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Forgotten meth lab bottle yields four-year prison term
YOUNGSTOWN
A Sebring man who left behind a portable, reusable methamphetamine lab in a bottle at a village convenience store has been sentenced to the mandatory minimum prison term of four years and fined the mandatory minimum $10,000 fine.
Justen M. Warner, 30, of East Oregon Avenue, Sebring, drew the sentence Monday from Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Warner was sentenced immediately after he pleaded guilty as charged to illegal manufacture of drugs on a public premises and illegal assembly or possession of chemicals for the manufacture of drugs.
Warner forgetfully left a portable meth lab in a bottle on an ice-cream freezer at Circle K last Nov. 1, and, hours later, children moved it to get to the ice cream, said Jennifer McLaughlin, an assistant county prosecutor.
Store employees found the “one-pot cooker meth lab” bottle with all the assembled meth-making chemicals and took it to the police station because they suspected it was a meth lab, she said.
Police took the bottle outdoors and cordoned the area off to await safe disposal of the highly toxic material by a decontamination company, she added. “They can explode. They can catch fire. They’re a huge hazard,” and they can emit noxious fumes, McLaughlin said of meth labs.
Police recognized Warner from store security video, which showed him carrying the bottle, and he admitted he had placed lithium strips in it and had previously cooked meth in the bottle, McLaughlin said. Lithium strips from batteries are used in meth-making.
Warner had previously spent a year in prison for a 2010 conviction for illegal assembly or possession of chemicals for the manufacture of drugs.
Warner, who apologized for his actions, will be on post-release control for five years after he leaves prison.
Judge Evans suspended Warner’s driver’s license for five years and deferred the fine until after Warner leaves prison.
Warner will get credit for 270 jail days he’s already served awaiting disposition of this case.
The plea and sentencing came on the day Warner’s jury trial had been scheduled to begin.
“We were happy that the defendant was going to prison for a mandatory period,” McLaughlin said of her rationale for making the plea deal.
Warner is not eligible for early judicial release, she added.
“It is fair, reasonable and just under the circumstances,” Warner’s lawyer, J. Michael Thompson, said of the four-year prison term.