New Kensington woman accused of dealing drugs after car she was riding in pulled over for traffic stop

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A New Kensington woman was accused of dealing drugs after police said she had bags of crack and heroin stuffed down her pants when the car she was riding in got pulled over.

Emily Grace Hock, 39, of the 200 block of Glenview Drive was charged with two felony counts of possession of drugs and four related misdemeanor drug charges.

Hock was being detained in the Westmoreland County jail in lieu of a $25,000 cash bond. A preliminary hearing is scheduled before District Judge Frank J. Pallone Jr. on June 22.

A New Kensington patrol officer wrote in a criminal complaint that he was on patrol shortly before 8:30 p.m. on April 27 when he saw a brown Lexus pull onto Freeport Street from the Sheetz without signaling.

The car was pulled over after the driver changed lanes without signaling while on Route 366 as it turns into Tarentum Bridge Road near Marlboro Drive.

The driver, whom police said is known to sell drugs, didn't know the name of the man in the front passenger seat and mixed up the names of the two women sitting in the rear. He told police he was heading from the Parnassus area in New Kensington to a bar in Tarentum and that "he was just the driver," the complaint said.

The officer got permission for a police dog to search the car, but the only thing found was an open bottle of alcohol under the passenger seat that the driver said was left by a previous passenger.

While the three passengers were being detained during the dog's search, an officer spotted a glass crack pipe on the ground near one of the women. She admitted it belonged to her but denied having any drugs.

She did, however, tell the officer that Hock had drugs "stuffed on her," the complaint said.

Stuffing is the street term for swallowing drug packets or placing them in body cavities to avoid detection by police.

Police said Hock began crying when an officer told her he suspected she was carrying drugs. She said "it's not tucked inside of me" before pulling two knotted plastic bags out of her pants.

One of the bags had a large amount of suspected crack cocaine inside, police said, and the other had five bundles of suspected heroin.

A bundle of heroin typically has between eight and 10 stamp bags of the drug, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Police did not specify in the complaint how much suspected crack was seized from Hock.

Tony LaRussa is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tony by email at [email protected] or via Twitter .

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