MAN ARRESTED TWICE IN ONE NIGHT, PASSENGER FLEES TRAFFIC STOP
ST. ALBANS: City police were dispatched to the report of a man passed out behind the wheel of his Pontiac G6 at the Burger King drive-thru in St. Albans on Monday evening at about 6:19 PM.
According to Officer Michael Malinowski, who responded to the call, the driver was 41-year-old Chad Paquette of Winooski. When the officer knocked on the driver’s window, Paquette did not initially respond.
Malinowski wrote in a sworn statement to the court that he could see a butane torch on the man’s lap, indicating there was a possibility of drug use that was causing the man’s unresponsive.
The officer continued to pound on the driver’s door, which ultimately woke Paquette, according to the court filing.
“When Chad woke up, he opened the window and was visibly startled. [He] made rapid movements around the driver’s seat and looked at me wide-eyed. Chad proceeded to move items from his lap to his passenger-seat,” Malinowski wrote.
One of the items, according to the officer, was a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, stuffed with several wax bags, consistent with drug paraphernalia.
Upon ordering the man out of the vehicle, the officer said he could see a crack cocaine pipe in the handle of the vehicle.
“Chad spoke rapidly and was unable to stand still. His eyes were still wide-eyed and I noticed his pupils were constricted,” the officer said.
Paquette told the officer he had recently left a residence on Foundry Street in Swanton but denied any use of alcohol or illicit substances.
Police, acting on a search warrant, discovered 19.5 grams of a white powdery substance within the vehicle. The officer stopped short of calling it cocaine, but said it field-tested for cocaine.
Paquette was issued a citation to appear in Criminal Court for the charges of Cocaine Possession, a felony, Heroin Possession, and DUI drugs, both misdemeanors.
Paquette had been on furlough for possession of narcotics, upon other charges. His furlough was revoked due to his arrest in St. Albans on Monday evening, but by the time that news reached the officer who arrested Paquette, he had already been released from the police station.
Fast forward a few hours, the same officer was on patrol on Route 104 near Nan’s Mobile in Fairfax, when he saw the same Pontiac G5 that he responded to in the Burger King drive-thru earlier in the night.
The officer began pursuing the Pontiac on Route 104, then onto Route 104A, where the driver ultimately stopped near the Skunk Hill Road intersection.
Paquette was ordered out of the vehicle and taken into custody, but the passenger slid into the driver’s seat and fled the stop.
“Because I was by myself, I was unable to pursue,” the officer wrote in his account of the stop to the court.
Police did not disclose the identity of the passenger who fled with the vehicle. Paquette was held on $15,000 bail. He entered a not guilty plea in Criminal Court on Tuesday morning and was ordered to be held on bail, as well as conditions if he makes bail. Those conditions including no driving on public highways.
The 41-year-old man has previous conviction which include possession of burglary tools, resisting arrest, burglary, giving false information to a police officer, possession of heroin, possession of marijuana, possession of stolen property, grossly negligent operation, driving with a suspended license, and violating conditions of release.
© County Courier, 2020
