Fake-drug charges dropped due to quirk in law

[Gaoler]

Fake-drug charges dropped due to quirk in law

Published: Saturday, April 12, 2008
By Matt Sutkoski
Free Press Staff Writer

Criminal drug charges against two New York women were dropped because the pills they were allegedly selling out of a Colchester hotel were fake Oxycontin tablets, not the real thing, Colchester Police said Friday.

On March 14, workers at Motel 6 called police and said there was a disturbance and possible drug activity in a room at the hotel, police said. Hotel employees said they saw many people walk up to a ground-floor window, stay a short time, then leave without coming into the building.

Officers who went into the hotel room said they found Ashley DeJesus, 19, and Roseann Rosado, 18, both of the Bronx, N.Y. Police said they also discovered what appeared to be 130 Oxycontin tablets and $1,200 in cash.

The two women denied knowledge of the drug and said they were in the area looking for an apartment, police said. Authorities said they found indications DeJesus and Rosado are gang members from New York who were in Vermont researching apartments in Rutland and Burlington.

DeJesus and Rosado were charged with possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, police said. After their arraignment, DeJesus and Rosado said the Oxycontin pills were fake, a fact confirmed Thursday after testing at the Vermont Forensic Laboratory, police said.

The tablets contained all the ingredients in an Oxycontin tablet except the final, controlled substance, investigators said.

Vermont law, which makes selling lookalike substances a criminal offense, does not apply in this case because the statute does not cover simple possession with intent to distribute such substances, Colchester Police said.

Hotel management saw what appeared to be numerous transactions through the hotel window, but it could not be determined whether a specific sale took place, police said. Without evidence of a specific hand-to-hand transaction, criminal charges cannot be applied, authorities said.
Contact Matt Sutkoski at 660-1846 or msutkosk@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com

[Cory]

That is crap.. I will have to dig up the Case Law but in Oklahoma it doesn't matter if the drugs were real as long as the intent was there.

In the caselaw.. a guy broke into a chemistry lab in an attempt to make meth. He had the literature and ingredients, however, he setup the lab wrong and there was no possible way he could produce the compounds correctly.

He was still charged with the manufacture of a CDS since the intent was there. Stupidity and ignorance didn't save him.


They knew they were selling fakes.. shouldn't matter.. they were still selling drugs.

[shakedownshorti]

Tru dat....

[glorifiedbabysitter]

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...you understand