An 18-year-old woman was charged with possessing marijuana with intent to sell, a felony, after police found she had a hair under four ounces of pot in her vehicle when she got into an accident on Mansfield Avenue.
Darien police arrest photo for Lauren Curcio, 18, charged on June 1 with possession of marijuana with intent to sell and other charges.
Darien police described the incident and arrest with this account (including accusations not proven in court):
Lauren Curcio of Westwood Court in Stamford, was driving her black 2012 Honda Accord south on Mansfield Avenue shortly before 4:30 p.m. on Monday, May 16 when she looked down as her vehicle crossed into the northbound lane near the intersection of Mansfield Avenue and Stephen Mather Road.
Her car stuck a black 2011 Chevrolet K1500 driven by a 48-year-old Darien woman who wasn’t injured.
She was sitting on the side of the road on a rock near her car when police arrived. She said she may have injured her head and asked a police officer to take a look at it. Curcio suffered minor injuries to her head and face. While waiting for an ambulance to arrive, she sat in the back seat of the vehicle on the driver’s side, then in the driver’s seat.
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— See also: DUI Charge for Man, 55, After Three-Car Accident on Hollow Tree Ridge Road
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Asked for her driver’s license, she gave a police officer her debit card. Asked for the license again, she gave the officer a credit card. Police smelled the strong odor of marijuana coming from the car — it was not stated in the report whether the odor was of burnt or unburnt marijuana.
When asked, she said she had a small bag of marijuana with her. She handed an officer a large plastic bag containing smaller sandwich bags which had a green, leafy substance in them that tested presumptively positive for marijuana. Police also found a plastic, red solo cup, three packages of cigars and a scale. Also in the car were narcotics that had been prescribed to Curcio.
Police said the marijuana was later weighed at a total of 113.1 grams. One of the sandwich bags had 48.2 grams of marijuana in it; the other sandwich bags each had less. The total amount of marijuana was just 0.3 grams shy of 4 ounces, which would have meant a felony possession charge.
Curcio said the marijuana was for a friend and that she had not smoked any since the previous night. She was taking the marijuana to the friend as a favor, not for money, and it was “just a handoff.”
She was taken to Stamford Hospital, where police were told hospital staff would not be taking a blood sample. If they had, police could have obtained a search warrant to get and test.
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The next day, her lawyer called police to say that she would have nothing further to say to them about the incident.
Because she was in the hospital right after the incident, police did not immediately arrest her. Instead, they applied for an arrest warrant, which was granted on May 27.
On June 1, after police told her the arrest warrant had been issued, Curcio turned herself in at Darien Police Headquarters.
In addition to the felony charge of possession with intent to sell marijuana, she was charged with the misdemeanor charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of less than four ounces of marijuana. She had also been issued an infraction ticket for failure to drive on the right side of the road.
Curcio was released on a promise to appear June 14 in state Superior Court in Stamford.