Picayune residents indicted on Texas charges

Published 3:12 pm Thursday, October 15, 2009

Two Picayune residents have been indicted on drug charges that stemmed from a traffic stop that occurred in Texas.

A press release from the Vidor Police Department in Texas reports that on March 2, an officer conducted a stop on a vehicle on Interstate 10 that led to the arrest of Justin Paul Berry, 21, and Clydell Stephon Jones, 21, both of Picayune. On Oct. 5, a local paper in that area reports that both suspects were indicted on the charges of felony possession of marijuana.

The Vidor Police Department release states that the vehicle was clocked by radar and stopped by the department’s Street Crimes Unit. When the officer made contact with the suspects in the vehicle, they gave conflicting stories, which raised the officer’s suspicions about their true purpose of travel.

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I-10 is known as a drug corridor, the release states, so a K-9 unit was called to the scene. When the unit arrived, the K-9 alerted to the possible presence of drugs in the vehicle. Officers then searched the vehicle and found marijuana and other controlled substances.

Both Berry and Jones were arrested. A Texas news publication, The Orange Leader, reported earlier this month that both suspects have been indicted by a grand jury on the charges of felony possession of marijuana.