CEDAR CITY — A driver and her mother were arrested on drug possession and distribution charges following a traffic stop in southern Iron County late Thursday night.
Emily Kim Carbaugh, 22, and Cheri Kim Carbaugh, 65, were booked into Iron County Jail early Friday morning. Each woman faces one count of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, a third-degree felony, along with misdemeanor charges related to possession of drugs and paraphernalia.
According to the probable cause statement filed in support of the duo’s arrests, just before 10:30 p.m. Friday, a Utah Highway Patrol trooper observed a vehicle traveling southbound on Interstate 15 with one of its taillights not functioning and activated his emergency lights to signal the driver to pull over.
“I approached the front passenger side window and spoke with the two female occupants,” the trooper wrote in the affidavit, adding, “They informed me they both lived in Cedar City and were heading home. I observed a colorful pipe with white residue inside it, in the front center console by the shifter knob.”
The front seat passenger, identified in the document as Cheri Carbaugh, reportedly told the trooper that the pipe belonged to a friend of hers that had been riding in the car earlier.
“I asked them both to step out of the vehicle and Cheri asked me if she could have a cigarette,” the trooper wrote. “I allowed her to as long as I could check the container first. She grabbed a pack of cigarettes and handed it to me. I looked inside it and there was a bag of what appeared to be methamphetamines inside the pack.”
The passenger then gave a similar excuse, blaming a man who had previously ridden in the vehicle, according to the affidavit.
“She stated the person that was with them had it and it was his,” the document alleges. “She stated she didn’t know it was in there.”
After placing the passenger under arrest in his patrol vehicle, the trooper then questioned the driver, noting that her eyes were bloodshot, with droopy eyelids.
“She informed me she hadn’t used drugs for a few days,” the trooper wrote. “I asked her to submit to field sobriety tests and she agreed.”
The trooper noted that based on his training and experience as a drug recognition expert instructor, he determined that the driver wasn’t impaired, but that she had drugs in her system.
“She admitted she was two months pregnant as well and uses fentanyl,” the trooper wrote.
A subsequent search of the vehicle reportedly yielded additional drugs, including pre-wrapped bundles of blue “M”-stamped pills suspected to be fentanyl and multiple individual pouches of buprenorphine naloxone (suboxone), along with various pipes, straws, tinfoil and other items of paraphernalia.
The driver, identified as Emily Carbaugh, later agreed to a blood draw, which was performed at Cedar City Hospital shortly before 2 a.m., according to the affidavit. Some time thereafter, after being questioned by agents with the State Bureau of Investigation, both women were taken to Iron County Jail and booked.
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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