Route 356 traffic stop leads to drug bust
JEFFERSON TWP — The blue 2014 Dodge Avenger had a lot of juice under the hood.
It turned out that horsepower is not all it was packing.
Inside, state police found a kilo of cocaine. Narcotics officers put the street value at $40,000.
The discovery Wednesday night followed a traffic stop on Route 356 near the old pet cemetery in Jefferson Township, which followed a tip that panned out in a big way, authorities said.
But not so much for the two occupants — one of them a man nearly 2,500 miles from home.
The suspects, Jonathan Ikechi Ogoemesim, 24, of Palmdale, Calif.; and Malachi Void Jr., 54, of Butler, are in Butler County Prison on $100,000 and $50,000 bail, respectively.
Trooper Joseph Titler was on routine patrol about 8:30 p.m. when he got word by radio that an anonymous caller had alerted authorities to be on the lookout for a blue Dodge Avenger traveling north on Route 28.
The car, the caller claimed, was headed to Butler with narcotics, police said.
Titler drove to Route 356 in Jefferson Township and stationed his cruiser at the Fieldhouse Restaurant in anticipation of the purported drug car.
The Dodge eventually passed the trooper, who stopped it a short time later near Rennick Road.
Void, the driver, smelled of burned marijuana, police said. He denied there was any contraband in the car and gave the trooper his consent to search it.
When Ogoemesim, the front-seat passenger got out, Titler noticed a black Calvin Klein bag on the passenger floor.“Inside the bag was a large solid object wrapped tightly in duct tape,” Titler said in his affidavit. He suspected some kind of drugs.Both suspects were arrested. Ogoemesim was searched and found with $713 in currency, documents said.At the barracks, vice officers tested the white powder in the duct taped wrapped package. The test showed it was cocaine and weighed about 2.2 pounds, a kilogram, police said.Investigators later tried to speak to the defendants. Void denied the cocaine was his. Ogoemesim refused to talk without an attorney.District Judge Sue Haggerty by video arraigned both men on felony charges of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and dealing in proceeds of unlawful activities, and a misdemeanor charge of possession of a controlled substance.At arraignment, Void told Haggerty that he is a divorced father of five children and a disabled Navy veteran.Ogoemesim, a single father of a 1-year-old child, said he moved from Georgia in January to California, where he worked as an Uber driver.He claimed he traveled east to visit family in New Jersey and was headed home. It was not immediately known how he ended up with Void in the Dodge Avenger owned by Void's son.
