Carbon man given time-served sentence on drug counts

A Carbon County man was sentenced to time-served on drug counts, one charge stemming from an incident in which a person died of a drug overdose.

Francisco Aponte Jr., 26, of Nesquehoning, was sentenced by Judge Joseph J. Matika on Friday to time-served, 179 days, to one day less 24 months on a charge of criminal use of a communication facility. The prison term will be followed by one year probation imposed on a charge of possession of drug paraphernalia.

According to the affidavit filed by investigator Charles Horvath of the Lansford police, at 12:44 p.m. May 9, 2016, Lansford police were dispatched for a possible drug overdose. They found Brian Kieffer dead on the floor in his second-floor bedroom.

Horvath inspected the bedroom and found three empty blue glassine bags commonly used to package individual doses of heroin on the night stand next to the bedroom’s door.

On May 11, Lansford Chief Jack Soberick and Horvath met with a person who indicated Aponte was selling heroin and was living with Kayla Leibowitz in Lansford. The person provided Horvath with a phone number for Aponte, and also received information from several other sources that Aponte and Leibowitz were selling heroin.

In July and August, Jim Thorpe police conducted an undercover heroin investigation in Nesquehoning that involved Aponte and Leibowitz.

On May 16, Horvath obtained a search warrant for Kieffer’s HTC phone, and found text messages on it, including one from a contact named “Frankie” that occurred between 10:08 and 10:31 p.m. May 8.

The texts were associated with illegal drug activity. A search of Kieffer’s phone also revealed Facebook Messenger messages between Kieffer and Leibowtiz.

Kieffer’s autopsy and toxicology reports showed he had ethanol, fentanyl and morphine in his blood.

On Sept. 12, Horvath interviewed Leibowitz at Schuylkill County prison, where she was incarcerated on a bail violation, and showed her the text and Facebook Messenger exchanges.

Leibowitz claimed that she and Aponte sold heroin to Kieffer on a regular basis, but she refused to deal with him on a personal basis because she did not trust him, and that she and Aponte would normally sell three bags of heroin for $20. She said that they had sold blue glassine bags of heroin that were not stamped.

On Sept. 14, Soberick took Aponte into custody for possession of drug paraphernalia during an unrelated incident and questioned Aponte about Kieffer’s overdose death. Aponte admitted to selling heroin to Kieffer, but said he could not remember if he sold to him on May 8.

Aponte was never charged in connection with Keiffer’s death.

In addition to the prison term, Matika ordered Aponte to get a drug and alcohol evaluation, zero tolerance for drug and alcohol use, supply a DNA sample, render a total of 125 hours of community service, pay court costs of about $1,000 and pay a $50 per month supervision fee while on parole and probation.