 522 days already served on the charges.