More than two dozen plastic bags of marijuana, most ready for sale, were with a 25-year-old man arrested downtown at about midnight Sunday to Monday, police said.
Darien police gave this account (with accusations not proven in court):
At about 11:55 p.m., a police officer saw a dark-colored Honda park in front of Panera Bread at 1063 Post Road and turn its lights off.
Darien Police Department arrest photo of David Lewis, 25, of Mount Vernon, N.Y., charged on Jan. 10, 2016 with possession of marijuana with intent to sell
Four people were in the car for about three minutes before a woman left and entered Panera Bread when a worker there unlocked the door for her. Then someone else left the car, got something out of the trunk and went back in the car.
When another patrol car drove by, the Honda’s lights immediately went on and drove off, west on the Post Road. The first officer followed it, saw it go through a red light at the intersection of Post and Ledge roads. The officer pulled over the Honda.
As he approached the Honda, he saw two passengers in the back seats and the driver, a woman. The woman said she’d just dropped off a friend for the night shift at Panera Bread (police later confirmed this). As he spoke to her, the officer smelled a strong odor of marijuana coming from the car.
The driver, a 24-year-old woman from Mount Vernon, N.Y., said she wasn’t “aware of” any marijuana in the car. One passenger, David Lewis, 25, of Mount Vernon said he had some and turned over to the officer a small plastic bag with 0.05 ounces of marijuana in it.
The other passenger, also a 25-year-old Mount Vernon man, admitted he had marijuana in a back pack in the trunk. There, police found
- Thirteen plastic bags of marijuana —pot in the bags weighed a total of 1.8 ounces;
- Three smaller plastic bags about 1.5 inches by 1.25 inches — each containing 0.04 ounces of marijuana;
- Nine larger plastic bags, about 3.25 inches by 2 inches, each containing 0.14 ounces of marijuana;
- One sandwich-size plastic bag with half an ounce of marijuana.
Once that was found, the passenger was told he would be charged with possessing marijuana and possessing marijuana with intent to sell it. The passenger then said he couldn’t “go down for this,” and Lewis admitted the marijuana was his, and Lewis was arrested.
The other passenger and the driver weren’t charged and were allowed to leave. The driver was given a verbal warning for going through the red light without stopping.
As Lewis went through the arrest process, he said he and his friends were going to a party in Westchester County and he intended to “sell one or two” (referring to one or two bags of marijuana).
Lewis was charged with possession of marijuana and possession of marijuana with intent to sell. He was held on a $2,500 bond, didn’t post it and was taken to state Superior Court in Stamford on Monday, Jan. 11.