A 55-year-old man accused of making social media threats to harm Westmoreland County Sheriff James Albert and his family could soon be released from the county jail to begin a DUI sentence on electronic home monitoring, according to court documents.

Matthew A. Betts was taken into custody Saturday after sheriff’s deputies found him hiding inside a storage locker in the basement of his Lower Burrell home. He appeared Monday before Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio on a bench warrant hearing for skipping hearings in a May drunken driving case.

During the hearing, Betts pleaded guilty to the DUI in Upper Burrell filed by state police. He was sentenced to 60 days of house arrest plus six months’ probation, according to court records.

Betts will remain in the county jail until the probation department is able to hook up home monitoring equipment, according to court officials.

Betts was arraigned Monday afternoon before District Judge Cheryl Peck-Yakopec on a separate charge of flight to avoid apprehension, which deputies filed in connection with his arrest Saturday.

Deputies also filed hindering apprehension complaints against Betts’ girlfriend, Bea Nix, 44, of Pitcairn, and Jeffrey R. Lindemuth, 56, who lives with Betts, according to court documents.

Deputies allege Nix and Lindemuth didn’t answer the door when deputies arrived and then repeatedly denied Betts was inside after deputies obtained a warrant to search the house.

The incident began Friday night when the Westmoreland County Sheriff’s Department in Virginia intercepted what they thought was a threat via social media against their agency, according to court documents.

Further investigation showed the threat was made by Betts against the Westmoreland County Sheriff’s Department in Pennsylvania, according to Albert. The Virginia department contacted Albert’s office and Pennsylvania State Police.

Albert said Betts made a threat personally against him via social media that he planned to “do a search on ancestry dot com so y’all get ended.”

“(Betts) also referenced the Thin Blue Line and said he would wipe them all out,” Albert said.

At 8:45 a.m. Saturday, authorities surrounded Betts’ residence in the 2700 block of Lori Drive and asked him to surrender, deputy sheriff Robby Orbin wrote in court papers.

While deputies were trying to contact Betts from outside, a relative drove to the scene and told police he was not inside but had driven to Alabama with Nix, Orbin said.

Deputies obtained a search warrant from Washington Township District Judge Jason Buczak and returned after 1 p.m. to search the home, Orbin said.

“After a very lengthy and detailed search, Betts was located in what appeared to be a storage cabinet in the basement of the home with a large console television pushed up against it and several other items laying on the television,” Orbin wrote in court documents.

Betts could not have moved the television to block the cabinet or piled the multiple items on top of it, Orbin said.

Betts was taken into custody and transported to the county jail, where he was booked on the bench warrant for allegedly skipping the DUI hearings. Peck-Yakopec set Betts’ bond on the new complaint at $10,000 unsecured bond pending a Feb. 8 preliminary hearing.

Nix and Lindemuth are being served via mailed summons. Attempts to reach Nix and Lindemuth were not successful.

Betts did not have an attorney listed in court documents.

According to online court records, Betts pleaded guilty in 2021 to making terroristic threats and was ordered to serve a sentence of up to 23 months in connection with a 2017 complaint filed by Lower Burrell police.

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