A three-judge state Superior Court panel has upheld the conviction and prison sentence of a Pottsville woman who unlawfully sold a prescription drug in September 2011.
In an 18-page opinion filed Tuesday in Pottsville, the panel ruled the evidence supported the conviction of Shannon K. Reed, 30, on charges of delivery of a controlled substance, possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and criminal use of a communication facility.
"The certified record supports the convictions," Judge Mary Jane Bowes wrote in the panel's opinion.
As a result, Reed must serve six to 12 months behind bars, the prison sentence imposed on her on Oct. 12, 2012, by county President Judge William E. Baldwin, who had presided over her trial.
Baldwin also sentenced Reed to pay costs, $100 to the Substance Abuse Education Fund and $113 restitution to the state police crime laboratory in Bethlehem and submit a DNA sample to law enforcement authorities.
On Aug. 27, 2012, the jury convicted Reed of the three crimes.
Pottsville police had charged Reed with selling 13 tablets of lorazepam to a confidential informant on Sept. 15, 2011, at 446 E. Market St.
In her opinion, Bowes wrote that the testimony of the confidential informant and the police officers provided more than enough evidence to support Reed's conviction. Furthermore, any inconsistencies are trivial and do not affect the strength of the prosecution's case, according to Bowes.
Bowes also wrote that Baldwin's sentence was well within the permissible legal range and did not represent an abuse of the judge's discretion.
"We flatly reject (Reed's) assertion that the facts of this case would warrant reducing her ... sentence," Bowes wrote.
Judge Paula Francisco Ott and Senior Judge James J. Fitzgerald III, the other panel members, joined in Bowes' opinion.