Meth dealer gets new sentence

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GREENFIELD — A convicted meth dealer had his prison sentence cut in half thanks to a ruling by the Indiana Court of Appeals, records show.

Christopher Beaty, 30, of Greenfield, will now serve a five-year sentence after being found guilty of dealing methamphetamine as a Level 5 felony.

Beaty originally was convicted of one Level 4 felony count of dealing methamphetamine, along with one Level 6 felony count of possession of methamphetamine and one Class B misdemeanor of visiting a common nuisance. He received a 10-year prison sentence for those crimes, records show.

But the court of appeals decided prosecutors didn’t have sufficient evidence to support Beaty’s Level 4 conviction, which carried a penalty of two to 12 years.

Such a conviction would have required the man to be caught dealing at least 1 gram of methamphetamine, and appellate judges ruled the weight of the drugs Beaty sold to a friend was never properly proven during his trial last year, records show.

The judges sent Beaty back to Hancock County to receive a new sentence from Hancock Circuit Court Judge Scott Sirk. The hearing was held recently, and Sirk ordered Beaty to serve five years in prison and complete one year of probation, records show.

His convictions on the remaining counts, possession of methamphetamine and visiting a common nuisance, were upheld.

A Hancock County jury — after fewer than 15 minutes of deliberating — found Beaty guilty May 9 after a single-day trial in which he represented himself. He filed an appeal soon after his original sentencing in June, records show.

In March, the court of appeals ordered Beaty be re-sentenced.

Beaty’s appeal “does not challenge that he delivered the methamphetamine” but rather that “the state failed to establish that the weight of the delivered methamphetamine was between 1 and 5 grams,” the court of appeals decision reads.

Beaty and a friend drove to Indianapolis in January 2017 to buy meth, police said. Beaty split the drugs in half, giving some to the friend in exchange for $100 — the typical rate for 1 gram of methamphetamine, court documents state.

But to prove the weight of the methamphetamine that Beaty delivered to his friend, prosecutors relied only on evidence of the agreed upon price Beaty and the friend had reached, according to the decision.

The appellate judges said, “… there is no evidence that any law enforcement officer observed or handled the methamphetamine that was transferred to (Beaty’s friend) to be able to testify as to its weight ….”

It was more fitting that Beaty be found guilty of a Level 5 felony count of dealing methamphetamine, which carries a lesser penalty of one to six years and accuses the defendant of dealing fewer than 5 grams, the judges said, according to the court decision.

Beaty was housed in the Hancock County Jail for about a month awaiting his re-sentencing. He has now been returned to the Indiana Department of Correction, jail records show.