ALPENA — Two young women who said they were urged to criminal behavior by their mothers stood before a courtroom on Monday, sentenced for their attempt to sell drugs.

The women, 20-year-old Elizabeth Heath and 27-year-old Ashley McCumber, were given a stash of suboxone by Heath’s mother, who asked them to sell it to help pay her bills while she was in jail, Heath’s defense attorney, Alan Curtis, said. Suboxone is used both as a pain reliever and to treat opioid addiction.

Unable to make the sale, the women exchanged the substance for the drug ecstasy, which they sold, unknowingly, to an informant for the Huron Undercover Narcotics Team.

“They were as poor of drug dealers as you could possibly imagine,” Curtis said in his allocution to the court before Heath’s sentencing. “This is not a criminal mastermind.”

McCumber’s mother, Heath told the court, provided her with drugs when she tried to live with her downstate.

A representative of HUNT informed the prosecutor’s office that the three drug charges originally levied against the women were too severe, given the circumstances, Alpena County Prosecutor Ed Black said.

Both Heath and McCumber requested that the standard probation provision of not being in the company of another convicted felon be excluded from their probation, as McCumber is currently living with Heath and her father and stepmother, who, the court agreed, are providing the stable environment that is best suited for keeping the women from future encounters with the law.

“Frankly, I think exactly what she was saying is correct, that she was lacking this assistance earlier in life,” Black said of McComber, supporting the request.

Both women were sentenced to one year of probation and 120 community service hours by Judge Benjamin Bolser in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court. Heath, who turned 20 while in jail after her arrest in August, will receive Holmes Youthful Trainee Act status and have the crime removed from her public record upon successful completion of parole.

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A plea is possible in the case of Benjamin Atwater, who is accused of shooting a handgun in May toward contractors as they worked on the roof of Decorative Panels International, located behind Atwater’s house.

Both sides are awaiting the outcome of an evaluation that will offer a possible sentence if Atwater were to plead guilty. The victims in the case request that any sentence include mental health treatment, Black said.

An evaluation by a counselor hired by defense attorney David Funk indicates Atwater, while competent to stand trial and to assist with his defense, suffers from some mental conditions that require treatment.

A plea agreement could be agreed upon by December, pending the sentencing report results, Funk said.

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An Ohio servicemember who in October pleaded no-contest to accosting a woman at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center was sentenced to five years of probation and is required to register as a Tier 1 sex offender.

Scott Wagner, a military personnel in training with his unit at the CRTC, approached a woman last summer as she sat on a picnic table on the base, repeatedly placing his hand and leg on her thigh despite being pushed away and ordered to stop.

Wagner said he doesn’t remember the incident that resulted in a fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct charge because he was intoxicated at the time.

A letter from Wagner’s wife, read by his attorney, said Wagner is “the man I married” again after alcohol treatment, asking for leniency in sentencing.

Assistant Prosecutor Cynthia Muszynski suggested the court take into consideration a previous drunken driving offense by Wagner, along with allegations of assault made by other women, although Wagner was never charged for those alleged offenses.

A no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt, but is treated as such for the purposes of sentencing.

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A man who stole his grandmother’s check was sentenced to a year in jail and extended his probation after violating the terms of his probation by associating with a parolee.

Kevin Zolnierek, who in January pleaded no-contest to uttering and publishing after forging and cashing a $400 check, violated the probation assigned him at that time by being with a former girlfriend, who was on parole for drug charges.

Defense attorney Bill Pfeifer, making a case for a less-stringent sentence for his client, pointed out the apparent incongruence between potential sentences for the theft of $999, which would be treated as a one-year misdemeanor, and the forging of a check for a little as $10, which could earn up to 14 years in prison.

Bolser added two years to Zolnierek’s probation and sentenced him to serve a year in the Alpena County Jail.

“This is your one chance with me,” Bolser said. “If you screw up, you’re going to prison.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.