Women arrested for drugs tell takes of woe
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police said one woman arrested Thursday on drug charges at a Market Street restaurant fretted over the arrest costing her custody of her child, while another woman seemed resigned to be going to prison on a probation violation.
Jennifer Coyier, 31 of Burbank Avenue, was arrested on a charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. Heather Upole, 32, of Steel Street, was arrested on a probation violation and a charge of obstructing official business after she gave police a false name.
The two were taken into custody after police were called about 7:15 p.m. to a 2525 Market St. restaurant, where employees said two women were in the restroom using heroin. The restaurant has been the scene of several arrests for people using heroin.
The officers knocked on the door of the ladies room and heard the toilet flush, then opened the door and found Upole and Coyier, reports said. Reports said Coyier told police they had no drugs on them because they had just taken the heroin and were about to leave to go buy crack cocaine.
Reports said a female officer came and found a needle in Coyier’s bra and another needle and a marijuana pipe were found in her purse, reports said, so she was taken into custody. Upole gave police a false name, and after she was told there was no record for that name, she admitted who she really was and said she lied because she is wanted on a probation violation from Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on a drug charge. She was taken into custody.
Reports said when Upole was being taken to the jail, she told police she knew she was going to prison for at least a year and said, “This is what I do. I’ve been to prison before.” Records show that in November, Upole was given probation on a drug charge by Judge Lou A. D’Apolito, who also warned her if she started using drugs again she would go to prison.
At her hearing then, Upole said she wanted to finish drug treatment and get a job. She said she never worked before and had two children to care for. She also told the judge she began using drugs at age 11 with her mother.
When Coyier was taken to the jail, reports said she constantly squirmed in her seat and when she arrived she asked several times to use a restroom. Reports said when she was taken to be changed a crack pipe was found hidden in an orifice, but she had to be taken to the hospital because she injured herself while trying to hide the pipe. On the way to the hospital reports said Coyier told police she hoped she would not face a felony charge because she has a court hearing next week to determine if she can keep her child.
In January, Coyier was arrested twice within six days during traffic stops at which police found crack pipes. Court records show she also was charged with a misdemeanor drug offense in May.
Reports said Upole also had to be taken to the hospital because of a “heroin-related condition.” Both were treated and then released to police and booked into the jail.
Upole is being held on her parole violation.
Records show that a tampering-with-evidence charge that Coyier was booked into the jail on was dismissed. She was released on summons on the paraphernalia charge Friday and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in municipal court.