Woman charged with trafficking meth
KAYE THORNBRUGH | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 years, 6 months AGO
Kaye Thornbrugh is a second-generation Kootenai County resident who has been with the Coeur d’Alene Press for six years. She primarily covers Kootenai County’s government, as well as law enforcement, the legal system and North Idaho College. | March 1, 2023 1:00 AM
A Montana woman is in jail on $100,000 bail after police said they found hundreds of fentanyl pills in her vehicle.
Rebecca Piper, 40, of Missoula, Mont., is charged with trafficking methamphetamine and possession of a controlled substance, both felonies.
A deputy with Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office pulled Piper over late Sunday for an alleged traffic violation, according to a news release, and observed marijuana “in plan view” inside the vehicle.
A search of Piper’s vehicle reportedly yielded a little more than 7 ounces of methamphetamine, as well as 349 pills that police said were fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that’s 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine.
Fentanyl pills are often stamped to look like prescription narcotics like Oxycontin or Xanax. The Coeur d’Alene Police Department has previously estimated that about one in six counterfeit pills circulating in North Idaho contains a lethal dose of fentanyl.
Judge Mayli Walsh ordered Monday that Piper be held on $100,000 bail.
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