Esu’s Real-Life "Weeds"
If you ever watched Showtime's "Weeds," you remember the setup: a buttoned-up suburbanite nobody suspects turns out to be running a drug operation on the side. Northeast Pennsylvania had its own version a decade ago, and one of the supporting characters was a temporary East Stroudsburg University sociology instructor.
Tara E. Bealer, then 41, had taught sociology courses, including Introduction to Sociology and Marriage and Family, at ESU and Northampton Community College for close to a decade. Off campus, she worked separately as an addiction counselor and therapist who had counseled recovering addicts in New Jersey. On Jan. 20, 2016, Nazareth Borough Police arrested her at her East Chestnut Street home in Nazareth, alleging she had been selling heroin out of it.
The case traced back to a fatal heroin overdose inside Bealer's home on Nov. 21, 2015. Then-Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said the victim was 26. Police found heroin packaging at the scene at the time but did not have grounds to charge her. A tip that January alleged she was moving up to 50 bags of heroin a day from the house. When police searched it, they recovered cash, 68 used bags of heroin, and straws for inhaling the drug.
She was charged with 84 counts total, including four felony counts of possession with intent to deliver and one felony count of endangering the welfare of a child, since a child was reportedly in the home at the time. A spokesperson for ESU confirmed at the time that Bealer was a temporary, adjunct employee and was not employed there that academic year.
Here is where the trail runs cold. The case was still active as of a September 2016 pretrial conference, with suppression motions pending. I could not find any public record of how the case was ultimately resolved, whether by plea, trial, or dismissal. If you know how it ended, or you were around ESU at the time, we would like to hear from you! As with anyone facing charges, Bealer is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
