November 6, 2018
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
First one, and now the second has pleaded guilty to a felony drug charge. Both were sentenced to prison.
38-year-old Salvatore Frank Garite of El Paso, Texas was recently sentenced to five years in the custody of the Oklahoma Department for Corrections for his role in the activity.
34-year-old Grace Marie Denney, also of El Paso, pleaded guilty in August in Beckham County District Court in a plea agreement that will send her to prison for 6-years on a charge of trafficking in illegal drugs. Two other felonies were dismissed, child neglect and taking contraband drugs inside a jail. A fourth charge, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia nets Denney a year in the Beckham County Detention Center to be served concurrently with her prison time.
The man she was with at the time of her arrest, Garite, was also charged with trafficking and with child neglect. He received two years for the felony which will be served concurrently.
The couple, thought to be husband and wife, were first observed traveling eastbound on Beckham County Road 1050 near State Highway 34.
When they were pulled over – one morning in late January about 1:30 am – the driver told the Sheriff’s deputy he was lost.
Garite said the two were heading to Kansas City, Kansas where he had a job interview later that morning at 8 am.
As the deputy and driver were walking toward the patrol unit, the deputy observed a blanket over what appeared to be a large item in the back of the couple’s van. He noted the vehicle had a “lived-in” look about it.
When Garite admitted they brought no luggage with them, only one small bag, the deputy asked for consent to search the van.
Once the double doors on the back of the vehicle were opened, the deputy found what appeared to be four duct-taped bundles of marijuana weighing 208 pounds.
The court document says Denney, the front seat passenger, was passed out, doubled over and snoring.
When she was later searched at the county detention facility, an officer allegedly located a clear plastic baggy containing what officers thought to be methamphetamine.
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