BULLHEAD CITY – A plea agreement was unveiled Thursday, Oct. 25 for a Bullhead City woman who was sleeping off a fentanyl buzz while her three children were in the back seat of her vehicle last month. Melisa Richman pleaded guilty to child abuse in that dismisses other charges.
Deputy Mohave County Attorney Karolina Czaplinska said a security guard summoned police after spotting a suspicious vehicle in a business parking lot in the 2300 block of Miracle Mile Rd. at about 10:40 p.m. on Sept. 26. She said the guard indicated the vehicle was occupied by non-responsive adults who may have being doing drugs.
Czaplinska said arriving officers found Richman asleep in the driver’s seat with her head resting on the dashboard. The prosecutor told Superior Court Judge Derek Carlisle that the defendant admitted “nodding off after smoking fentanyl earlier in the evening.”
A tooter straw used to snort drugs and burnt foil used to smoke them were spotted in plain sight by arriving officers. Their father, Shawn Martin, 49, had also been sleeping in the vehicle that was also occupied by the couple’s three, six and nine-year-old children.
The proposed case resolution requires supervised probation and up to one year of confinement in the Adult Detention Facility should Judge Carlisle accept the agreement during a Nov. 22 hearing.
Martin’s criminal case and associated charges are pending.
Dave Hawkins
