A 31-year-old man charged with dealing drugs from his set net fishing site in Naknek this summer remains in custody.
Nathan Wegner and his attorney asked for a reconsideration of his bail terms, currently set at $20,000 and a third-party custodian.
His attorney Jon Bucholdt asked Judge Greg Miller to reduce the dollar amount and let his client seek treatment at the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center, or SAARC, while his case is litigated.
“The underlying idea of SAARC is good for him,” Bucholdt said. “His problem I guess is booze, more than drugs, and that’s what SAARC is aimed at. So it’s certainly a better choice than jail for him, and if we can get into SAARC, everybody wins.”
Not so, said the state’s prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Alison O’Leary. The Salvation Army center is not equipped to handle monitoring someone accused of dealing drugs, she said.
“Mr. Wegner was found in King Salmon with 23 grams of heroin on him, and $6,700 in cash,” she told Judge Miller. “He was staying in a cabin that had 97 syringes in the trash, as well as more out behind the cabin. And then when he was arrested, the next day he was taken to the clinic for heroin withdraw. And that’s when he told the chief of police that he needed to go vomit outside, and instead ran away and stole an ATV.”
Judge Miller sided with the state, and kept Wegner’s bail terms in place.
He’ll need to post $20,000 and find a third-party custodian to be released.
Wegner is indicted on charges of a class B felony manufacture or delivery involving a controlled substance in the second degree, and resisting arrest, which is a class A misdemeanor, in connection with allegations he was dealing drugs from his set net cabin.
He also faces charges stemming from when he briefly escaped custody after his arrest.
His alleged co-conspirator Brandi Nikole Smith, 27, still faces similar drug charges, but is out of custody on less than $1,000 bail.
