PENNSYLVANIA – A 35-year-old lawyer plead guilty Thursday to delivering heroin to a client who was in police custody, according to a report on TribLive.com
The website reported that Brian Salisbury, 35, of Newell, will serve up to 23 months in jail.
Salisbury agreed to no longer practice law, the reported stated.
TribLive stated that Salisbury was charged last year by Uniontown police with giving a client heroin, Xanax and Suboxone when he visited the client at the booking center in the Uniontown police station on July 25.
A criminal complaint said the transaction was caught on video. Police officers later testified at Salisbury’s preliminary hearing that the video was deleted, according to a transcript.
Police said a copy of the video was not immediately made, and that a “glitch in the system” deleted surveillance within days of the alleged exchange, the reported stated.
The report stated that police testified at the hearing that the missing video showed Salisbury approaching the cell door of Aaron Les Yauger, Salisbury’s client.
Salisbury removed an item from his hat brim and slid it under Yauger’s cell door, police testified.
According to TribLive, Yauger retrieved the item, police testified, then Yauger scratched his head as a prearranged signal to officers who were watching events unfold on the surveillance cameras. Salisbury was placed under arrest, and Yauger turned over a foil-wrapped packet containing the drugs, according to police.