Articles Posted in Drug Crimes

Attorney J. Bradley Smith answering the question: “What is the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony?”

“Hold onto your pills!” That’s the message from North Carolina law enforcement officials for residents of assisted living facilities across the state. According to the State Bureau of Investigation, pill thieves across North Carolina better be on the lookout because 11 agents have been assigned by the Bureau to specifically track missing prescription drugs.

The SBI says that its agents are focusing on doctors, nurses and pharmacists as well as other health care workers that might be involved in diverting prescription drugs from patients who desperately need the medicine. According to authorities, painkillers are the most often stolen drugs and the central focus for ongoing law enforcement efforts.

Police in Asheville have revealed that they have already investigated 20 cases of prescription drug diversion in the first seven months of 2013, compared to a total of 17 cases all of last year. Though that number already seems high, officials say the real number of incidents is easily twice as high. One area where law enforcement officials believe drugs frequently go missing is among traveling nurses. SBI Agent Ken Razza says that many nurses have little or no supervision and that the medications they carry are frequently kept in the open.

Another center of prescription drug diversion is in assisted living homes across the state. SBI officials say they are working with operators of such facilities to put new procedures in place to stop prescription thefts from happening. For instance, assisted living homes have begun drawing up regulations that ensure that only licensed nurses ever handle drugs and that two nurses are present whenever medication is actually dispensed. The SBI encourages painkillers to be kept locked in a special container which can only be unlocked by an off-site pharmacist by computer command.

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Attorney J. Bradley Smith answering the question: “What is the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony?”

It’s not too often that meth manufacturers call the cops on themselves. A recent article in the Huffington Post should serve as a good example to would be drug dealers of what kind of excuse not to use. The article discussed how three North Carolina men got themselves into hot water by calling 911 to come and rescue them after getting lost in the woods.

According to authorities, three men hiked off into the woods in rural Caldwell County over the weekend. Late Monday night the local sheriff’s office received a 911 call from Sonny Hyatt, who told dispatchers he and his two friends, Thomas Imler and Eric Schmidt, were lost in the woods. Authorities tracked down Hyatt using the GPS coordinates in his cellphone and rescued the three men.

It didn’t take long before deputies say they started wondering why exactly the three men were in the woods in the middle of the night in the first place. Hyatt apparently chimed in claiming that he and his buddies were in the woods looking for ghosts, saying they had heard stories that the woods were haunted and were in search of paranormal activity.

Police investigators apparently did not fall for the story and continued questioning Hyatt. After a bit more intense interrogation, Hyatt finally cracked and admitted that he and his friends had actually gone into the forest to cook up meth. Apparently their meth recipe failed to work and the three men then got into an argument. After the argument they split up and got lost, leading to the frantic 911 phone call.

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Attorney J. Bradley Smith answering the question: “Can the police search my car without a warrant?”

A recent traffic stop in Lincolnton, North Carolina turned up an interesting surprise for the arresting officer: a child’s teddy bear filled with methamphetamine. Rather than serve as a cuddly toy, police say the bear was a vehicle used to smuggle illicit drugs.

Police say they pulled over Rigoberto Gomez-Contino early Tuesday morning as part of a routine traffic stop along Highway 321 in Lincolnton. After pulling over Contino, they asked for permission to search the vehicle where they discovered a suspiciously out of place blue teddy bear in the backseat. A quick inspection of the bear uncovered three ounces of methamphetamine hiding inside the stuffed animal. Police then arrested Contino and booked him on drug charges.

In North Carolina, Methamphetamine is classified as a Schedule II Controlled Substance under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-90(3)(c). Under North Carolina law Contino now faces an array of possible drug charges, including trafficking in methamphetamine. In North Carolina, someone is guilty of trafficking if that person knowingly sells, manufactures, delivers, transports or possesses methamphetamine. If the person possesses between 28 and 200 grams of meth (Contino had three ounces, so 85 grams) they will face Class F felony charges. A Class F felony carries a minimum sentence of 70 months in prison and a maximum stay of 93 months as well as a minimum $50,000 fine.

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A North Carolina mother and son were recently arrested for possessing chemicals and equipment used to manufacture methamphetamine, according to a report by WBTV.

Lisa Woodie Sanders, 47, and her son Thomas Jason Triplett, 28, were arrested by the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office this past week according to police spokesmen. Officers were alerted thanks to anonymous tips that the two were involved in cooking meth. The officers then searched both the mother and son’s property and found the necessary chemicals for making the drug hidden in a cooler.

The two individuals have been interviewed by police and more arrests could follow in the coming days. The son was placed in the Caldwell County Detention Center on a $7,500 bond while the mom was placed in jail under a $2,500 bond.

This case illustrates a couple of points that are worth noting. The first is that serious criminal charges can be brought against an individual if he or she is accused of having committed a drug crime. The second is that any resulting drug crime conviction can lead to severe penalties that can follow an individual for years to come.

As other street drugs become harder to get, homemade small meth labs are springing up across North Carolina and across the country. As a result, police are anticipating increased meth raids in the future. If Sanders and Triplett have no yet retained an experienced criminal defense attorney, both need to do so immediately. The charges against the two are very serious and the penalties they will now be facing are severe. Their defense should not be left in the hands of inexperienced attorneys, but instead the capable hands of skilled criminal defense professionals.

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According to the News & Observer the UNC-Chapel Hill physicist that is currently being held in Argentina after being found with two kilos of cocaine is saying a personality disorder led him to being so easily lured into smuggling the drugs.

The professor, Paul Frampton, the Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Distinguished Professor of physics and astronomy, flew to South America in the first place only after having been tricked over the Internet into believing that he would be meeting a young model. Instead, when he arrived in Bolivia he was told to carry a suitcase to Argentina and ultimately on to the U.S. The drugs were stored in a kind of false bottom to the suitcase that was otherwise empty. Frampton was arrested before he was to leave Argentina, while still in the main airport in Buenos Aires. He now faces up to 16 years in prison.

Frampton admits that a normal person would not have so readily agreed to such a scheme. “I’m an outlier in the naivety quotient as well as IQ,” he said. “I buy that. “There were, of course, warning signs that most people would have viewed with great suspicion, and this diagnosis as a defense explains the foolishness,” he said. “But I certainly had no idea there were illegal drugs and certainly had no idea of smuggling drugs to make money.”

Frampton’s defense lawyers said that they hired a forensic psychologist to meet with him while in prison and who was able to diagnose Frampton with a schizoid personality disorder that causes him to be unusually gullible. Friends and family say the news comes as absolutely no shock. His ex-wife, Anne-Marie Frampton, says, “He is totally devoted to physics and to his students, but in the rest of his life he has always been like a child.”

Other friends of the professor said that he has a history of similar unfortunate incidents, including the pursuit of young foreign women on the Internet. A friend and Nobel laureate said that Frampton once persuaded a Chinese woman in her 20s to marry him, but when he flew to China she took one look at him and changed her mind.

Frampton and the school are also now fighting over his pay after UNC decided to stop paying his salary saying that he was unable to do his job from an Argentine prison. He filed suit saying that he was able to perform his work from prison, having written two research papers and properly advised his graduate students via telephone. Just last week an Orange County judge turned down his request for an injunction.

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In a Catawba County home, deputies found a liquor still, 100 jars of “white lightning” moonshine, 40 firearms, 195 grams of marijuana, prescription drugs, and more than $13,000 in cash. The resident, Mr. Timothy Scott Fox, has been charged with possession with intent to sell and deliver marijuana, maintaining a dwelling for a controlled substance, possession and sale of non-tax paid alcohol, possession and sale of alcohol without a permit, and manufacturing liquor without a permit. Mr. Fox is now out on $15,000 bond.

Interestingly, this bust and subsequent arrest arose out of what is called a “knock and talk.” When police suspect that criminal activity is present at a location, but they do not have enough evidence to obtain a search warrant, many times they will knock on the door of a location to interact with the persons at the residence and hopefully obtain enough evidence to meet the probable cause requirement for a search warrant.

In this case, police stated that they knocked on Fox’s door, and as they talked with him, they became suspicious of what was inside the home. No facts are given as to what their basis for the search warrant actually was in this case, however, many different things can serve as the basis of a warrant. For example, the smell of marijuana can give rise to probable cause. Another possible scenario is if police look into the interior of a home and they see ingredients that either are contraband, or are typically associated with contraband. Actually seeing the liquor still in this case would obviously be enough for probable cause.

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