CASSOPOLIS — A Niles man is finding out heroin can be an expensive habit.
Twenty-six-year-old Glenn Deal was spending anywhere between $55 to $110 per day on heroin, according to Cass County Prosecutor Victor Fitz.
“He has the drag of heroin on his back,” said Fitz during Cass County Circuit Court sentencing Thursday morning.
“That calculates out to $20,000 to $40,000 a year. Where he was getting that money from, only Lord knows.”
Deal pleaded guilty to possession of heroin less than 25 grams on Feb. 22. He was sentenced Thursday to 270 days in Cass County Jail with credit for 58 days served by Circuit Court Judge Michael Dodge.
Fitz said heroin normally comes from places such as Afghanistan and is often produced by terrorists.
“While Mr. Deal is dealing with the reality of getting his next fix, the other reality is he is also unintentionally, but factually, supplying those who aren’t sympathetic toward our country, terrorists, with means to do bad things to our country like we saw on 9/11 and other occasions,” Fitz said.
Deal was pulled over by Michigan State Police for an equipment violation on Feb. 8. The officer discovered Deal was driving without a license and a search found Deal to be in possession of two small packets of heroin.
Dodge said Deal has an extensive past criminal record consisting of six felonies, seven misdemeanors and several probation violations.

More sentences
Two other sentences were handed down Thursday.
Gina Griffin, 31, of Dowagiac, was sentenced to two years probation and ordered to pay $178.49 in restitution for attempted larceny in a building. After ending a relationship with her boyfriend, Griffin took her boyfriend’s checkbook and wrote checks from that account without permission.
Kiernan Sharpe, 20, of Niles, was sentenced to 60 days in the Cass County Jail followed by as much as two years of probation for violating the state’s sex offender registration act. He has credit for two days served.
Dodge said Sharpe appeared to be “playing fast and loose with the registration requirement” by registering at an address then living elsewhere. Sharpe was previously convicted of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree as a juvenile and later convicted of criminal sexual conduct in the fourth degree as an adult, Dodge said.