Former Charleroi High School soccer coach faces heroin charges
MONONGAHELA – The former boys’ soccer coach at Charleroi Area High School was arrested Monday on a warrant charging him with selling a bundle of heroin to a police informant in Monongahela in January.
Monongahela police charged George Watkins, 42, of 166 Scott Lane, Venetia, with heroin delivery, drug possession and possession of drug paraphernalia stemming from the Jan. 13 incident, as well as a traffic stop last month in the Mon Valley, court records show.
Watkins coached two consecutive seasons at Charleroi and left the district in 2011, Charleroi Superintendent Ed Zelich said Tuesday. He later coached at Elizabeth Forward.
Authorities picked up Watkins on separate warrants Monday, and he is in Washington County jail on $100,000 bond set by District Judge Mark Wilson.
One warrant accuses him of having an empty heroin stamp bag and syringes in his vehicle when it was stopped by Monongahela police about 2:40 p.m. April 5 at Route 136 and Toll 43, court records show. A police officer pursued him from 200 Dry Run Road in Monongahela into Carroll township that afternoon after noticing him in the vehicle using a driver’s license that had been suspended and suspecting his alleged involvement with heroin, the record states.
The second warrant accuses him of selling a bundle of heroin worth $60 to an informant about noon Jan. 13 in a parking lot in the 400 block of West Main Street, police stated in court records.
The case is part of an undercover investigation in Monongahela that led to the arrests of 12 others in early April. Police said at the time that they had additional warrants still to be served and picked up another suspect Friday. Police have now apprehended all but one of the suspects, Edward Derrick. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call Monongahela police at 724-258-5511.