Nicole Marie Hagenbach covers her face as she was led from the Luzerne County Courthouse on Thursday. Ed Lewis | Times Leader
WILKES-BARRE — Several times during the sentencing hearing for Nicole Hagenbach, the proceeding was stopped to refocus on her being punished for delivering prescription pills instead of the overdose death of a state corrections officer.
Hagenbach, 34, of East Noble Street, Nanticoke, admitted to possessing contraband and controlled substances at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas, Jackson Township, and delivering a controlled substance (adderall) to corrections officer Robert Bath Jr. near the main gate on July 24, 2020.
Bath, 36, collapsed while working at the prison about one hour after meeting Hagenbach, according to court records.
Three days later, Bath was found dead inside his residence with evidence of drug use near his body.
State police at Wilkes-Barre in court records say surveillance cameras recorded Hagenbach meeting Bath at SCI-Dallas.
During the investigation, state police uncovered bank documents that showed Bath had transferred nearly $20,790 to Hagenbach and text messages between the two referencing deliveries of prescription pills.
At Hagenbach’s sentencing hearing before Luzerne County Judge David W. Lupas, her attorney, Peter John Moses, said Hagenbach pled guilty to delivery of adderall and possessing contraband on state prison property, not for Bath’s death.
After Bath’s mother, Deborah Cembrock, addressed Lupas expressing the grief of losing her son, the judge acknowledged her sorrow but reminded the parties Hagenbach was not charged with drug delivery resulting in death.
Mark Cembrock said his brother was a third generation state corrections officer…
