Broward Men Face Criminal Charges After Throwing Backpack Full of Drugs Out the Window on Alligator Alley
If you want to ditch a backpack full of stuff you aren’t supposed to have, there are worse places to do it than Alligator Alley at night. An isolated stretch of road, surrounded by alligator-infested marshes connecting Florida’s Gold Coast to the Paradise Coast, is one of the few places in Florida you can still go if you don’t want to see anyone, and you don’t want anyone to see you. The time to ditch a backpack full of drugs on Alligator Alley is not, however, when you see police sirens. That is what police are claiming that Gedarious Geffrard of Deerfield Beach and Joseph Dormelus of Pompano Beach did as Florida Highway Patrol troopers signaled for Dormelus’s BMW to pull over. When the troopers caught up to the backpack, they found it full of drugs, needles, and cash. Geffrard and Dormelus are now facing charges for tampering with evidence as well as for drug trafficking; Dormelus is also being charged with fleeing from law enforcement. If you are facing drug charges after a traffic stop, contact a Florida drug offenses attorney.
What Can Go Right at a Traffic Stop When There Are Drugs in Your Car?
Many drug crime convictions have arisen from incidents where police found drugs in the defendant’s car at a traffic stop. When police pull you over and there are drugs in your car, it is not a done deal that you will get a conviction. If you flee the scene of the accident or throw the drugs out the window of your car, you are only buying yourself a few minutes of time before the police find you and your drugs, and then you can face additional charges for fleeing from an officer or tampering with evidence in addition to your drug charges.
When you see the blue lights, you cannot avoid the traffic stop, but you can get through it. Say as little as possible. An officer may not ask to search your car, and you might get through the traffic stop without the officer even finding your drugs. If the police ask to search your car, do not consent to the search. If they search your car anyway, you may be able to argue that because you did not give consent, and because there was no probable cause, the drugs they found in your car are inadmissible as evidence. You might also be able to argue that the field test the officer used incorrectly identified the stuff in your car as a controlled substance; field tests for illegal drugs are notoriously inaccurate. For that matter, crime labs are not perfect, either, so you may be able to argue that the crime lab results do not prove that you possessed drugs.
Contact FL Drug Defense Group About Drug Cases
A Central Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are being accused of drug crimes because of a traffic stop. Contact FL Drug Defense Group in Orlando, Florida to discuss your case.
Source:
nbc-2.com/article/two-arrested-ditching-backpack-drugs-fleeing-troopers/60843884
