On June 27, a 57-year-old man was taken into custody in Rock Hill for drug possession. Despite his record of 12 prior drug-related charges, an officer with the York County Multijurisdictional Drug Enforcement Unit was unfamiliar with the man. According to reports, all of the man’s prior drug convictions stemmed from incidents in New Jersey and New York. Authorities say that they plan to interview the accused man in the hopes of learning about some of his possible connections in the area.
The man’s most recent drug charges resulted from an incident that took place while he was driving on Robinson Street. When officers noticed the man nearly hit a curb, they pulled him over and gave him a pat down. Officers allege that eight bags of heroin that the man was carrying in his shorts fell out during the search. The man was then booked into jail and held on a $100,000 bond.
Following the incident, a local news station interviewed his father. The man’s father told reporters that his son had struggled with addiction a long time and that he had been unable to convince him to stop taking drugs for the past 20 years. A neighbor commented that she was sad to hear about the man’s history of drug use, and close friends said that news of the incident took them by surprise.
When someone has a long history of addiction problems, a judge may consider a drug treatment program to be a better option than prison time. If an accused individual has a history of similar convictions, a defense attorney could point out how prison had proven itself ineffective in treating the root of the problem.
Source: WSOCTV, “Police: Man found with heroin has 12 previous drug charges”, Greg Suskin, June 30, 2014
