Crime & Safety

Drugs, Cash Found in Car Towed for Unpaid Port Chester Parking Tickets

Police: Owner pays off $220 worth of tickets and is then arrested on drug possession charge.

A New Rochelle man whose car was towed away for having unpaid parking tickets in Port Chester was hit with a drug possession charge after 26 bags of marijuana were found in the car, according to Port Chester Police.

The car, a Cadillac, was spotted as a scofflaw by village Police Officer Donald Desimone, who was on patrol using an electronic license plate reader. Disimone got a "hit" on the car as he was driving a patrol car on Haseco Avenue at about 12:41 p.m. on Monday.

Lt. James Ladeairous said the owner of the Cadillac, Jamel Quarterman, 24, of 16 Locust Ave., New Rochelle, owed $220 for parking violations. As a result, Disimone called for a tow truck to impound the car.

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Ladeairous said that when a door to the Cadillac was opened there was a strong odor of marijuana. An inventory of the car discovered 26 bags of marijuana and $470 cash in a door pocket, Ladeairous said.

Later on Monday, Quarterman went to Police Headquarters to ask about his car. First, police told him to go next door to the village parking enforcement office to pay off his tickets and the cost of the tow. Ladeairous said that Quarterman returned to Police Headquarters a short time later to show that he had paid off the tickets. That's when Quarterman was arrested on a charge of fifth-degree criminal possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor.

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Quarterman faces a hearing in Port Chester Village Court on April 18.


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