DUNMORE, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 A Dunmore police sergeant is facing criminal charges after authorities say he removed cocaine from an evidence bag at police headquarters and ingested the drug along with fentanyl.<\/p>\n
Court documents say Sgt. Stephon D. Burgette was found unresponsive in his office in the early morning hours of Nov. 28, 2025. Responding officers and emergency medical personnel noted pinpoint pupils \u2014 a possible sign of opioid use \u2014 and discovered an unsealed brown evidence bag in Burgette\u2019s office. He was taken to Geisinger Community Medical Center and admitted for treatment.<\/p>\n
Detectives later opened the evidence bag on body-camera video and say the 6.3 grams of cocaine that should have been inside were missing. Laboratory tests of Burgette\u2019s blood and urine later returned positive for cocaine and fentanyl metabolites. Investigators say Burgette told detectives during an interview that he had taken cocaine from the evidence room and ingested it over roughly a three-month period.<\/p>\n
The criminal complaint, filed in January, accuses Burgette of unlawful possession of a controlled substance, tampering with physical evidence for allegedly removing the 6.3 grams of cocaine from an evidence bag, and obstructing the administration of law. The affidavit references chain-of-custody documentation, body-camera footage and other records used by detectives to support the charges.<\/p>\n
In a borough statement released Jan. 9, Mayor Max Conway said Dunmore officials acted promptly after learning of the allegations and turned the matter over to the district attorney\u2019s office. Conway wrote that the borough \u201chas fully cooperated with the District Attorney\u2019s Office throughout its investigation\u201d and praised the \u201cprofessionalism and diligence of District Attorney Brian Gallagher and his team.\u201d The mayor confirmed that \u201cSergeant Burgette has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the case.\u201d Conway added that because the matter involves ongoing legal proceedings and personnel issues, the borough \u201cwill not be providing further comment or responding to questions at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The filing makes clear the accusations are allegations and the investigation is ongoing. Burgette was interviewed at the Lackawanna County District Attorney\u2019s Office with an attorney present; anyone charged is presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUNMORE, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 A Dunmore police sergeant is facing criminal charges after authorities say he removed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-82807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-scranton","9":"tag-scranton-headlines","10":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}