An Arkansas cop claimed he had pay dirt when he found a vial of Opium perfume inside a man’s car — saying it was the narcotic opium — and arrested the man on felony drug charges.
Kapil Raghu, an immigrant from India, ended up spending a month in custody.
“They knew when they opened that bottle that it was a bottle of cologne,” said his wife, Ashley Mays, in a telephone interview with Atlanta Black Star.
“They knew it, and they still arrested him and took him to jail. No one had enough integrity to say, ‘Hey, hold on, something is not right here.’”
The felony drug charges were dismissed after a crime lab determined the suspected narcotic was a popular perfume by Yves Saint Laurent that has been on the market since 1977.
But after Raghu was jailed, it was discovered he had overstayed his visa, whereupon jailers contacted ICE, who then transported him to a federal detention center in Louisiana, where he remained for four weeks before his release.
“It was torture because there were feces piled up in the holding cell,” she said. “They have a timer set on a toilet where you can only flush every hour.”
“And he’s a pure vegetarian, but they wouldn’t give him food without meat on the plate,” she added, saying he would only eat the non-meat products on the plate.
He was released from federal custody on June 3 but was then required to wear an ankle monitor for a month, and he is now on house arrest, where the feds are monitoring his whereabouts through an app he was required to install on his phone.
“It’s been a nightmare,” said Mays, an American-born citizen who married Raghu in April, saying she has already spent $20,000 on attorneys, court costs and legal fees as well as taken out a loan to keep her husband from being deported back to India.
Mays said they had already retained an immigration attorney who was working on his case to extend his visa before the visa expired.
Watch the video below.
‘It’s Just a Perfume’
Raghu was pulled over on May 3 while delivering pizzas for having a reflective cover on his license plate, according to the body camera footage, which was first obtained by the YouTube police accountability channel The Random Patriot.
But his wife believes he was profiled because police claim he was suspicious for being in a “known drug area.”
Raghu, whose father and uncle were police officers in India, apologized for the license plate cover, telling the cop, “I have a very real love and affection towards the uniform.”
He also consented to having his car searched when asked by Benton police Officer Tyler Freshour, confident he had nothing illegal in his car.
But Freshour found the perfume bottle in his center console and became suspicious because it was labeled “Opium (W).”
He even contacted a supervisor from inside his patrol car, who told him opium was a Schedule II Controlled Substance, which would be a felony in Arkansas.
Freshour then stepped out of the patrol car and read Raghu his Miranda rights — without informing him why he was being arrested — and asked if he was willing to answer questions without an attorney present.
Raghu responded by saying he was not going to answer questions, telling the cop, “I have done nothing wrong, sir,” still clueless as to why he was being arrested.
It was only after he was placed in handcuffs that the cop informed him why he was being arrested.
“So right now you’re being placed under arrest for possession of a controlled substance, schedule II, OK,” Freshour said.
“You got a bottle of opium in your center console.”
“It’s just a perfume,” Raghu said from the back of the patrol car to his wife and the other officers who had gathered around the car.
“It’s just a perfume, nothing else, chill out.”
But the cops told him they would have to get it tested in a lab to know for sure.
‘There Might Be a Perfume Called Opium’
Police body camera videos show the cops talking among themselves after placing Raghu in the back of the patrol car.
“How did you find out it was opium?” asked a commanding officer. “There’s a label on it,” responded Freshour. “It says opium parenthesis W. And he’s telling the wife it is perfume.”
“But he wouldn’t talk to you about it, at all?” the commanding officer asked, even though it was clear from the video he was telling the cops and his wife that it was perfume.
The commanding officer asked to see the vial, which had a roll-on top.
“There might be a perfume called opium,” the commanding officer said. “Think about what a defense attorney would ask you.”
A simple Google search would have confirmed there was a perfume called Opium within seconds, but none of the officers did that, choosing instead to believe opium dealers would label their products rather than being more discreet.
“But the fact that he doesn’t want to talk to you about it and tell you it’s perfume, that’s a different story,” the commanding officer continued.
The commanding officer then concluded that Raghu would use the roll-on top to apply the opium to his cigarettes.
However, Rahgu tried to explain that he uses it to rub on his fingers after smoking a cigarette to keep them from smelling like tobacco.
“He told them on nine different occasions that it was just cologne or perfume,” Mays said.
“And English is not his first language, so he kept saying it in different ways, trying to get them to understand.”
‘My Husband Is Scared’
Body camera video also shows Mays speaking by phone to Benton Police Sgt. Brett Davidson, who was at the station, was telling her once again that if her husband had only told them it was perfume, he would not have been arrested.
The sergeant also told her he was in a known drug area, which confirmed her suspicions that he was being profiled in a pretextual stop.
At one point, after his wife arrived at the station, the sergeant tried to gaslight her into claiming that her husband was trying to hide the opium in a bottle of perfume labeled Opium.
“There’s all kinds of ways people disguise drugs and narcotics so they can ingest them in a very low-profile way,” he said.
Mays says she has filed an internal affairs complaint, but it’s been more than 60 days and they have not concluded the investigation. She said they have also retained an attorney and are planning to file a lawsuit.
Meanwhile, her husband is not allowed to work because he is going through deportation proceedings, so she is now working three jobs just to keep the family afloat and pay for attorneys.
She has also launched a GoFundMe with the goal of raising $9,000, but has raised only $251 as of this writing.
“I cannot tell you how much this has affected our family,” she said. “I had to put my daughter in counseling. I had to start counseling.”
“And my husband is scared. He doesn’t want to leave the house because he could deported very easily over this if he ends up at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Great Job Carlos Miller & the Team @ Atlanta Black Star Source link for sharing this story.
