4/13/11 Millersbrg man gets prison for marijuana, counterfeit drug sales

  • By Nick Sabo
  • April 13, 2011
  • 274
                        
A Millersburg man was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison on drug trafficking charges. David M. Chaney, Jr., 34, 800 South Washington Street, was sentenced in Holmes County Common Pleas Court on charges of trafficking marijuana in the vicinity of a school, trafficking in marijuana and trafficking in oxycontin. The charges stem from Sept. 16 and Sept. 17, when Chaney sold a confidential informant working with the Holmes County Sheriff’s office marijuana and a substance that Chaney passed off as oxycontin. According to Prosecuting Attorney Steve Knowling, Chaney sold marijuana Sept. 16 twice in Millersburg to the same informant, with the sales “about an hour apart”. The first sale was made within 1,000 feet of a school. The third sale occurred the next day, when the informant arranged to buy oxycontin from Chaney. That the substance sold by Chaney turned out to be fake still fits within the legal description of trafficking, Knowling said. Under Ohio law, anyone who tries to “knowingly sell or offer to sell” controlled substances can be charged with trafficking. “A substance was sold, it turned out to be counterfeit,” Knowling said. “The text messages between Mr. Chaney and the informant were clear that the purchase was for oxycontin. This is a offer to sale case.” The prison sentence was arrived at in a joint sentencing agreement. Chaney’s indictment alleges five sales, which carried a possible maximum sentence of six years in prison. When questioned about his criminal past by Common Pleas Judge Robert D. Rinfret, Chaney said he has spent “eight or nine years” in jail or prison since turning 18. “Mr. Chaney, you’ve been in this courthouse many times before. It’s time to clean up your act,” Rinfret said. “How many years have you spent (incarcerated)? More than half your adult life.” Rinfret further ordered Chaney pay the sheriff’s office $505 in buy money used by the informant to conduct the sales and suspended Chaney’s driver’s license for five years. Two Millersburg men, Ryan J. Mullet, 22, 1167 Wooster Road, and Christopher A. Rowe, 23, 800 South washington Street, have also been charged in connection with the drug sales.


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