York County deputies said ashes in urn was heroin. They were wrong. So charges dropped
A Charlotte man spent nearly a month in jail accused of having heroin in a cremation urn only for York County officials to learn no drugs were present, according to court records and lawyers in the case.
Justin Lee May, of Charlotte, was arrested by York County Sheriff’s deputies in January 2020 on a charge of trafficking heroin, according to police and court records that include an arrest warrant and sheriff’s office incident report. May was in a vehicle with a container that May told deputies contained cremation ashes of his stepfather, the report stated. Deputies seized the container and charged May with trafficking heroin.
May’s lawyer said his client never should have been arrested. May was jailed for more than a month under a $25,000 bond, records show.
The powder was tested by the sheriff’s office lab and no drugs were found, according to court documents.
Hannah Woods, 16th Circuit assistant solicitor, said she dismissed the charge when testing was done at the county lab and no controlled substance was found. May was then released from jail, according to records and his lawyer.
Claims by May against the sheriff’s office insurer for injuries from wrongful arrest and imprisonment were settled amicably, said Sam Tooker, May’s lawyer. No other settlement details were available.
Tooker, from Greenville, said the ashes were in an urn that was in a box. A field test of the powder done by deputies at the scene in January 2020 did not show drugs in the urn’s contents, Tooker said.
“Even though the field test was negative for controlled substances, the deputy arrested Mr. May for allegedly trafficking over fourteen grams of heroin — an offense that carries a mandatory twenty-five-year sentence,” Tooker said in a statement released Wednesday to The Herald. “Mr. May spent approximately a month and a half in jail before the remains were tested by a forensic scientist employed by York County who confirmed that the ashes found in Mr. May’s urn were not a controlled substance.”
Tooker said deputies could have seized the evidence, tested it, then acted if there was a positive test. However, the deputies charged May despite May telling deputies the urn contained only ashes, Tooker said.
“Mr. May wishes to emphasize that he was not trafficking heroin and is not a drug trafficker,” Tooker said. “He was honest with law enforcement when he told deputies that the urn contained cremated remains, and he believes that he was arrested because law enforcement, early into the stop, prejudged Mr. May and failed to assess the evidence in light of all the information available during the traffic stop.”
This story was originally published January 14, 2021 at 10:12 AM.
