HERMITAGE —

After nearly 2 1/2 years, prosecutors and a New Castle woman resolved a drug case in a way that seems anticlimactic — she was accepted into a diversion program.

However, the police investigation continues and Santana S. Hightower has agreed to cooperate and testify if any related cases are filed.

Ms. Hightower, 24, was charged Feb. 12, 2007, four days after 31.4 ounces of marijuana, 1è ounces of crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia were found in her hotel room, the former Starlite Inn, 2810 S. Hermitage Road, Hermitage, police said.

In that time, Ms. Hightower switched attorneys three times, had a baby and was a fugitive for a while. Her motion to suppress evidence was withdrawn, refiled, and ultimately denied.

It was evident that prosecutors were less interested in her than they were her boyfriend, Otto C. “Chris” Lane, or anyone else they could connect to the drugs, and wanted Ms. Hightower’s help.

“She was merely present in the room, with a substantial quantity of drugs,” said Assistant Mercer County District Attorney William J. Moder III. “Somebody’s responsible for them.”

Police want to determine who arranged for the drugs to be in the room and who controlled them, Moder said.

Lane initially was charged with drug offenses along with Ms. Hightower, but police early on dropped the case against him for further investigation. They could refile the charges, Moder said.

Hermitage patrolman John Miller testified in March:

He spotted a car pulling into the motel at 5:10 p.m. Feb. 8, 2007. Knowing that the motel had an “extensive problem” with tenants selling drugs, he ran the license plate and found that the car’s owner was wanted on a warrant, but the owner was white and the driver and only occupant was black.

Miller called the owner, who said her husband was supposed to have the car, and asked Miller to get the keys. She said her husband was a recovering crack addict and might have traded the car for drugs, something Miller said is common.

Miller saw Ms. Hightower bringing laundry to the laundry room, and asked her where she got the car. She said she got it from Chip, but that he wasn’t there. Miller asked for the keys and Ms. Hightower said they were in her room.

They walked up to the room together and Ms. Hightower allowed Miller to enter the room when he asked to do so.

Miller saw clothes piled up around the room, food and food containers and an infant and a toddler. He also noticed a “very strong, overpowering smell of (raw) marijuana.”

“This led me to believe there was a substantial amount, larger than a personal amount, in the room,” he said.

Upon obtaining Ms. Hightower’s identification, Miller remembered he had met her about three months earlier after he arrested Lane.

Miller mentioned Lane and Ms. Hightower “immediately connected him to the room.” She said he was in Youngstown working on their house, which was why they had been living at the motel.

Ms. Hightower said it was Lane’s room, not hers, and, when Miller asked for her consent to search, she called Lane. Ms. Hightower and Lane spoke to Miller and, after Ms. Hightower hung up, “She more or less hung her head down and said I could search.”

Miller asked Ms. Hightower where the drugs were and she directed him to behind the curtains, where he found a duffle bag that contained the drugs, boxes of sandwich bags and a digital scale with crack residue on it.

Miller seized the drugs and paraphernalia but did not arrest Ms. Hightower, leaving her to tend to her children.

Friday, Mercer County Common Pleas Court Judge Francis J. Fornelli accepted Ms. Hightower into the probation without verdict program.

“This is not ARD,” Moder said.

Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition is the diversion program most often used by the county courts, usually with those charged with drunken driving. “It’s a special program under the drug code focused on treatment,” Moder said.

Ms. Hightower will be on one year of probation during which she must undergo treatment and counseling. If she successfully completes the program, her charges will be dismissed.