PIKEVILLE, Ky. — The attorney for a Floyd County man facing federal drug and gun charges is seeking to have much of the evidence against his client suppressed, claiming it was obtained illegally.
Justin Bryant, 35, of Minnie, was indicted in March on two counts of possession of controlled substances with the intent to distribute, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
The motion filed Wednesday by attorney Sebastian Joy seeks to have the evidence dealing with one of the charges of possession with intent tossed out. That charge is related to an incident back in March, when Kentucky State Police conducted a roadblock at Banner.
Police say Bryant approached the roadblock, stopped in the road turned around. Believing him to be trying to avoid police, a state trooper pulled him over.
When the officer approached Bryant’s window to talk to him, police say he began ripping open bags of meth and threw a handful of the drug in the officer’s face. After placing him under arrest, police say they recovered about 96 grams, along with paraphernalia.
But Joy argues in his motion that Bryant simply “executed a permissible maneuver by turning into the parking lot of a restaurant,” and police had no right to pull him over. Therefore, he says everything that happened afterward constitutes an illegal search and seizure, so all of that evidence should be thrown out.
The judge has given prosecutors until July 10 to respond to the motion and scheduled an evidentiary hearing for July 21.
