Harrison police say woman tried to hide narcotics down her pants

A Butler County woman is accused of trying to hide a pill bottle containing suspected narcotics down her pants.

Harrison police said they found the bottle on Crystal Rachele Pakutz, 26, after an officer pulled over a SUV she was in the parking lot of Bird Dog’s Sports Bar and Grill on Freeport Road on Thursday, Aug. 22, according to her arrest papers.

Pakutz allegedly told police she had been “bleeding and that she stuffed tissue paper down her pants.”

According to police, she later admitted to having the pills and told police she had “stuffed several pills in her underwear.”

Pakutz, of Oakland Township, was charged this week via summons. She faces numerous drug charges and one count of endangering the welfare of children.

Another woman allegedly involved, Candace Marie Sheakley, 34, also of Butler County, was also charged via summons this week. She faces numerous drug charges and one count of reckless endangerment.

Neither had an attorney listed in court documents.

Officer Christopher Cottone said he was monitoring vehicle and pedestrian traffic in and around the Sheldon Park public housing complex when he saw an SUV with heavy front-end damage pull into a parking space.

Cottone said a woman got out of the SUV and went into an apartment with a man and a woman. The woman left the apartment shortly after and got back into the SUV, which then pulled out of the parking space, Cottone said.

Cottone followed the SUV, and pulled it over when it the driver failed to signal left before turning onto Springhill Road.

When Cottone pulled the SUV over, the report states, he saw the driver and passenger reaching “frantically” toward the floorboard area.

Sheakley was in the driver’s seat, Pakutz was in the passenger seat, and Pakutz’s 7-year-old daughter was in the backseat. All three were told to get out of the SUV, which was searched.

Under the front passenger seat, police say they found a makeup bag that contained more than 100 pills of suspected narcotics, including opiod painkillers. Both women allegedly told police that neither had a prescription for them and they didn’t know whose pills they were.

They were arrested and taken to the Harrison police station.

In the pill bottle removed from Pakutz’s pants, police found 30 pills of ADHD medication, which is a controlled medication.

Both women’s cellphones, which were activated and receiving text messages and phone calls during the arrest, were seized and later given to the Allegheny County Police Mobile Device Computer Forensic Unit to be analyzed.

On Pakutz’s phone were numerous text messages arranging the purchase and sales of narcotics, police said.

Preliminary hearings for both are scheduled for Oct. 30.