The former operators of the West Main Cafe pleaded innocent to methamphetamine manufacturing charges in Pope County Circuit Court on Monday.
Stephanie Faith Salinas, 39, and Lonnie Hollabaugh, 43, both of Russellville, have each been charged with using paraphernalia to manufacture methamphetamine, a Class B felony punishable by 5-20 years in prison, and possession of a controlled substance, a Class C felony punishable by 3-10 years in prison.
Circuit Judge Dennis Sutterfield accepted their pleas and set a June 8 jury trial date for the pair. Salinas and Hollabaugh were represented by attorney Mark Mobley of Russellville at Monday’s hearing.
Drug task force agents raided the West Main Cafe on Jan. 12 based on information they received from an informant, locating numerous alleged drug-lab components in the kitchen area and arresting Salinas and Hollabaugh, according to police reports.
Salinas and Hollabaugh were jovial while awaiting transport back to the Pope County Detention Center following the hearing, joking with other inmates and at times kissing during breaks in the proceedings. Their arrest has garnered attention from state and national media, a unique situation where meth was allegedly being cooked at a public restaurant.
Drug agents believe Hollabaugh and Salinas had been manufacturing meth in the kitchen on the same equipment used to cook the food served at the restaurant. Agents previously testified in court proceedings that it appeared as though the two were sleeping at the restaurant as well with a cot, clothes and blankets located in a room adjacent to the kitchen.
New information released in court documents last week showed drug agents went to Salinas and Hollabaugh before the raid, asking for consent to search the restaurant after receiving a tip the meth-making was taking place there. Salinas and Hollabaugh refused the search, however, according to those documents, and drug agents returned later with a search warrant.
Drug agents located methamphetamine in the room adjacent to the kitchen, coffee filters with drug residue, and other common ingredients associated with the manufacturing of methamphetamine. The restaurant on West Main Street is near a residential area and among other businesses.
Salinas is back in the Pope County Detention Center after Sutterfield revoked her pretrial release last week. Hollabaugh has never met the bond requirement to be released and has been incarcerated since his arrest.
Salinas was already on bond at the time she was arrested last month, and the new arrest violated the conditions of her pre-trial release on the former charges, Sutterfield ruled.
Court records indicate Salinas was freed on a $5,000 bond after she was arrested for alleged overpossession of pseudoephedrine, a component of methamphetamine, on Aug. 18. Salinas is scheduled to be tried on that charge Feb. 23, also in Sutterfield’s court.
In that case, Salinas was arrested by Russellville police in August after officers found her and a co-defendant in possession of six 20-count boxes of 120-milligram tablets of pseudoephedrine, according to a Russellville police report. State law restricts the amount of pseudoephedrine a person can legally possess.
Salinas was ordered not to commit any further criminal acts as a condition of her first bond, and Gibbons asserted, in his petition, the new arrest was reason to revoke her bond. She will now be incarcerated until her trial.