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Attorney wants traffic stop thrown out in heroin case
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
An attorney for a Georgia man accused of leading an effort to run heroin from Georgia to Youngstown is asking a federal judge to suppress any evidence seized in a traffic stop in the city last October.
Jaime Serrat, attorney for Vincent Moorer, 31, is asking U.S. District Court Judge James S. Gwin to ban any evidence or statements from the stop, which was on the Ohio Turnpike in October, because the stop was illegal and was done by the Ohio State Highway Patrol at the behest of the Drug Enforcement Administration as part of a drug investigation.
Moorer, of Lithonia, Ga., is accused of helping to head up the ring, which ran heroin from Georgia to Youngstown from January 2013 until he was indicted in federal court in November.
A suppression hearing is scheduled today before Judge Gwin in federal court in Cleveland.
In the motion to suppress, Serrat writes that DEA investigators shadowed Moorer, who was a passenger in a car Oct. 12 from a home on Bouquet Avenue to a drugstore, a restaurant and a home on Southern Boulevard before state troopers pulled the car over on Interstate 80 for following too close to another vehicle and excessive window tint.
The car then was towed to the Hiram Post. Moorer and the driver were detained for four hours, and several photos of them were taken.
The only evidence found in the car was a small piece of a marijuana cigarette, the motion said. Also inside was some jewelry, $20,000 cash and a round of .40-caliber ammunition.
Serrat said dash-cam video shows there was no reason for the traffic stop, and his client was detained unnecessarily and for an excessive amount of time.
In their response, prosecutors said the stop was justified and that based on wiretaps with Moorer and others before Oct. 12, they thought there was a shipment of heroin in the car and because of that, they were allowed to pull it over.
Prosecutors also said though the time Moorer and the others were detained was a bit excessive, they were allowed to be detained while a search took place because the troopers were trying to find drugs in the car based on the smell of marijuana inside and the drug investigation of Moorer and the others.