24-year-old Christopher J. Obermiller and his girlfriend, 23-year-old Tara L. Schupback have both been sentenced to serve jail time for smuggling heroin into the Bay County Jail.
The pair accepted plea deals back in August, when Obermiller pleaded guilty to conspiracy to furnish contraband to a prisoner, which is a felony, and Schupback pleaded guilty to furnishing contraband to a prisoner and possession with intent to deliver heroin less than 50 grams.
The sentences were handed down by Bay County Circuit Judge Harry P. Gill, who sentenced Schupback to three hundred days in jail, but gave her credit for the seventy seven days that she has already served, along with an additional sixty five days deferred. As part of her sentence, Gill also allowed Schupback to be transferred to an inpatient treatment program after her first two hundred days in jail.
The charges stem from an incident that occurred in late July, when Obermiller was in prison for a third degree criminal sexual conduct conviction. Schupback alleges that Obermiller, whom she was dating at the time, was regularly harassing her in the hopes that she would give in to his demands to furnish him with heroin in prison.
“Well, um, since he had been incarcerated, since maybe like June … he had been on me, hounding me, constantly asking me to bring something up because he said he was a trustee and he could get away with it,” she had explained to the judge “I would consistently say, ‘no, no no, I’m not going to do this.’ But in the end, she caved.
“The day it had happened, he called me probably between 50 and 80 times, just hounding me to bring it up, to bring it up, to bring it up. Maybe about 11, 11:30 at night I gave in, just like he knew I would. I bought coffee from Walmart, put the heroin in the coffee, put a needle syringe in the coffee, superglued it up like he told me to do.”
Schupback claims that she purchased a can of Folgers coffee and attempted to hide one-tenth of a gram of heroin, along with a needle and syringe, inside it. She delivered it to the Bay County Jail and then returned home. Just a few hours later the police arrived at her home in Bangor Township to arrest her.
The hidden heroin was discovered by a corrections officer who, noticing that the manufacturer’s vacuum seal had been tampered with before he handed it over to Obermiller, emptied the can and investigated its contents.
Both Schupback and Obermiller were also ordered to participate in the Swift And Sure Sanctions Probation Program as part of their sentencing. According to the Michigan Courts website, the program is described as ” an intensive probation supervision program that targets high-risk felony offenders with a history of probation violations or failures.” Participants are required to participate in frequent meetings, undergo regular drug tests, and are closely monitored for compliance.