District Court News

A Sheridan man was sentenced to prison for violating his probation. Sheridan Media’s Ron Richter has the details.

On September 3, 2024, 40-year-old Zachariah Nelson was sentenced to 3 to 5 years in prison for two felony drug charges, conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance – methamphetamine and possession of a controlled substance methamphetamine. The prison time was suspended in lieu of a split sentence of 223 days in jail and three years of supervised probation. On June 29, Sheridan County Attorney Dianna Bennett filed a petition to revoke Nelson’s probation for allegedly using methamphetamine on June 22.

Nelson, at a hearing Tuesday in District Court, admitted that he’d violated his probation by using meth in June. District Court Judge Darci Phillips imposed the underlying sentence of  3 to 5 years in prison. He will receive credit for any time he’s served of presentence confinement. Nelson was remanded to the custody of the Sheridan County Detention Center pending transfer to prison.

Also from District Court:

A motion to continue a change of plea hearing for Alisha Buszkiewic was granted by Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Darci Phillips at a hearing Tuesday in District Court. Defense Attorney Jeremy Kisling requested the continuance to further go over the plea agreement with his client. Judge Phillips did not set a new date for the change of plea hearing, but said it would likely be August 11 or the 13 and that the Court’s judicial assistant would reach out to counsel to schedule the hearing.

Buszkiewic is charged with 11 counts of felony theft and three counts of felony forgery. The theft charges are from 2015 to 2025 when Buszkiewic, while she was bookkeeper with Western Transport, allegedly made unauthorized transfers of money belonging to Western Transport with the intent to deprive the owners of that money.

The three forgery charges stem from three separate occasions, one in 2024, and two in early 2025, when Buszkiewic allegedly wrote checks using another person’s name. According to court documents, Buszkiewic made 281 unauthorized transfers between 2015 and 2025, totalling approximately $474,853.