A first time drug offender and a plea arrangement with the state led to a suspended sentence for one Beaufort County woman.

Monday, Katie Ann Jones, 19, of U.S. Highway 17 South in Vanceboro, pleaded no contest to one count of possession with intent to sell and deliver a schedule II controlled substance in Beaufort County Superior Court. In the arrangement, State prosecutors agreed to drop one count of each of trafficking in opium by possession and trafficking in opium by transportation.

The charges came from a Jan. 29, 2013 incident in which Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office Sergeant Thomas Salinas pulled over a Chevy Cavalier he’d seen swerve across the center line, according to Assistant District Attorney Chad Stoop. Stoop described the incident to Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons Jr., saying that the driver of the Cavalier, Jones, was driving with an expired drivers license and consented to a search of the vehicle for drugs or alcohol.

Salinas found a bag of pills marked M357, an acetaminophen/hydrocodone medication classified as a narcotic analgesic, Stoop said. Further search of the vehicle turned up a few methadone pills, a synthetic drug used for treatment of heroin addiction. While in custody at the Beaufort County Detention Center, a search of Jones’ purse and person revealed a trafficking amount of hydrocodone, Stoop said.

According to defense attorney Keith Fox, at the time, Jones was working as a certified pharmacist assistant at a local pharmacy, but has since had her certification revoked by the state.

“I believe this was a function of financial need in helping herself out with her child, because she gets absolutely no child support for her child,” Fox explained, when Sermons questioned Jones’ possession of the pills. “I think she truly learned her lesson from this.”

Sermons expressed how lucky Jones was that the State was willing to drop the trafficking charges against her. Taking into account that Jones has no prior record, the judge gave her a suspended sentence of six to 17 months in prison, two years of supervised probation, a 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for the first six months and 50 hours of community service.