By Julie Manganis
SALEM — A North Shore man is in jail after he allegedly tried to smuggle a bottle of urine into Salem District Court yesterday, apparently in hopes of using it to pass a drug test.
Anthony Rosado, 54, is on probation for a domestic assault incident last November in Beverly. Among the conditions of his suspended sentence and probation are random drug tests.
But a probation officer said yesterday in court that Rosado had tested positive for opiates just two days after his sentencing in January. He tested positive again a week later, probation officer Greg Lawrence said. And then Rosado just stopped showing up.
Rosado did finally appear at the courthouse yesterday, in response to a notice that he was facing a probation violation hearing for the "dirty" drug screens and missed visits with his probation officer.
As Rosado was entering the courthouse on Washington Street, he set off a metal detector, which led a court security guard to conduct a second screening with a hand-held wand, staffers said.
The security guard asked Rosado to pull up his pant legs, and then noticed a bulge in Rosado's sock. Rosado claimed that it was a bottle of aspirin, but when the guard picked it up, he realized that it was filled with liquid.
That discovery led probation officers to ask that Rosado be taken into custody.
He is being held at Middleton Jail pending a final hearing on whether he violated his probation. That hearing will take place April 2.
If he is found in violation, he could face serving the one-year sentence that had been suspended in the domestic assault case.
