The Akron Legal News

Man who used car dealership to hide drug deals loses his appeal

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: July 15, 2014

A defendant’s conviction on several drug related felony charges was affirmed recently when the 5th District Court of Appeals found the Licking County Court of Common Pleas properly overruled a motion to suppress and quashed a subpoena issued to a sitting common pleas judge.

Case summary states that, on Aug. 3, 2012, Judge David Branstool of the common pleas court signed a search warrant regarding the residence of Ronald McElfresh on Purity Road in Licking County.

The warrant was supported by an affidavit signed by Det. Doug Bline, a narcotics detective for the Newark County Police Department and a member of the Central Ohio Drug Enforcement Task Force.

That evening, officers with the CODE Task Force executed the search warrant and seized approximately 578 grams of methamphetamine and over 12,000 grams of marijuana along with paraphernalia.

Later, the state conceded that five paragraphs of the affidavit submitted in support of the search warrant were incorrect or inapplicable.

Branstool stated, according to defense counsel, that he would not have approved the warrant had those five paragraphs not been included.

Nevertheless, McElfresh was indicted by the Licking County Grand Jury on one count each of aggravated possession of drugs, possession of marijuana, having a weapon under a disability, possession of drug paraphernalia and a one-year firearm specification.

McElfresh filed a motion to suppress and issued a subpoena to Branstool to testify at the suppression hearing.

At the hearing, Bline testified that one of the confidential informants referenced in his affidavit initially approached investigating officers and demanded $40,000 for his information.

Eventually, the confidential informant provided the information without compensation but later recanted some of his statements, claiming he was threatened by people connected with McElfresh.

The trial court overruled the motion to suppress and granted a motion from the state to quash the subpoena to Branstool.

It concluded that, even after removing the paragraphs from the affidavit that were incorrectly included, it still set forth probable cause upon which a magistrate could believe a warrant should be issued.

McElfresh eventually pleaded no contest to all of the charges.

He was found guilty and ordered to serve 11 years in prison for the aggravated possession count plus a consecutive one year for the attached firearm specification.

The trial court imposed concurrent one-year terms on the remaining counts and ordered them to be served consecutively to the first count.

In his direct appeal, McElfresh argued the trial court erred by overruling his motion to suppress.

“We disagree,” wrote Judge John Wise on behalf of the district’s three-judge appellate panel. “As a reviewing court, we must accord great deference to the issuing judge’s determination of probable cause.”

Included in the appellate court’s opinion was a paragraph-by-paragraph review of the affidavit sworn to by Bline and relied upon by Branstool when issuing the warrant.

The incorrectly included portion of the affidavit consisted of five paragraphs centered on information about a methamphetamine purchase of approximately $200 by an alleged confidential informant and buyer.

The state later informed the trial court that the information about that drug purchase should have been excluded because Bline had inadvertently left out that content from previous warrant paperwork.

However, the remaining relevant information in the affidavit included information about drug purchases conducted by two other confidential informants.

It was also averred that McElfresh was conducting “large-scale drug dealing” by laundering money through a used car dealership on Purity Road.

A BMV investigator told Bline that the car lot “appeared to be a sham.”

Several witnesses told Bline that McElfresh used cars with dealer tags to transport large amounts of drugs.

A Newark police officer had found McElfresh to be in possession of approximately $10,000 in cash during the investigation.

McElfresh claimed the money was the proceeds of a car sale.

Other witnesses told investigating detectives that McElfresh had “buckets of meth” in his home, along with a trap door in the floor where he kept money and drugs.

One confidential informant corroborated the information about the bucket, telling detectives that “the amount in the bucket will fluctuate but never will there not be meth in that bucket.”

“Upon review, while we afford due deference to the decision of the judge issuing the search warrant, we hold that, based upon Detective Bline’s affidavit, even without paragraphs two through six, there would have been a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed to support the warrant’s issuance,” wrote Judge Wise.

Under the facts and circumstances, the appellate panel concluded that the trial court did not err by refusing to grant the motion to suppress.

McElfresh also argued that the trial court erred by quashing the subpoena to Judge Branstool.

However, the court of appeals found that “his actual appearance at the suppression hearing would have accomplished little other than invading the province of the trial court to determine whether probable cause” existed.

“As such, the trial court acted within its discretion in finding Judge Branstool’s appearance via subpoena to be unnecessary,” Judge Wise concluded.

The judgment of the Licking County court was subsequently affirmed with Presiding Judge William Hoffman and Judge Patricia Delaney concurring.

The case is cited State v. McElfresh, 2014-Ohio-2605.

[Back]