Deputies find drugs on man who was to be let go

July 7, 2016 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

The plan was for Walter Pearson not to go to jail in the first place.

Instead, he ended up there Tuesday after he was found with a bag of suspected heroin and marijuana in the holding cell of the Mahoning County Courthouse.

In Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to be arraigned Tuesday on a fifth-degree felony charge of nonsupport of dependents, Pearson, 34, of Wellington Avvenue, who was not in custody, was given a recognizance bond by Magistrate Daniel Dascenzo at the request of prosecutors, but he still had to go to the jail to be booked after his arraignment. After he was booked, he would be free to go.

Dascenzo was going to allow Pearson’s wife to drive him to the jail, but she left the courtroom and never came back.

So Pearson was ordered into custody to be transported to the jail, booked, then released. But when Deputy Brian Tyree searched him, reports said he had a bag of suspected heroin and a bag of suspected marijuana on him.

So instead of being allowed to leave, Pearson was booked into the jail on charges of possession of marijuana and possession of heroin, and he was arraigned Wednesday in municipal court before Judge Elizabeth Kobly.

Judge Kobly set his bond at $10,000, double the typical bond of $5,000 city prosecutors ask for most of the time on a drug charge that is a fifth-degree felony. Assistant City Prosecutor Kathy Thompson asked for the higher bond because she said Pearson is on bond for a pending felony drug case that he was in court for Friday, which was bound over to a Mahoning County grand jury. The grand jury has yet to hear that case.

Court records show that Pearson was indicted June 23 on the nonsupport case.

The drug charge that was bound over was filed May 31, municipal court records show, and is a second-degree felony.