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Woman said she did probation sentence for heroin
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A woman who was caught at a Mahoning County probation program with a dose of heroin Friday told Mahoning County deputy sheriffs she was serving someone else’s probation in exchange for drugs.
Yashieya Colvin, 34, of Stewart Avenue, is in the Mahoning County jail on $15,000 bond after her arraignment before Judge Robert Milich on a charge of possession of heroin, a fifth-degree felony. Reports said she was arrested about 8 a.m. Friday at the county’s day-reporting program for probationers at 360 W. Commerce St.
Colvin was searched along with other people who were reporting for their probation, and it was discovered that the woman Colvin was signing in for had a failure-to-appear warrant from Mahoning County Area Court in Boardman.
When her belongings were searched, deputies found a tube on Colvin’s key chain that had suspected heroin inside. Later, tests were performed on the substance found inside and it tested positive for heroin, reports said.
Colvin told deputies and wrote in a statement that she had been serving a probation sentence for another woman. Colvin said she had served seven days of that woman’s sentence before she was caught Friday.
The day-reporting program is for people who are sentenced to community service as part of their probation, and who report to do such tasks as litter pickup, grass cutting or filling potholes. It is run out of the former minimum-security jail on Commerce Street.
A search of court records for the woman that Colvin was impersonating show a driving-under-suspension case from Boardman in May. She was scheduled for a plea hearing July 28 but failed to show up and a warrant was issued for her arrest.
Court records for Colvin show her last charge was in 2012 in common pleas court on possession of drugs. She was enrolled in the county’s drug court program and sentenced to probation in June 2014.
Although no record can be found of her probation sentence, Sheriff’s Maj. Jeff Allen said the woman Colvin was impersonating was on a list of people who were to go to probation through the Boardman court.
Allen said an investigation is ongoing as to what charges the other woman may face now.
Allen said that it is not a requirement for people to show identification when reporting to the day-reporting program. He said a lot of people who are ordered there do not have a proper photo identification in the first place.
Allen also said that deputies are generally familiar with people who are sentenced to the program because often they know them from when they served time in the jail before their probation.