Man leaves trail of drugs from pants

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Reports said a man police were arresting on drug charges Thursday evening denied he had anything hidden in his pants — even though three times police found items that dropped out of them.

Austin Mendenhall, 29, who lists addresses on Orange Avenue and Applecrest Court in Boardman, was arraigned in municipal court Friday on charges of possession of heroin, illegal conveyance of drugs into a detention facility and trafficking in marijuana.

Judge Elizabeth Kobly set his bond at $55,000.

Reports said Mendenhall was a passenger in a car pulled over about 6:30 p.m. at Hillman and Cleveland avenues for running a stop sign. Officers who walked up to the car spotted a hollowed out cigar, which is often used to smoke marijuana, and a bottle of cough syrup. Reports said Mendenhall gave the officers a bag of suspected marijuana, then he and the driver were asked to get out of the car so it could be searched.

An officer searched Mendenhall and found $2,390 in a pants pocket and also felt a large object in his pants. Mendenhall kicked off a shoe, and a scale slid out of his pants, reports said. Reports said the officer still felt Mendenhall was hiding something, but Mendenhall denied it.

Mendenhall was put in the back of a cruiser but continued moving around as if he were trying to reach into his pants. He was placed in another cruiser, then he tossed a bag of suspected marijuana at an officer and said he had nothing else, reports said. Reports said at the jail where Mendenhall was taken to be changed, another bag fell out of his pants — this one with a chunk of suspected heroin and several pills and another bag of suspected marijuana.

City Prosecutor Dana Lantz told Judge Kobly that Mendenhall was out on bail on a pending drug-trafficking case, and she expects his bond to be revoked in that case.