Municipal court arraigns felony drug defendants
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A man who just finished serving a prison sentence and a woman who was found passed out in a car are among three people arraigned on felony drug charges Friday in municipal court.
Arraigned before Magistrate Anthony Sertick on charges of possession of heroin and possession of cocaine was 36-year-old Richard Armstrong of First Street. Reports said he was found in the driver’s seat of a pickup truck — belonging to a man who is missing — about 5:50 p.m. Thursday in a drive in the 100 block of Hilton Avenue.
Reports said officers were sent there by the mother of the man who owns the truck to see if they could bring it back. The house is a known place where drugs are sold and used, reports said.
Reports said Armstrong told officers he had marijuana on him, and when he was searched, police found a bag of crack cocaine, a bag of powder cocaine and a bag of heroin. Armstrong told Magistrate Sertick he has only been out of prison for two months and he has spent most of the past decade in prison.
Court records show Armstrong was sentenced to eight years in 2006 for attempted murder and a firearm specification, and that sentence ran concurrent to a federal prison sentence Armstrong served for drug and weapons charges.
Magistrate Sertick set Armstrong’s bond at $15,000. Reports said officers never found the man, who is from East Philadelphia. Also arraigned on two felony charges of drug possession was 39-year-old Talisha Kinard of East Dewey Avenue. Reports said she was found passed out in a car in a parking lot at 2725 South Ave. about 7:35 p.m. Thursday.
Reports said officers had to try several times to wake Kinard and she had loud music blaring from her car. She told officers she fell asleep waiting for a friend.
She allowed officers to search her purse, and inside, police found four prescription pill bottles but none of the prescriptions was made out to her, reports said. Among the pills officers found were 11 Ambiens, 11 methadone pills and six morphine pills.
Magistrate Sertick set her bond at $10,000 and also ordered random drug and alcohol tests as a condition of her bond.
Zachary Markovich, 21, no address listed, also was arraigned on a charge of felony possession of heroin. He was arrested after he was pulled over at Palmer and Homestead avenues Wednesday afternoon by members of the Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Task Force.
Reports said officers could see Markovich and a woman in the car with him moving around before officers could approach the vehicle, and when they searched Markovich, they found nothing on him. But the woman said Markovich asked her to hide a bag of heroin for him and a spoon, which she did in her bra, reports said.
Markovich was arrested and taken to the jail. The woman was released.