It’s not everyday that police find 50 pounds of cocaine in a public bus. In fact it’s never happened with that size of stash. But it did in April of 2007 when police searched a bus that had just pulled into the Novelo’s Terminal. 19 packs of Colombia’s finest were distributed across three bags which were sitting under a seat next to Rogelio Solis. But while he was on the bus with the cocaine, the packages were not in the possession of the Sartenja fisherman. Today when the case went to court, Solis’ attorney Simeon Sampson argued that police never established who really owned the three bags. Still they charged Solis for drug trafficking. And that’s why Sampson today made a no case submission. Senior Magistrate Dorothy Flowers accepted Sampson’s submission and told Solis Jr. he was a free man. We met them outside the courtroom where Sampson gave his version of why the case collapsed.
Simeon Sampson, Attorney
“Three bags containing cocaine were found one night at the Novelo’s Terminal. The police got a hint of course but apparently the police moved in too quickly, they got a hunch, but there were nobody immediately near to the bag but they suspected my client without any other evidence but some tip off. And he denied, my client denied having any knowledge of the bags and the prosecution wasn’t able to prove by evidence explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly that he had any knowledge of the bag and knowledge is fundamental to the law of possession so the Magistrate had to acquit him without having to give a defense.”
Rogelio Solis Jr., Acquitted
“The only thing I have to tell the press is that it is not just what the police did to make me lose so much time, I lost time and I have a family to support and now I come to see that what the law does is not fair. I am happy that the law cannot say that I am a drug trafficker.”
After he was remanded in April of last year, Solis had to go to the Supreme Court where he was offered and met bail of $50,000.
