2 plead guilty, 1 sentenced in County Court
ALBION – Two people pleaded guilty in County Court on Monday and could face incarceration, while an Albion woman was sentenced for drug possession.
Rebekah Champlin, 22, of Albion was sentenced for criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fifth degree.
She and a codefendant, Collen Poole, were charged on March 1 by the Medina Police Department. Champlin doesn’t have a prior criminal record. She wasn’t selling drugs, her attorney Robert Viola told County Court Judge Sanford Church.
Champlin said she had cocaine when police and a parole officer did a search of Poole’s residence on Pearl Street in Medina.
Champlin was sentenced to jail for two days a week over the next four months. She also will be on probation for five years.
There also was a hearing on Monday in Poole’s case. His attorney, Robert Fogg, argued in court that police did not have a proper search warrant for Poole’s residence. Police were asked to help secure the property and do a search by a state parole officer.
Judge Church will issue a ruling at a later date about the legality of the search.
Poole was charged on March 1 after police and parole officers found cocaine, marijuana and pills identified as Hydrocodone and Ecstasy, as well as a large sum of money in high denominational bills, and three counterfeit $100 bills.
Poole has rejected a plea offer to criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fourth degree, with a cap of five years in state prison.
In other cases on Monday:
• A Lyndonville man pleaded guilty to felony driving while intoxicated. Kenneth Lonnen, 44, faces a maximum of 1 to 3 years in state prison when he is sentenced on Feb. 14.
Lonnen was arrested on Aug. 2 in Yates and registered a Blood Alcohol Content of 0.24 percent, which is three times the legal limit.
Lonnen said he had two beers and two shots at a Lyndonville bar.
“What I consumed was too fast,” he told Sanford Church, the County Court judge.
Lonnen has a previous DWI conviction within five years – Feb. 6, 2014.
• Maijia Scott, an inmate at the women’s prison, pleaded guilty to attempted promoting prison contraband in the first degree, with a cap of 1 1/2 to 3 years in state prison.
Scott is an inmate at the Albion Correctional Facility. She is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder from 2000.
She said she had a codefendant in her case, Edwin King, send her suboxone. She will be sentenced on Feb. 14.
King, 58, of the Bronx also appeared in court. He told the judge he has retained a lawyer and no longer wants to be represented by the public defender. Judge Church adjourned King’s case until Thursday at 2 p.m.
King faces charges of promoting prison contraband after he allegedly twice mailed suboxone to Scott.
