HOLLIDAYSBURG — A city man accused of playing a “significant” role in an Altoona drug ring watched Tuesday as a witness testified that he went to Baltimore to purchase cocaine to be resold in Blair County.

Matthew Lewis Rodriguez, 40, and six other individuals were charged in June 2025 after a grand jury investigation into the November 2022 overdose death of 26-year-old Marlana Koehle.

Rodriguez, the first to go on trial in the case, faces 10 felony counts of possession with intent to deliver and single felony counts of conspiracy to commit possession with intent to deliver, corrupt organizations, criminal conspiracy and dealing in unlawful proceeds.

A felony count of knowledge that property is the proceeds of an illegal act was withdrawn before the trial due to a lack of evidence.

Before a jury in Blair County court on Tuesday, Caitlyn Pingatore said she was the downstairs neighbor of Cecylia Thompson. Pingatore testified that she and Thompson would go to Baltimore to purchase about 20 pounds of cocaine pressed into bricks and wrapped in plastic.

In exchange for picking up drugs for Rodriguez, Pingatore said she would receive several grams of cocaine for her own use.

Pingatore testified that she didn’t go to Baltimore with Rodriguez, but he did go there, as well.

“Matt said he went,” she told the jury when defense attorney Scott Pletcher questioned her about Rodriguez’s role in the drug ring.

When asked by Blair County District Attorney Pete Weeks about the ring’s finances, Pingatore said they mostly paid Rodriguez in cash.

Under questioning by Pletcher about why she was helping the prosecution, Pingatore said she has not received a leniency offer from the DA’s office, although she “would hope to get something.” Pingatore has not been charged by the grand jury in the drug ring case but faces charges in Koehle’s overdose death.

Following Pingatore’s testimony, a confidential informant testified to being a “frequent customer” of Rodriguez’s co-defendants Laura Horne and Tareek Hemingway.

The confidential informant testified that he conducted controlled purchases of drugs under the supervision of Altoona Police Cpl. Garrett Trent and that Trent would record phone conversations between himself and Horne, during which drug purchases would be arranged.

Three of those phone recordings were played for the jury, with the informant identifying who was speaking.

When Pletcher asked the informant if he knew Rodriguez, the informant said he never bought drugs from Rodriguez but that he “knew of him.”

Trent was then called to the stand and told the jury that the informant would use CashApp, enabling him to watch money be transferred from the informant’s account to Horne’s.

After answering questions regarding a search warrant that was executed on the homes of Horne and co-defendant Kirsten Wright, Pletcher asked Trent if Rodriguez was present at either location, to which he said “not that I know.”

Trent also said Rodriguez’s residence wasn’t searched because “I didn’t have any probable cause to get a search warrant” for his home.

Deputy Attorney General David Gorman, who is prosecuting the case alongside Weeks, then asked if the ring’s drugs were being stored at Thompson’s home.

Trent told the court he believed Thompson’s residence was the “hot spot” for the organization and that Rodriguez would take the drugs to the other member’s homes instead of his own.

Altoona police officer Jeremy Griffeth-Talley testified that he was on scene maintaining the perimeter when the search warrant in question was executed. Griffeth-Talley told the court that he saw a black plastic bag, which was later found to contain cocaine, “come out” of the building’s second floor window.

Once the residence was secured, Griffeth-Talley assisted in searching the home and located a cellphone. He said the phone displayed a message from “Rizzo” saying to “flush everything,” followed by an audio call with Rodriguez’s picture. A photo of the phone’s screen was shown to the jury.

Testimony picks back up at 8:30 a.m. today. The trial is scheduled for two days and is expected to wrap up late this afternoon.

Adams County Senior Judge Michael A. George is presiding over the trial.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor-Musselman is at 814-946-7458.