By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
A handful of pills is all it took for a felony to be leveled against Jesse Phillips-Hornak, but those same pills and the events surrounding them also kept him out of prison.
The 18-year-old rural Bucyrus man pleaded guilty to felony 5 drug trafficking and a misdemeanor theft charge in Crawford County Common Pleas Court Tuesday afternoon. Though Phillips-Hornak could have faced up to 12 months in prison and six months in jail, the facts of the case instead led to him being placed on intervention in lieu of conviction.
According to assistant prosecutor Ryan Hoovler, Phillips-Hornak found less than a handful of pills at a party and was offered $5 for them from a woman who was on community control at the time with the court. When officers investigated the party, Phillips-Hornak immediately came clean.
“That’s just dumb, foolish behavior, but that doesn’t make you a hardened criminal,” Judge Sean Leuthold stated as he sentenced Phillips-Hornak to two years on intervention.
Leuthold is known for being stingy when it comes to handing out intervention in lieu of conviction, but he believed the program was designed for a case just like Phillips-Hornak’s.
In addition to intervention, Phillips-Hornak will have to complete a drug and alcohol treatment program approved by the Adult Parole Authority.