Latrobe man pleads guilty to resisting arrest

A Latrobe man was set to be released from jail Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in connection with an incident in which a city police officer claimed he was bitten during an attempted arrest in September.

Codi J. Barger, 27, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest, two drug offenses, loitering and a summary trespassing charge. A felony count of aggravated assault against a police officer was dismissed.

According to court records, on Sept. 25 police responded to a call that an unidentified man was kicking and knocking on house doors and was observed attempting to enter parked vehicles and mailboxes in the 300 block of Walnut Street in Latrobe.

Patrolman Jacob Cholock claimed Barger, who matched the description of the suspect, was found sitting in a chair on a porch along the 1300 block of Ligonier Street. Police confiscated a stamp bag of suspected heroin labeled “T-Mobile” and a nearly empty bottle of Black Velvet whiskey during a consent search of a drawstring bag Barger was carrying, Cholock said.

A resident also identified Barger as the suspected prowler, according to court records.

Cholock said Barger struggled with police as they attempted to take him in to custody and bit one officers on his left arm causing “indentations, abrasions and swelling.”

Appearing by video from the county jail where he’s been held since his arrest, Barger pleaded guilty and was sentenced by Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Tim Krieger to a sentence of time served to 23 months in jail and immediately paroled. The judge also ordered Barger to serve an additional year on probation.

Barger told the judge he was drunk at the time of the incident and did not remember biting the officer’s arm.