CEDAR CITY — Four men were arrested early Wednesday following a traffic stop in Cedar City, during which police reportedly found nitrous oxide and marijuana inside their vehicle.
Cedar City Police Sgt. Justin Ludlow said the incident began shortly before midnight on Tuesday, when Cedar City Police officer Clinton Andersen followed a northbound car with Pennsylvania license plates off Interstate 15’s Exit 57, at the south end of town.
“The light was red, but you can make that right turn,” Ludlow said. “But they just sat there for a long period of time in that car.”
Ludlow said officer Andersen had a dispatcher check the car’s insurance and registration, and learned that it did not have valid insurance. The officer then pulled the driver over near the intersection of Main Street and Old Highway 91.
Andersen had the driver exit the vehicle and was beginning to question him when a K-9 officer arrived and conducted a sniff of the vehicle.
During the ensuing search of the vehicle and its occupants, officers reportedly found 53 grams of marijuana and 11 pressurized bottles of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas.
Ludlow said that while it’s relatively uncommon to see nitrous oxide being trafficked, “A lot of people use it to get high and pass out.”
With the assistance of officers from the Iron-Beaver-Garfield Counties Narcotics Task Force and the State Bureau of Investigation, all four occupants of the car were detained, questioned and later booked into jail. The car and its contents were seized as evidence.
All four men were booked into Iron County Jail around 4 a.m. Wednesday. They have been identified as Wilson Priest, 29, Marquel Clinger, 23, Andrew Coaxum Wilson, 30, and Christophe Batista, 34. Clinger is reportedly from Pottstown, Pennsylvania, while the other three men are from New York City.
Each faces two counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, a third-degree felony, and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia, a class B misdemeanor.
According to the probable cause statements filed in support of the arrests, the four men also had hundreds of dollars in cash in their pockets at the time of the arrest.
The total amount of cash seized was $4,281, with the individual amounts ranging from $437 to $2,060, the affidavit alleges.
Priest, who was driving the car, reportedly told officers that they were on their way back from a “boys trip” to Las Vegas.
This report is based on statements from court documents and law enforcement officials and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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