Man gets two years deferred for drug possession

A Libby man was given two years probation for meth residue found in his vehicle earlier this year. 

Jared Alan Laveway, 19, was sentenced on Monday by Lincoln County District Judge James Wheelis to a two year deferred sentence for one count of possession of dangerous drugs. The sentence follows the plea agreement between the county attorney’s office and Laveway, which both sides signed in September.

Laveway was caught in May in possession of a marijuana pipe containing meth residue after a traffic accident in Libby. Two law enforcement officials responded to the vehicle accident and found Laveway more nervous about something in his car than about the accident, according to court documents. 

After the ambulance crew was done checking Laveway for injuries, Scofield told him about his concerns that Laveway was involved with illegal drugs. Laveway told the detective that he was only smoking marijuana, and that there was a marijuana pipe inside his vehicle. He eventually produced a pipe from the vehicle for Scofield and said there was another pipe in the car, but he didn’t know where it was. 

After talking with him for a while, Laveway went back and forth on allowing Scofield to search the vehicle, before eventually denying the voluntary search altogether. Scofield had the vehicle towed to the county impound. Later on Scofield ran a background check on Laveway and found he didn’t have any prior charges or convictions. 

Four days later, Scofield received a search warrant for the vehicle and found the other marijuana pipe. Along with the pipe, he found a flashlight with the battery missing and replaced with a plastic bag reportedly containing methamphetamine residue. According to court documents, the glass pipe fell to the concrete and shattered, so Scofield collected the pieces for evidence. A drug test later determined that the residue inside the bag was meth. As part of the plea agreement signed in September, the county attorney’s office dismissed the paraphernalia possession charge. 

A week later, Laveway came to the sheriff’s office to get a copy of the search warrant for the vehicle. Scofield told Laveway what he had found in the vehicle, and Laveway admitted to having used meth in the past, according to court documents. Laveway said the residue could have been from August 2015, when he told Scofield was the last time he had used meth. Scofield then charged him with possession of dangerous drugs. 

Seaborn Larson is a reporter at the Dailey Inter Lake and can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.