Sheriff: Woman charged with drug distribution received holiday help from department

EDITOR'S NOTE: The spelling of a name has been corrected. It was spelled incorrectly due to a source error.

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- A distraught woman who came to the Perry County Sheriff's Department seeking help collecting child-support payments from her boyfriend ended up with a free roof over her head a few months later after the pair reconciled long enough to be arrested on drug manufacturing charges, Sheriff Gary Schaaf said.

Michaela B. Kueker, 24, and her boyfriend, Jason K. Bartlett, 26, of Perryville, were arrested in April after deputies executed a search warrant at their home and found an elaborate marijuana-growing operation, Schaaf said.

"They had a number of plants in different stages of growth, with the grow lights and an air system. They had it insulated in a backroom" with a special ventilation system, Schaaf said. "They had an intricate little outfit set up. ... It was thought-out."

Kueker still was in custody Tuesday when deputies added a charge -- felony distribution of a controlled substance -- to her tab in connection with a December incident, Schaaf said.

Another man, 21-year-old Gregory W. Meyer of Perryville, was arrested Wednesday on an outstanding warrant for felony distribution of a controlled substance stemming from a September incident, the sheriff's department reported Wednesday.

Kueker and Meyer's cases were not related, Schaaf said.

He said the warrants Tuesday and Wednesday came out of the department's ongoing undercover drug investigations.

"These kinds of things are just all over. It's not just Perry County. It's all over the place," Schaaf said. " ... These people sell prescription drugs, they sell marijuana, all kinds of dope they're into."

Schaaf said Kueker came to his office in December, upset because she had lost her job and was trying to collect child support from Bartlett.

"She was down here last December just before Christmas, and apparently she and this Mr. Bartlett had a child in common, and he was supposed to be paying her child support," Schaaf said.

Kueker had lost her job, and when she discovered she would not be able to collect as much child support as she expected, "she just fell apart out here, and I just felt so sorry for her," Schaaf said.

An anonymous community member had given Schaaf $100 and asked him to donate it to someone in need -- preferably a parent with a small child -- to make Christmas a little easier.

"They asked me to find somebody down on their luck, really just having a hard time in life," he said.

When he heard Kueker's story, Schaaf gave her the money.

"I'll be damned if just a few months later, we didn't arrest her -- and him -- back together again, growing dope," he said.

Some Perry County court records were not available online Wednesday. A woman at the Perry County Circuit Clerk's Office said the computer system had been down all day, so information on whether Kueker has a defense lawyer wasn't available.

epriddy@semissourian.com

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