Zelk guilty of drug charges

When police went searching for a man with an outstanding arrest warrant, they ended up taking three people into custody in a single apartment.

On Sept. 7 last year, a Mountain Home police officer went to an apartment complex on Main Street to serve a warrant on 44-year-old Zachariah Lee Zelk.

Zelk appeared during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court last Monday, pled guilty to the charges against him stemming from that arrest and was sentenced to six years-probation.

When Zelk was being taken into custody, he was found to have a small bag of methamphetamine in his right front pants pocket.

When the officer knocked on the door, he was first greeted by 62-year-old Brett Tschetter. After entering the officer saw 37-year-old Sean Rice exit a bathroom and Zelk was located in the bathroom as well.

Tschetter has already pled guilty to the charges against him. He was sentenced to four years in prison with a judicial transfer to one of the community correction centers in the state for addiction treatment.

After officers entered the apartment, a small bag containing a white crystalline substance testing positive for methamphetamine was seen on a table in the common area of the apartment beside a set of silver scales.

Neither Tschetter nor Rice would admit ownership of the small plastic bag, and the methamphetamine inside so both were arrested given the circumstances.

Rice was also arrested in November last year and charged with possession of Fentynal. He cases are still active.

It is not the first time the men have run afoul of the law. A total of 24 felony cases have been opened on the trio through the years.

WebReady^TM Powered by WireReady^® NSI