Drugs allegedly found under home's toilet during narcotics raid

Police say they seized heroin and crack

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011

A police raid last Thursday at a Clements home found suspected drugs and led to two arrests, according to court papers filed by law officers who reported pulling out a toilet and finding heroin and crack cocaine below.

St. Mary's narcotics detectives dubbed the investigation "Operation The Price Is Right," drawing from the surname of two suspects taken into custody.

Reginald A. Price, 45, of Leonardtown was released on $10,000 bond after his arrest on misdemeanor charges of the possession of heroin, the possession of crack cocaine and the possession of marijuana at the residence off Horse Shoe Road. Melvin J. Price Jr., 29, of Clements was charged with the possession of marijuana, and was released on personal recognizance.

At the Clements residence, arriving law officers encountered Reginald Price as the toilet was being flushed, investigators report, and in addition to the drugs found in the home's foundation under the toilet, they report seizing almost one-half of a pound of marijuana, packaging materials, scales and about $6,000.

A separate raid took place in Lexington Park, where law officers report that they seized marijuana packaged for distribution and arrested an occupant of the residence, 33-year-old Christi Leann Mayhew. Mayhew was charged with the possession of marijuana and the possession of drug paraphernalia in court papers alleging a police search of her dresser at the home off Forest Run Drive found several small plastic bags of suspected marijuana. Mayhew was released Friday on $3,000 bond.

Law officers report that they stopped Melvin Price as he was leaving the Lexington Park home and seized more than $9,700 and his minivan.

In addition, the detectives report that plainclothes police posed as drug dealers on Thursday outside the home in Clements, and arrested three people who allegedly bought fake crack cocaine from the law officers.

The street sales of phony drugs by the law officers led to the arrest of Jared A. Jameson Jr., 49, of Avenue; Patrick N. Tennyson, 46, of Mechanicsville; and Bonnie S. Lumpkins, 46, of Avenue on charges of the possession or purchase of a non-controlled substance reasonably believed to be a controlled dangerous substance. They were released on personal recognizance.

At the Clements house, law officers report, John Fitzgerald Butler, 46, of Leonardtown was taken into custody on a body attachment issued in December from a 1989 paternity case. Online court records state a $500 purge requirement was set in conjunction with a previously imposed one-year jail sentence.

Hollywood man indicted on charges

A judge ordered Monday that Michael Allen Bassford, 42, of Hollywood post a $5,000 bond to gain pretrial release on charges including the possession of alprazolam with the intent to distribute.

St. Mary's grand jurors also charged Bassford with the possession of cocaine, possession of methadone and possession of morphine from the investigation last June by narcotics detectives.

Detectives reported this week that alprazolam is the generic name of a prescription drug sold under the brand name of Xanax.

Man charged with prescription fraud

A Hollywood man was charged last week with prescription fraud after St. Mary's narcotics detectives filed court papers alleging he illegally obtained drugs with a street value of $6,000 from area pharmacies.

A judge ordered last Wednesday that Johnson Randolph Beckwith, 26, remain in jail in lieu of 10 percent of bonds totaling $3,000 on the charges from the alleged transactions last summer.

Beckwith passed a fraudulent prescription for oxycodone with a street value of $2,700 on July 26 at Reynolds Pharmacy in Leonardtown, charging papers allege, and the suspect obtained oxycodone and propoxyphen with a street value of $3,300 by passing two fraudulent prescriptions in August at the CVS pharmacy in Leonardtown.

"The defendant is not a patient of the doctor, and the doctor did not issue the prescription," St. Mary's sheriff's Capt. Daniel Alioto wrote in a charges application. "The defendant admitted to knowing the prescription[s] were fraudulent."

Three charged in Charlotte Hall

Three Southern Maryland residents recently were charged with the possession of Endocet, a controlled substance, through an investigation conducted by St. Mary's narcotics detectives in Charlotte Hall.

Charging papers allege that police saw Doris A. Harding, 65, of La Plata sell pills on Jan. 22 to 55-year-old Daniel Lee Darago of Pomfret while they were seated in her vehicle at the farmers market, and that Darago got into another parked vehicle and gave some of the pills to William Bryan Darago, 40, of Huntingtown.

Harding was released from custody later that day on 10 percent of $3,500 bond. Daniel Darago and William Darago were released on personal recognizance, according to charging papers in the case.

jwharton@somdnews.com