Jailed for 3 months because police thought her cotton candy was meth

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A woman was jailed for 3 months because police thought her cotton candy was meth
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/27/us/co...rnd/index.html

By Dakin Andone and AJ Willingham, CNN
Updated 1:57 PM ET, Tue November 27, 2018

A Georgia woman spent three months in jail after two deputies said a field test of a blue substance found in a car she was in turned up positive for methamphetamine.

But it wasn't meth. It was cotton candy.

Dasha Fincher claims that while she was in jail she missed several major life events, including the birth of twin grandchildren, and was refused medical care for a broken hand and ovarian cyst.

Now she's filed a lawsuit against Monroe County and the three officers involved for wrongful imprisonment and violating her civil rights. The lawsuit also targets Sirchie Acquisition Company, the maker of the field kit the deputies used to produce the mistaken test result.

According to the lawsuit, Fincher was a passenger in a car that was pulled over by two Monroe County Sheriff's deputies on December 31, 2016.

The deputies initially said they stopped the car because they thought the tinting on the car's windows was too dark, but clarified at the scene that it was not a violation.

They asked the driver if they could search the vehicle and soon found "a large, open clear plastic bag which contained a light blue substance, spherical in shape," in the car's floorboards, the lawsuit says.

Fincher and the driver both explained it was just a bag of blue cotton candy. But the deputies decided to test it using a field test kit, which indicated the 1.5-ounce wad of blue fluff contained methamphetamine.

Fincher and her boyfriend, who was driving, were arrested for possession and trafficking of methamphetamine, the lawsuit says. Fincher "repeatedly professed her innocence and stated that the blue substance was, in fact, cotton candy."

CNN has contacted Sirchie Acquisition Company, the distributor of the drug test the officers used, but has not received a reply.

The judge set her bail at $1 million, an amount the lawsuit alleges was a result of the trafficking charge. Unable to post bond, Fincher was trapped in jail for three months while the substance was sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for forensic testing.

Fincher says during that time she missed "several major life events," including the births of her twin grandsons and her daughter's miscarriage. She also alleges she was refused medical attention for a broken hand and an ovarian cyst.

On March 22, 2017, the GBI finally issued a report that said there were "no controlled substances confirmed" in the blue matter. Still, Fincher wasn't released from jail for almost two more weeks, on April 4, the lawsuit says.

CNN has made multiple calls to the Monroe County Sheriff's office and has not received a response.

Fincher told CNN she spent a lot of her time in jail in a state of disbelief, assuming her release was just around the corner.

"At first I kept thinking I was going to get out, then the next day came, and I'd think, 'Maybe I'll get out tomorrow. Then tomorrow turned into the next day," she said. "What I was most scared of was my granddaughter forgetting who I was."

She called home every day to speak to her children, but wasn't there when her daughter experienced a miscarriage or when her son and his wife welcomed twin boys.

Fincher is hoping her case will prompt some changes within the system. "I think the best thing they could do would be to change the [drug testing] policy, or change how they test, or have more training. Because it's crazy, the way it happened. It took so long."

She also wants closure on some of the aspects of the ordeal that still bother her. She still isn't sure, for instance, why it took so long for her to be released after the results of the forensics testing came back. She says she also never received an apology from the sheriff's department.

"I've lost a lot I can't get back," she said. "Three months is a long time."

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What does this have to do with FHP?

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Another field drug test mistake sends woman to jail -- for months
http://www.fox13news.com/news/fox-13...ail-for-months
POSTED: MAR 09 2018 04:34PM EST

UPDATED: MAR 09 2018 07:03PM EST

TAMPA (FOX 13) - Rebecca Shaw is not a criminal, but for months, she was treated like one. The mother of four -- who didn't break the law or do anything wrong -- sat in jail for five long, agonizing months.

“It felt like my whole life was over. It was terrible," Rebecca exclaimed. "My kids were devastated. I was away for five months. I cried constantly.”

Rebecca's perfect storm of hell started when she ran out of gas on the road. A Pasco County Sheriff’s Office deputy pulled up behind her, but instead of helping her, he asked if he could search her car.

“[He] said, 'What are these?' Rebecca recalled.

She told him they were vitamins, but he apparently didn’t believe her.

“He said, 'They don't look like vitamins. They look like oxycodone,’” Rebecca continued.

The deputy pulled out a field drug test kit -- kits used by law enforcement all over the country to detect illegal drugs. To Rebecca's shock, the presumptive kit produced a positive hit for oxycodone.

Rebecca insisted the pills were vitamins, not oxy. But it didn't help. "My heart just sank. I said, ‘That’s wrong!"

Rebecca was arrested, booked, and charged with trafficking oxycodone. With no way to pay a $5,000 bond she sat in jail. "It was scary being in there and having a public defender that didn't believe me," she continued.

After her husband was able to come up with the bail money, Rebecca waited another seven months for the state crime lab to confirm the pills were, in fact, vitamins.

The case was dropped but the damage had already been done, explained her new attorney Patrick LeDuc. "He does the field drug test and because it tests positive, nothing else mattered. It didn't matter she had no prior record, it didn't matter she was out of gas.”

FOX 13 previously conducted a yearlong investigation on the unreliability of field drug test kits and how they often get it wrong. Scientists showed us how household items like oregano, chocolate, and cough medicine tested positive for drugs, and how lives were turned upside down.

Despite all of that, law enforcement continues to use these faulty drug test kits and innocent people continue to pay the price.

"They’re putting innocent people in jail and ruining people’s lives," Rebecca added.

Rebecca is considering her legal options, but so far, no lawsuit has been filed.

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Network Environmental Systems, Inc. (NES) - ClanLab

Use of Field Tests Comes into Question March 22, 2017
Misunderstood field test equipment can lead to undeserved arrests.

https://www.nesglobal.net/use-of-fie...into-question/