Huntington meth cook gets 35-year sentence
By Rebecca S. Green
The Journal Gazette
For selling methamphetamine out of his Huntington home near an elementary school, a 33-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to 35 years in prison.
Huntington Superior Court Judge Jeff Heffelfinger sentenced Terry Cooley to 35 years on one charge of dealing methamphetamine, four years for operating an illegal drug lab and 18 months for theft – stealing fire extinguishers from the local Super 8 motel to capture chemicals used to make meth.
The prison terms will be served at the same time but consecutively to a sentence Cooley has pending in Colorado, court officials said.
As part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, additional charges of possession of methamphetamine and possession of marijuana were dismissed at sentencing.
Cooley’s sentence comes a week after his 26-year-old girlfriend, Buffy Schoff, pleaded guilty to similar charges. The two were arrested in December after police raided a suspected meth lab at 529 Poplar St. in Huntington, near Huntington Catholic School.
Schoff pleaded guilty to a charge of neglect of a dependent, as well as charges of possession of methamphetamine and theft. Along with admitting to living – with her 2-year-old daughter – in a house where she knew meth was being manufactured, Schoff admitted to being addicted to the drug and to injecting herself with it five minutes before police searched the house.
Also arrested was Cecil Van Blaricom, 32, who is scheduled to be sentenced this month.
A fourth person, 36-year-old Berry Sauer, also known as Barry Sauer, remained at large for a while after police raided the home. He has since been arrested, is being held in the Marshall County Jail and is scheduled to appear in Huntington Superior Court on Tuesday to answer to charges of possession of methamphetamine, dealing in methamphetamine and operating an illegal drug lab, officials said.
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