drug case

Appellate court rules Plainfield police search was illegal in drug case

Drug Rehabs : A state appellate court has overturned the conviction of a North Brunswick man on a cocaine charge because police should have obtained a warrant before searching the trunk of his car.

Antuan Daniels, 28, was paroled from New Jersey State Prison on Feb. 8 after serving the sentence on the second-degree charge of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute.

Daniels pleaded guilty to the charge after a judge denied Daniels' motion to suppress the evidence gathered during the search of his trunk.

Daniels was sentenced to five years in state prison, concurrent to a sentence he was already serving.

The incident began at about 2 a.m. April 30, 2006 when city police officer Robert Henderson was responding to a report of a shooting at a club on St. Mary's Avenue.

The officer received a radio transmission "that a silver or gray Dodge Charger was leaving the area at a high rate of speed," court papers say. The officer saw a car, driven by Daniels, fitting the description and stopped it in a municipal parking lot. Three more officers then responded to the parking lot.

Daniels told Henderson that he was coming from St. Mary's Avenue and had left the area when he heard shots. The officer asked Daniels and a passenger to get out of the car and they were patted down for weapons, court papers say.

Another officer shone a light on the inside of the car and saw two guns on the rear passenger floor, court papers say. Daniels and the passenger were arrested and handcuffed, with one being taken to police headquarters and the other placed inside Henderson's patrol car.

Police then searched the rest of the vehicle and found cocaine in the trunk.

Daniels was charged with possession of cocaine, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, possession of a handgun without a permit and possession of a handgun while committing a drug offense. All of the charges, with the exception of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute, were dropped in exchange for Daniels' guilty plea.

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