By Jim Smith

Eagle Staff Writer

It’s a day — July 20, 2015 — that Brandon K. Fairtrace will not soon forget.

The 21-year-old Butler man was shot in the face while he slept at his apartment. He survived the ambush shooting but suffered serious optical injury.

However, adding insult to injury, Butler police later charged him with felony drug possession after they happened upon more than a pound of marijuana and $17,000 in currency while searching his home for evidence in the shooting.

District Judge William Fullerton at a preliminary hearing Monday ordered Fairtrace to stand trial in his drug case. His girlfriend also was ordered held for court on similar charges in connection with the same case.

Police Lt. James Hollobaugh testified that police within hours of the shooting got two search warrants for Fairtrace’s apartment on the 200 block of West Brady Street, where he lived at the time with Brooke R. Young.

The first warrant was issued soon after officers learned that Fairtrace had been struck in the face with a shotgun blast about 4 a.m. while he was in bed at his first-floor.

Young, 22, of Saxonburg, also was home but she was not hurt. She drove Fairtrace to Butler Memorial Hospital before he was transferred to UPMC Presbyterian in Pittsburgh.

Two days later, police arrested 19-year-old Jase W. Charlton, charging him with being the shooter.

Hollobaugh testified that after entering the apartment to gather evidence in the shooting, police immediately found in plain view in the living room “numerous large, clear plastic vacuum-packed bags containing marijuana.”

Written in marking pen on all the bags were names, like “Maui,” indicating the type of marijuana in the bag, the officer told prosecutor Mark Lope, a county assistant district attorney.

Officers turned up more bags of marijuana in other rooms. The bags were in the open or in shoe boxes.

In a gun safe in the basement, Hollobaugh recounted, police found another large, vacuum-sealed bag of marijuana and a shopping bag containing several Ziploc bags stuffed with currency.

In all, the money in the safe totaled $16,212, the officer said.

Police found more money — nearly $1,000 — in two cardboard boxes and on two tables in the apartment.

Additionally, officers seized a digital scale, marijuana grinder and smoking pipe.

The amount of confiscated marijuana, as determined by state police crime lab testing, totaled 480.77 grams, or nearly 17 ounces.

Defense attorney Stephen Misko, who represented both Fairtrace and Young at Monday’s hearing, on cross-examination got Hollobaugh to acknowledge that police had received no prior reports of drug trafficking at the home.

The officer also admitted that during the search they found no “owe sheets” or names of customers to indicate drugs were being sold there.

And as for Young, in response to a Misko’s questioning, Hollobaugh said she was charged because she was living with Fairtrace.

Both defendants are charged with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and conspiracy, both felonies, and misdemeanor drug possession.

Fairtrace remains in Butler County Prison on $50,000 bail and for a probation violation. Young is free on her own recognizance and placed on pretrial supervision after the hearing.

Misko declined to comment after the hearing.

Meanwhile, Charlton also is in the county prison $100,000 bail while awaiting trial on attempted homicide and other charges stemming from the shooting.

At Charlton’s preliminary hearing in August, Fairtrace testified that he suffered injury to his cornea and retina, and facial nerve damage.

Police said the alleged shooter admitted to the crime. Investigators believe Charlton and Fairtrace at the time were in rival groups of friends which had been feuding.