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Five in custody for drugs, one on trafficking warrant
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police took five people into custody Thursday and early Friday on felony drug charges.
About 12:20 a.m. Friday, Nicholas Duecaster, 20, of Valerie Drive, was arrested on charges of possession of cocaine and driving under suspension after he was pulled over in the 3300 block of Irma Avenue on the South Side after almost causing an accident.
Reports said Duecaster told Officer Michael Medvec he did not have a driver’s license, and a records check showed he has a suspended license. When Duecaster was told the car would be towed because his license is suspended and he stepped out of the car, Medvec saw a plastic bag with folded paper inside. When he looked inside the bag, there was suspected cocaine inside, reports said. Duecaster also had $1,277.
Bond for Duecaster was set at $7,500.
About 10:05 p.m. Thursday, police found Michael Emery, 29, of East Judson Avenue, passed out in his car in front of a gas pump at a gas station in the 1100 block of McGuffey Road on the East Side. Reports said he had a syringe in his arm and a rubber band tied around his bicep. Officers Jacob Short and Carlo Eggleston awakened him.
When Emery was taken out of the car, the officers saw two bags of suspected drugs. Inside the car, they found suspected heroin in one and suspected cocaine in another. Emery refused to be taken to a hospital, so he was booked into the Mahoning County jail after he was treated by paramedics
He faces charges of possession of drug-abuse instruments, possession of crack cocaine, possession of heroin and possession of drug paraphernalia. His bond was set at $10,000.
LeBron Bunkley, 37, of Youngstown, was taken into custody about 1 p.m. Thursday after members of the Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Task Force served a search warrant at a South Side home in the 2600 block of McFarland Avenue. He was arraigned on felony-one charges of possession of heroin and possession of crack cocaine.
Reports said officers found large amounts of suspected heroin and cocaine inside the home’s garage and in the trunk of a car in the driveway after a police dog sniffed the air outside the car. Bond for Bunkley was set at $50,000.
Police arrested Lavell Collins, 18, of Hollywood Avenue, about 12:30 p.m. Thursday on a warrant from Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on charges of drug trafficking, plus two warrants from municipal court and two orders of apprehension from juvenile court.
Reports said he was one of two drivers involved in an accident at Hudson and West Boston avenues on the South Side. He tried to give police a fake name before they figured out his identity and found the warrants. He will be arraigned on the trafficking charge in common pleas court.
About 2 a.m. Thursday, Jedediah M. Thomas, 38, of Mathews Road, Boardman, was taken into custody on charges of possession of heroin, possession of cocaine and two warrants from municipal court after a car in which he was a passenger was pulled over by officers at an East Midlothian Boulevard gas station for having no working headlights.
The car smelled strongly of marijuana and Thomas, who was the passenger, was moving around in the front seat as if he were trying to hide something, according to a police report.
Thomas and the driver, Ashley Medeiros, 26, were both taken out of the car, and police found suspected crack cocaine and heroin near where Thomas was sitting, reports said.
Reports said suspected heroin also was found in Medeiros’ purse. She faces charges of driving under suspension and possession of heroin, as well as a warrant from municipal court.
Bond was set at $7,500 for both Thomas and Medeiros.