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Defendants Dodge Prison Time Following Guilty Pleas in Marshall County

Photo by Alan Olson Leslie Morris appears Thursday in Marshall County Circuit Court with her attorney, David White, to plead guilty to a third-offense shoplifting charge.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct the amount of probation to which Sarah Persinger was sentenced on Thursday.

Two women in unrelated cases — one involving prescription pills and another of shoplifting — avoided jail time Thursday by pleading guilty in Marshall County Circuit Court.

Sarah Persinger entered a guilty plea to delivery of a controlled substance. During Thursday’s hearing, she said she delivered a few Vicodin pills last September at the request of her now-estranged husband, who she said desperately needed money.

“He was begging me to go out and get money for him, and if not, we were going to get into a fight,” Persinger said. “A woman kept messaging me to get her medicine from somebody else, so I walked across the street, got it and handed it to her.”

Judge Jeff Cramer sentenced Persinger to one to 15 years in prison, suspending the sentence in lieu of two years’ probation and a referral to drug court.

Also pleading guilty Thursday was Leslie Morris, to third-offense shoplifting in connection with an incident earlier this year. Morris stole a DVD from the Moundsville Wal-Mart, and during her arrest officers reportedly found controlled substances in her possession.

However, in exchange for her plea, the drug-related charges against Morris were dropped.

Morris was sentenced to one to 10 years in prison, with her sentence suspended in lieu of one year of probation and six months’ home confinement.

In Marshall County Magistrate Court, Cameron resident Nathan Anderson saw his preliminary hearing continued on charges of nighttime burglary, underage consumption of alcohol, public intoxication, petit larceny and battery.

Anderson, 20, was arrested July 30 after allegedly being found asleep in a house on Terrace Drive in Marshall County. He and a 16-year-old male allegedly were found with a bedroom window bent open and several items of furniture in the house covered in blood.

Police allegedly recovered food and numerous cellphones believed to have been stolen from the residence.

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