Police: Teens get in shootout over scam involving drug-laced candy bar

Police say an 18-year-old man was jailed after getting into a shootout with a 17-year-old Mt. Pleasant Township boy on Wednesday after the victim was duped into paying $100 for a candy bar — on the false premise it was laced with mushroom-based chemicals.

The suspect, Joseph A. Greep Jr. of Mt. Plesasant, is accused of exchanging gunfire at the teen’s house on High Street around 4:50 p.m. Wednesday, according to the criminal complaint filed in the case.

No one was injured in the shootout, in which Greep allegedly fired three shots at the 17-year-old, who, using his grandfather’s gun, fired once, according to police.

Police said the dispute centered around the 17-year-old buying the supposedly hallucinogenic-laced candy bar on Feb. 5, which resulted in arguments in school and through the social media channel, Snapchat. The teen said on the day of the gunfight, he received on his cell phone, an image of a gun with a laser and what he believed to be the barrel of a gun.

After seeing an image of Greep leaving his own residence, the teen said he retrieved a gun from his grandfather’s vehicle.

But Greep told police the 17-year-old sent him a picture of a gun prior to the incident.

Greep told police after the incident he took the gun he used to his girlfriend’s residence on West Main Street in Mt. Pleasant, where he was later arrested.

The gun, a Taurus 8mm, had been stolen in Mt. Pleasant, but Greep told police he had bought it from someone.

Greep was charged with felony counts of aggravated assault, two counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied residence, carrying a firearm without a license, receiving stolen property and summary offenses of simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.

It was not immediately clear whether the teen will face charges.

Greep was placed in the Westmoreland County Prison in lieu of $100,000 bond, pending as preliminary hearing before East Huntingdon District Judge Charles Moore on March 8.