A fifth DRUG arrest has been made in the ongoing crackdown on illegal drugs and drug sales by Alaska State Troopers and Nome Police.
According to a dispatch from Troopers and court proceedings in Nome on Friday, 56-year-old Thelma Evan was arrested in Fairbanks at the end of December on an arrest warrant—issued by the Nome court Dec. 4—for allegedly selling prescription painkillers to a law enforcement officer.
In an affidavit filed with the court, Troopers claim Evan—listed as a resident of Nome—sold 10 hydrocodone pills on two separate occasions in July 2014 to a member of the Trooper’s Western Alcohol and Narcotics Team. Troopers said the sales took place outside Nome’s Polar Bar on Front Street, and in the cafeteria of Nome’s Norton Sound Regional Hospital.
Court documents allege the second sale happened during Evan’s lunch break while she was “at work” at the Nome hospital. Messages to Norton Sound Health Corporation to determine the nature of Evan’s employment at the hospital at the time of the alleged sale were not returned.
In court Friday, Evan—telepresent from the Fairbanks Correctional Center—said little as her public defender discussed the two felony drug charges she faces for misconduct involving a controlled substance in the second degree. Nome District Attorney John Earthman agreed the charges had been misfiled as second-degree felonies, saying the alleged sale of the hydrocodone pills merits less severe second-degree felony charges.
Evan’s attorney requested a reduced bail along with the reduced charges, telling Magistrate Bob Lewis that Evan wanted to stay in Fairbanks, enter residential treatment, and “abide the court’s rules.”
Earthman said Evan’s record, which Troopers noted in their affidavit “includes 15 misdemeanor convictions … involving alcohol, weapons, assault, or disorderly conduct, and theft” made him hesitant to reduce bail.
In the end Magistrate Lewis reduced bail from $5,000 to $3,000 and said that, upon showing Evan had secured a bed in a treatment program, he would sign a release allowing her to enter the program.
Troopers said Evan’s arrest is part of an ongoing joint investigation with Nome Police into illegal drugs in Nome. The investigation resulted in two arrests last week for a man and a woman charged with selling methamphetamine, and two arrests in December 2014 for a different couple charged with selling heroin.
