From the Courts - Pair sentenced on drug charges, man on probation violation

A man and a woman who both pleaded guilty to charges they were found with drugs in a Havre hotel in December have been sentenced in Havre District Court in separate cases.

Hayley Kelm and Tyrell Nault both were charged after a hotel called law enforcement to say people who had paid for a room with a credit card that was declined refused to leave.

Law enforcement searched the room rented by Kelm and Nault, who was on probation from sentences of previous offenses, and found 11.7 grams of methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia and 9 mm firearm ammunition, court documents said.

Nault was on probation for drug and related charges from 2017.

Kelm pleaded guilty March 26 in a plea agreement to a felony count of criminal possession of dangerous drugs with intent to distribute. Judge Yvonne Laird, who presided over the case, sentenced her in state District Court in Havre May 13 to 10 years with seven suspended, ordered her to pay fees and surcharges and ordered her to pay a $1,200 drug storage fine. 

Nault admitted June 3 violating conditions of his release on sentences from the 2017 cases. Judge Kaydee Snipes Ruiz, who presided over his case, revoked his deferred and suspended sentences from those cases and sentenced him to five years, all suspended with credit for 225 days, on one case and to three years with the state Department of Corrections with credit for 40 days on the other.

Nault pleaded guilty in a plea agreement June 17 to the 2019 possession with intent to distribute charge. Snipes Ruiz sentenced him to 10 years with five suspended, ordered him to pay fees and surcharges and a $1,200 drug storage fine, and recommended he be screened and placed in an addiction treatment program.