OLIVIA -- Susan Marie Erickson, 46, of Willmar, pleaded not guilty Friday to first- and second-degree drug sale charges for allegedly selling more than 200 pills containing controlled substances to a drug task force informant Monday in Olivia.
Unconditional bail was set at $100,000, with conditional bail at $20,000. Her next appearance in Renville County District Court is Dec. 19.
Erickson also faces a misdemeanor charge of driving while under the influence of a controlled substance.
According to the complaint, an agent for the Brown, Lyon, Redwood and Renville County Drug Task Force was informed Monday by a confidential informant that the informant could buy pain pills from Erickson.
The informant was provided with $3,000 in recorded task force funds and met Erickson that evening in the parking lot of Max's Grill in Olivia. The sale was allegedly completed in Erickson's vehicle, which then left the parking lot and was stopped by a sheriff's deputy. The deputy noticed Erickson showed signs of impairment, with her eyes dilated and bloodshot. She was arrested and taken to the county jail, where field sobriety assessments showed impairment, but a preliminary breath test showed zero alcohol content.
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Another deputy performed a drug impairment evaluation and found that Erickson was impaired by narcotics and unable to safely drive a motor vehicle. She allegedly admitted to taking hydrocodone. She agreed to submit to a blood test and the sample was sent to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for analysis.
Erickson was searched upon her arrest and deputies found the $2,800 in drug task force funds and pills matching the pills sold to the informant on her person.
After leaving the parking lot, the informant met the agent and turned over a bag of pills and the remaining $200 in task force funds, plus pieces of prescription pill bottle labels, to the agent. The pills included 61 oxycodone pills, 71 clonazepam pills and 85 morphine pills, for a total of 217 pills. The informant told the agent that Erickson ripped the labels off her prescription bottles and gave them to the informant.
Erickson has a prior conviction for third-degree controlled substance possession in Kandiyohi County.
