A Leesburg man was charged with marijuana possession and tampering with evidence after he reportedly threw a handful of pot into the middle of U.S. Highway 441 during a traffic stop in Eustis on Sunday night.
A Eustis Police officer was traveling south on South Bay Street when he saw a grey Mercury SUV swerve across the grey fog line twice and the center line once. The vehicle slow rolled onto the exit onto Highway 441 and the driver flicked a lit cigarette out the window before coming to a stop under the State Road 19 underpass, according to the police report.
The driver was identified as Bryan Lamar Cochran, 40, of 35904 Oakridge Drive in Leesburg. Asked if he was feeling OK due to his driving pattern, he said he was OK and just tired from work. His passenger was the registered vehicle owner. Both occupants said they hadn’t had anything to drink. When asked if either had a medical marijuana card or used hemp, the passenger said they were both in the process of getting their medical marijuana cards but couldn’t provide any documentation, the report said.
The passenger said there was nothing illegal in the vehicle. A drug-sniffing dog conducted an exterior open-air sniff and gave a positive response near the front-passenger door, but a search of the vehicle did not reveal any illegal substances. The officer asked the passenger to empty her pockets and she complied, according to the report.
The officer then asked Cochran to empty his pockets. While he was emptying them, the passenger started talking to officers and Cochran started walking towards the cement guard rail. The officer saw Cochran holding something in front of his body in an attempt to conceal it from officers. When the officer ordered Cochran to stop what he was doing, he looked at the officer and threw a plastic bag and a balled-up piece of paper into the middle of U.S. Highway 441, the report said.
One officer quickly grabbed Cochran while another waited for traffic to clear before retrieving what Cochran had thrown. It was a clear plastic zip-lock bag that contained a green leafy substance that tested positive for THC. It weighed about 10.5 grams. The paper that Cochran threw was empty and it is unknown if anything was inside before he threw it, according to the report.
Cochran was placed under arrest and taken to the Lake County Jail. He was released early Monday on $3,000 bond and will appear in Lake County Court on May 17.
