A 30-year-old man from South St. Paul on Monday was sentenced in Freeborn County District Court to 15 years probation and community service for possessing methamphetamine with the intent to sell it.

Joshua Dean Lee faces 18 months in prison if he violates his probation.

Lee was arrested in May 2010, after he was found by officers in the parking lot of the Countryside Inn Motel with the drug in his vehicle.

Court documents state police responded to the parking lot after receiving a 911 call. No one spoke during the call but dispatchers could hear voices in the background and a female voice crying and yelling. A female voice was also heard at one point asking about a half bag or half ounce of drugs.

The call was traced to the parking lot.

Police ultimately found 24 grams of meth in Lee’s car and found drug paraphernalia and about 2.5 grams of meth in co-defendant Shelby Lambert’s car.

The man pleaded guilty in March to fourth-degree meth possession with the intent to sell as part of an Alford plea, in which a defendant maintains innocence but admits the prosecution has enough evidence to convict, usually of stiffer charges.

He initially faced one count of second-degree meth possession.

During the sentencing Monday, Freeborn County District Court Judge Steve Schwab ordered that Lee complete 80 hours of Sentence to Service and pay $180 in fines and court costs.

He also ordered that Lee obey the law, not use mood-altering chemicals or alcohol, not go into bars or liquor stores, comply with random testing and not have any guns.

He must also submit a DNA sample.

Lee was previously convicted on second-degree meth sales in June 2006.