Hillsboro man gets 3 years in drug trafficking case
A Hillsboro man was sentenced recently to three years in prison after pleading guilty to a second-degree felony drug trafficking charge.
As previously reported, Dustin Chaney, 41, was indicted in April on one count each of trafficking in a fentanyl-related compound and possession of a fentanyl-related compound, both second-degree felonies.
Chaney pleaded guilty June 12 to the trafficking charge, with the possession charge dismissed.
According to a bill of particulars, it is alleged that on or about Feb. 13, the Highland County Task Force “obtained information that Chaney [was] traveling to Dayton in order to purchase narcotics” and contacted a Greenfield police officer working with the task force. The officer initiated a traffic stop on the vehicle in Greenfield as it came back into the village, and a Greenfield K-9 positively indicated for drugs in the vehicle.
During the traffic stop, it is alleged that Chaney “admitted to driving” a co-defendant, Ray Cooper, to Dayton “in order to purchase fentanyl” and that he “had driven Cooper to Dayton approximately a dozen times over the last few months … to purchase drugs.”
In this particular instance, it was determined that Cooper had thrown drugs out the window, and officers found “a bag containing an unknown substance” on a residential sidewalk in Greenfield in the area described by Chaney. BCI determined that the baggie contained 13.88 grams of a fentanyl-related compound.
After accepting Chaney’s guilty plea, Highland County Common Pleas Court Judge Rocky Coss sentenced Chaney to a mandatory three years in prison. Under the Reagan Tokes Law, Chaney could serve up to four and a half years in prison. He had 13 days of jail time credit.
As previously reported, Cooper pleaded guilty April 30 to the same trafficking charge as well as a count of tampering with evidence, and he was sentenced to four years in prison.
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