From the courts: District Court

A Havre man received five years with the Department of Corrections after being found with 23 bindles of methamphetamine for distribution purposes.

Jason Lee Berger, born in 1983, was sentenced in District Court in Havre to five years for felony criminal possession with intent to distribute followed by a two years suspended commitment. District Judge Daniel Boucher also sentenced Berger to five years, all suspended, for felony use of property subject to criminal forfeiture.

The sentence is part of a plea deal.

Berger’s sentence is to run consecutively to a sentence he is already serving for partner or family member assault, a sentence that was initially suspended until revoked July 31 for parole violation.

A Havre Police Officer stopped a driver May 5 who was towing a 1994 Nissan Pathfinder because the Pathfinder did not have any rear lights. Berger, the registered vehicle owner, was in the driver’s seat of the towed Pathfinder. Before the stop, an agent with the Tri-Agency Safe Trails Task Force had seen Berger drive the towed vehicle and identified Berger as someone with an arrest warrant.

Berger was arrested because he had two outstanding arrests.

The officer found a glass marijuana smoking pipe in the seat Berger was sitting. The vehicle was seize and a search warrant was applied for.

Later that day, a Task Force agent executed the warrant and searched the vehicle. The agent found a plastic bottle with 23 plastic ziplock bags containing paper bindles of methamphetamine. Also found were five 7.5 milligram Hydrocodone pills.