A 55-year-old man accused of creating social media threats to hurt Westmoreland County Sheriff James Albert and his household might quickly be launched from the county jail to start a DUI sentence on digital residence monitoring, based on court docket paperwork.
Matthew A. Betts was taken into custody Saturday after sheriff’s deputies discovered him hiding inside a storage locker within the basement of his Decrease Burrell residence. He appeared Monday earlier than Choose Meagan Bilik-DeFazio on a bench warrant listening to for skipping hearings in a Might drunken driving case.
In the course of the listening to, Betts pleaded responsible to the DUI in Higher Burrell filed by state police. He was sentenced to 60 days of home arrest plus six months probation, based on court docket data.
Betts has remained within the county jail till the probation division is ready to hook up residence monitoring tools, based on court docket officers.
Betts was later arraigned Monday afternoon earlier than District Choose Cheryl Peck-Yakopec on a separate cost of flight to keep away from apprehension deputies filed in connection along with his arrest Saturday.
Deputies additionally filed hindering apprehension complaints towards Betts’ girlfriend, Bea Nix, 44, of Pitcairn, and Jeffrey R. Lindemuth, 56, who lives with Betts, based on court docket paperwork.
Deputies allege that Nix and Lindemuth didn’t reply the door when deputies arrived after which repeatedly denied Betts was inside after deputies obtained a warrant to go looking the home.
The incident started Friday evening when the Westmoreland County Sheriff’s Division in Virginia intercepted what they thought was a risk by way of social media towards their company, based on court docket paperwork.
Additional investigation confirmed the risk was truly made by Betts towards the Westmoreland County Sheriff’s Division in Pennsylvania, based on Albert. They contacted Albert’s workplace and Pennsylvania State Police.
Albert mentioned Betts made a risk personally towards him by way of social media that he deliberate to “do a search on ancestry dot com so y’all get ended.”
“(Betts) additionally referenced the Skinny Blue Line and mentioned he would wipe all of them out,” Albert mentioned.
At 8:45 a.m. Saturday, authorities surrounded Betts’ residence within the 2700 block of Lori Drive and requested him to give up, deputy sheriff Robby Orbin wrote in court docket papers.
Whereas deputies have been attempting to contact Betts from outdoors, a relative drove to the scene and advised police he was not inside however had pushed to Alabama with Nix, Orbin mentioned.
Deputies obtained a search warrant from Washington Township District Choose Jason Buczak and returned after 1 p.m. to go looking the house, Orbin mentioned.
“After a really prolonged and detailed search, Betts was situated in what gave the impression to be a storage cupboard within the basement of the house with a big console tv pushed up towards it and a number of other different gadgets laying on the tv,” Orbin wrote in court docket paperwork.
Betts couldn’t have moved the tv to dam the cupboard or piled the a number of gadgets on high of it, Orbin mentioned.
Betts was taken into custody and transported to the county jail the place he was booked on the bench warrant for allegedly skipping the DUI hearings. Peck-Yakopec set Betts’ bond on the brand new grievance at $10,000 unsecured bond pending a Feb. 8 preliminary listening to.
Nix and Lindemuth are being served by way of mailed summons. Makes an attempt to achieve Nix and Lindemuth weren’t profitable.
Betts didn’t have an legal professional listed in court docket paperwork.
In response to on-line court docket data, Betts pleaded responsible in 2021 to creating terroristic threats and was ordered to serve a sentence of as much as 23 months in reference to a 2017 grievance filed by Decrease Burrell police.
Paul Peirce is a Tribune-Evaluation employees author. You’ll be able to contact Paul at 724-850-2860, ppeirce@triblive.com or by way of Twitter .
