Woman gets 10k bond for stealing needles from car

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

A woman with criminal convictions and arrests dating back to 1989 is in Mahoning County jail on $10,000 bond after police said she was taking needles and other evidence from a car Friday where a man was in the throes of a heroin overdose.

Tabitha Kerr, 45, of Youngstown-Hubbard Road, was arraigned Monday before Judge Robert Milich in municipal court on a felony charge of tampering with evidence and misdemeanor drug-abuse instrument and drug-paraphernalia charges.

According to police, Kerr was arrested about 2:45 p.m. Friday at Princeton Avenue and Market Street on the South Side as officers and paramedics were treating a man in the driver’s seat of a car who was suffering from a suspected heroin overdose.

Witnesses told police that before they arrived, Kerr asked for help taking something out of the man’s pockets and then took something out of the car and placed it in a nearby bag.

Witnesses pointed out the bag for officers, and inside, they found three used needles, a broken crack pipe and a used spoon.

City Prosecutor Dana Lantz told Judge Milich that Kerr has a record stretching back to 1989.

Lantz said Kerr has nine previous theft convictions or arrests, and she was once a fugitive of justice from Pennsylvania.

Boardman police arrested Kerr on May 16 on a warrant for failure to appear in court on a criminal trespass charge. She picked up a theft charge in a May 20 case in which she is accused of stealing makeup and clothes from a Boardman store. She was taken into custody on that charge June 7.