Contributed Photo/Courtesy: GCSO: Sean Hinton was jailed and charged with possession of drugs for sale for allegedly selling 185 counterfeit Oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl to undercover DPS agents.
John Johnson
john johnson news@gmail.com
SAFFORD – Former Thatcher head football coach Sean Hinton has been charged with possession of drugs for sale for allegedly selling 185 counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl to an undercover agent.
Hinton is charged with two counts of possession of drugs for sale, possession of drugs, and possession of drug paraphernalia. He also faced additional charges of possession of drugs and drug-related paraphernalia in a separate incident earlier this month in which he accidentally dropped his 16.5 counterfeit oxycodone tablets at Home Depot. He was given a bond of $100,000 in a sale case and $25,000 in a possession case when he appeared in Safford Court of Justice on Tuesday.
Hinton was Thatcher’s head football coach from 2015 to 2018, winning back-to-back 2A state championships in 2016 and 2017. Most recently, he served as a volunteer assistant coach for Safford High School’s He JV Football He team in 2022.
Hinton was already on probation from a plea bargain that ended three separate lawsuits against him in 2020. It all started with an incident in which a car was stopped around 11:36 pm for driving without the lights on.
The second charge, which includes three counts of possession of a dangerous drug (methamphetamine), possession of a drug (heroin), possession of a prescription drug, possession of marijuana, and possession of a drug paraphernalia, stems from the afternoon incident. On November 17, 2019, Hinton was found smoking heroin in a truck with a female companion behind her nursing home in Haven, off her drive to Peppertree.
Hinton’s plea bargain in 2020 sentenced him to one year in prison for soliciting to shoplift. This is a class 6 felony.
The petition settled three separate lawsuits against him dating back to May 2019, in which he also pleaded guilty to possession of dangerous drugs (class 4 felony), possession of drug paraphernalia (class 6 felony), and Pled guilty to DUI drugs (Class 1). -1 misdemeanor.
Hinton was also given a three-year probation period for his drug charges, which he will serve upon release from prison, and 10 days in prison and was not on probation for a year for a DUI drug charge. On a DUI charge, he was given nine days’ probation once he completed an alcohol/drug abuse screening and was ordered to enter a treatment program within six months of his sentence. Although stipulated in the plea bargain, the length of the probation period was left to the court’s discretion.
In January, Hinton met an undercover DPS agent in a desert area south of Safford and sold 185 counterfeit oxycodone pills for $700, according to an Arizona Department of Public Safety investigative report. In the pill field, they tested positive for fentanyl, an opioid many times more potent than heroin and the leading cause of drug overdoses in Graham County.
According to the agent’s video and audio recordings, the man also planned for the agent to purchase 1,000 pills from Hinton, but Hinton’s pill hookup was reported to him by the DEA on the night he planned to get the pills. ) and the deal never went through. .
After returning to Home Depot on March 10, Hinton was indicted a second time for allegedly dropping a bag containing 16.5 counterfeit oxycodone tablets at Home Depot.
The Thatcher police report includes surveillance footage showing Hinton’s return, and as he put his wallet back in his pants, a plastic bag containing pills fell out.
Later, according to Thatcher’s report, Hinton is shown on surveillance footage, makes a transaction at the self-check counter, and leaves the store. An employee immediately noticed the buggy and collected it for the manager, who called the police.
He was arrested on March 24 on a warrant and placed in the Graham County Adult Detention Facility.
