Workman gets 100 days

A man caught using a device to falsify the results of his drug test will serve 100 additional days behind bars.

The defendant, Thomas Eugene Workman, entered a guilty plea before Circuit Court Judge Bart Stanley to the charge of falsifying the results of a drug test and was ordered to serve 100 days of an 11-month, 29-day sentence and perform 16 hours public service work.

His sentence for falsifying the drug test was harsher than the sentence he received for his original charge which led to the test in the first place, that charge being possession of marijuana. He was given a two-year probationary sentence earlier this month on the drug charge and must also pay a $2,000 fine for the marijuana count.

Workman was charged with trying to modify his test results last year when he was ordered by Judge Stanley to submit to a random urine test to check for the presence of drugs in his system. Such tests are routinely ordered by the court as terms of release on bond, with some drug suspects directed to give their probation officer a specimen before they are allowed to leave court on bond at the time of their arraignment.

In the case of Workman, prosecutors say he was caught with what is called a Whizzinator, trying to pass the court-ordered drug test. A Whizzinator is an apparatus designed to hold bodily fluids such as urine. Some are even so advanced as to keep fluids at body temperature. The item is used generally to try to pass drug tests by either holding the person’s own urine stored at a point when it was free of drugs, or that of another person.

When questioned, Workman reportedly told authorities he had used marijuana and feared he would fail the drug test and be incarcerated. Probation officials say they have caught a handful of suspects trying to use such devices.