by Kevin Lilly
A judge has accepted a plea bargain for a Logansport man accused of dealing cocaine.
In Cass Superior Court II on Monday, Judge Rick Maughmer sentenced 24-year-old Johon T. Coleman to serve six years in the Indiana Department of Correction and four years on probation for a class B felony charge of dealing cocaine.
Deputy prosecutor James Ackermann handled the state’s case, while public defender James Knight represented Coleman.
Last month, Coleman admitted dealing cocaine to a confidential informant in an alley near 10th Street and Broadway on May 26, 2006. Before learning his sentence, Coleman assured the judge he was no longer involved with the people surrounding the criminal behavior that led to his arrest.
Coleman has been in the Cass County Jail since his arrest during an August 2007 drug raid dubbed Bought & Paid For 2, which led to the arrests of 28 other suspected drug dealers.
On Monday, Coleman asked the judge to send him to a DOC facility because there are more options for drug and alcohol treatment there. Maughmer explained that he had no jurisdiction in regard to where the DOC would place a prisoner. Coleman could end up spending the rest of his term at the county jail, where he said he had already completed all of the available programs.
Coleman received credit for 694 days already spent in jail. With credit for good behavior, he could be released from prison in about a year.
• Kevin Lilly is news editor of the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached at (574) 732-5117 or kevin.lilly@pharostribune.com
