Cheerleading gym owner faces drug charges

Published 4:31 pm Thursday, March 10, 2011

Upon entering Sideline All-Stars cheerleading studio on Dalton’s south side, young clients and their parents are greeted by a sign above the gym door that reads, “To God be the glory.”

On a coffee table in the lobby, books entitled “Praying Through Tough Times” and “My Glimpse of Eternity” lay beside parenting magazines.

On Tuesday, Dalton Police charged the man who owns and operates the business — and coaches girls in cheerleading and tumbling — with intending to sell methamphetamine out of the business and other drug charges.

Dwight Jerome Cook, 27, who lists the company at 102 Powell Drive as his residence, was also charged with possession of meth, possession of tools for the commission of a crime and possession of drug-related objects.

“The arrest came after a month-long undercover investigation of meth sales at the business, but there is no reason to believe he was selling to kids,” police spokesman Bruce Frazier said on Thursday afternoon, adding that Cook had a meth pipe in his pocket at the time of his arrest, and 11 grams of meth were found in his office.

“He’s a good kid, he just made a mistake,” said Rod Bearden, who explained he converted the former carpet building into a gym when the economy soured but that Cook owns the business. Whitfield County property tax records show the property belongs to a Kentucky man, but Bearden said it actually belongs to his father.

Cook was asked if the charges were true.

“I can’t really say what’s true,” he replied. When asked why, he responded he was “told not to talk about it.”

Bearden said Cook was being represented by a public defender.

Cook, who is out on bond, alternated between acting agitated and tearful Thursday and would not answer how long he’d been in business at the property. When asked if he regretted the arrest occurring, he nodded his head yes. When questioned as to whether he took meth himself, he shook his head no. When Bearden questioned him, Cook said he “never sold drugs out of the building — somebody brought it here.”

Cook was asked if the girls he coached appeared in regional and state competitions, and he nodded yes and began to cry.

“I don’t think he’s been on it long enough to be addicted,” Bearden said. “He told me he needs help and that’s a first step.”

At one point Bearden asked Cook if he was going to get prepared for a 6 p.m. class.

“I don’t think they’ll come,” Cook said. Bearden then asked a Chattanooga TV reporter if she would move her vehicle bearing the station’s logo away from the front of the building so parents wouldn’t notice.

Cook was released on a $10,000 bond by Judge Sidney Baxter in a Magistrate Court first appearance on Wednesday, according to a Whitfield County jail spokesman.

Cook has several traffic charges on his record. He was charged with DUI in 2006, driving on a suspended license in 2006, having no proof of insurance and a license plate violation in two separate instances in 2007, and driving on a roadway in the wrong direction in 2005, according to jail records.

The case remains under investigation by the Dalton Police Department’s Drug Unit, Frazier said.