Stotlar to serve 10 years
By GLEN WERLING
(Additional story below)
A Bluffton man will be serving some prison time after selling methamphetamine in a drug sting last year.
William Thomas Stotlar Jr., 46, Bluffton, pleaded guilty in Wells Circuit Court to dealing in methamphetamine between one and five grams, a Level 4 felony, and failing to register as a sex or violent offender, a Level 6 felony.
Judge Kent Kiracofe sentenced Stotlar to 10 years in prison on the dealing charge and two years in prison on the failure to register charge. The terms of the sentences are to be served concurrently.
He was credited for 135 days spent in confinement awaiting disposition of his case and ordered to pay a $250 drug interdiction fee and $370 in court costs.
One Level 5 count of dealing methamphetamine and an habitual offender enhancement were both dismissed.
Officers with the DETECT Drug Task Force arranged through Facebook for a cooperating individual to meet Stotlar and buy a “ball” of methamphetamine for $130.
Because Stotlar was also a registered sex offender, a sheriff’s deputy performed a status check on him about a week later and noticed that a blue Dodge van was parked in Stotlar’s driveway. The only vehicle he had registered with the sex offender registry was a Saturn passenger car.
Prison and probation for Fort Wayne woman
By GLEN WERLING
It’s nine years of prison for a Fort Wayne woman, who admitted she sold two “eight balls” of methamphetamine to a cooperating individual in 2020.
Dustiny Denise Sewell, 33, pleaded guilty in Wells Circuit Court to dealing in methamphetamine between 5 and 10 grams, a Level 3 felony.
As part of a plea agreement, Judge Kent Kiracofe suspended four years of Sewell’s sentence and credited her for 165 days spent in confinement.
She is also to serve the five years executed portion of her sentence concurrently with a sentence meted in Allen County Superior Court for violating probation from a March 2, 2021, sentencing for dealing in a narcotic drug, a Level 5 felony.
Upon release from incarceration, she must serve four years of probation and pay $699 to the DETECT Drug Task Force — $350 of that restitution is to be paid jointly and severally with Lonnie Sewell, her husband and co-defendant in the same case. Charges of dealing in methamphetamine between 5 and 10 grams, a Level 2 felony, and dealing in methamphetamine, a Level 3 felony, against Lonnie Sewell are still outstanding in Wells Circuit Court.
Dustiny Sewell was also ordered to submit a DNA sample, pay a $250 drug interdiction fee, court costs and probation fees.
Also as part of a plea agreement, one count of dealing in methamphetamine between five and 10 grams, a Level 2 felony, a narcotic drug, and one count of dealing in a narcotic drug between one and five grams, a Level 4 felony, were both dismissed.
The DETECT Drug Task Force arranged with a cooperating individual to purchase two individual packets of meth equaling 3.5 grams each — 3.5 grams is an eight ball — from the Sewells in the parking lot of the Markle Antique Store in October of 2020.
Although the agreement was for 7 grams of the drug, the individual reportedly got slightly shorted on the sale as the amount actually purchased was 6.9 grams.
glenw@news-banner.com
