Aug 28, 2015 3 min read

A Rices Landing man is accused of selling heroin to a confidential informant on six occasions this spring just after he had been released from jail for possessing the drug and hiding some of the empty stamp bags in a preschooler’s bassinet and diaper bag.

Jeffrey Speer, 28, of 135 Hoge Ave., was arraigned Thursday night on charges following six heroin purchases in April, May and June by an informant working with the Greene County Drug Task Force.

The task force set up the first buy April 9 at Walmart in Franklin Township in which Speer sold a bundle of heroin for $100, court records indicate.

Speer sold the same amount again in the store’s parking lot April 14, police said.

He then met with the informant April 23 in the Circle K parking lot in Carmichaels and allegedly sold two bundles for $200, police said. The informant then bought two more bundles for $200 on April 27 during a meeting at a grocery store in Jefferson, police said.

The task force said Speer sold them 12 stamp bags of heroin for $130 on May 27 at a bar near Clarksville.

The final buy occurred June 4 when a bundle of heroin was sold to an informant at Hardee’s restaurant in Franklin Township.

The drugs in each case tested positive for heroin, police said.

Speer faces 12 felony counts of possession with intent, one charge of criminal use of a communication device and six charges of possession of a controlled substance. He was arraigned Thursday night by District Judge Glenn Bates and taken to the Greene County jail on $25,000 bond. A preliminary hearing before Bates is set for 2 p.m. Sept. 9.

Speer’s original case more than two years ago stems from when Cumberland Township police went to the Crucible home he shared with his girlfriend, Melinda Puckett, 25, after receiving a complaint from Greene County Children and Youth Services in April 2013. Police said they found stamp bags with heroin residue hidden in Puckett’s 3-year-old son’s bassinet and diaper bag and other areas easily accessible to the child.

Puckett removed seven stamp bags from her bra. She pleaded guilty in March 2014 to possession with intent to deliver.

That same month, a jury convicted Speer of possession with intent to deliver, heroin possession, possession of drug paraphernalia and endangering the welfare of a child. He initially was sentenced to two to four years in state prison.

Former Greene County Judge William Nalitz later reduced the sentence based on a question of the constitutionality of the statute under which he received the mandatory sentence, and gave him eight to 23 months in the county jail.

Online jail records indicate Speer was released from the Greene County jail Feb. 15, less than two months before the drug task force began building the most recent case against him.

Speer had no attorney listed as of Friday afternoon.