GREENE COUNTY
A man who said he had recently moved to Eatonton was arrested on trafficking methamphetamine charges on March 20 after a Greene County Deputy found a white powder in his car that the man said was merely sugar.
According to a report obtained from the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy D.J. King conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle driven by a man later identified as Kenneth Jermane Perry, 40, when he saw him holding his cell phone while driving eastbound on I-20.
King made contact with the driver and said Perry appeared to be extremely nervous and told King the deputy had scared him.
Perry told King he was coming from Eatonton on his way to Orangeburg, South Carolina, and then onto Charlotte for a construction job.
When King asked Perry if he could search the vehicle, Perry said, stated, “You can if you want to, but I haven’t got anything.”
According to the report, Perry asked King several times why the officer wanted to search his vehicle.
King then asked if he could search the cross-body bag he was wearing, and Perry said he could.
Inside the bag, King found what Perry told him was approximately $3,000 in cash.
When King searched the vehicle, he found a red and black book bag on the front passenger floorboard that contained a large amount of suspected methamphetamine packaged inside a vacuum-sealed bag.
King asked Perry what was in the vacuum-sealed bag, and he answered “sugar.”
King continued his search and later found a gray zipper bag containing what Perry later told him was about $10,000 and more vacuum-sealed bags containing the same substance.
When King subsequently asked Perry what was in the vacuum-sealed bags again, Perry said he didn’t know.
Perry was placed under arrest for trafficking methamphetamine and taken to the Greene County jail.