Troup, Meriwether sheriffs make separate big-volume drug busts
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, August 4, 2015
LaGRANGE — A routine traffic stop Monday morning for a Troup County sheriff’s deputy yielded much more than a ticket when the law enforcement officer allegedly found thousands of prescription pills and pounds of illegal drugs.
According to information from the Troup County Sheriff’s Office, the deputy stopped a car driven by Nicholas Antoine, 34, of Atlanta along Interstate 85 around 7:15 a.m. Monday. When the deputy made contact with Antoine, he smelled marijuana in the vehicle, stated officials.
Deputies searched the vehicle and found suspected drugs: 40,000 tablets of Xanax, 1,000 Percocet pills and 11 pounds of “high-grade” marijuana, according to sheriff’s officials.
Antoine was arrested and taken to Troup County Jail. He was charged with one count of possession of a schedule 2 narcotic, one count of possession of a schedule 4 narcotic and one count of trafficking marijuana.
Meanwhile, a search warrant July 16 proved fruitful for law enforcement officers hoping to take down a suspected drug dealer in Talbot County.
The Narcotics Task Force — comprised of officials from the Meriwether County Sheriff’s Office, Upson County Sheriff’s Office, Taylor County Sheriff’s Office and the Thomaston Police Department — executed a search warrant in a home in the 100 block of Dairy Loop Road in Shiloh, just south of Manchester.
Once inside the home, narcotics agents seized 6 ounces of crack cocaine, 1.5 ounces of powder cocaine, more than 700 Ecstascy tablets and more than 5 ounces of marijuana, stated Meriwether County Sheriff Chuck Smith. The task force also confiscated a firearm, digital scales, a vehicle and more than $26,000.
Smith said agents arrested the owner of the home, Tavara Jermaine Stanford, 33. She was charged with trafficking cocaine, trafficking ecstasy, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, possession of drug-related objects, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
“This was a successful undercover operation that spanned an extended period of time in which these drugs were (allegedly) being distributed by Stanford in Meriwether County, Georgia, as well as surrounding counties,” Smith said. “It is great when agencies are able to work together and get a major drug distributor off of the streets. Drug traffickers have no boundaries and will infect any community that they can without hesitation — all for their personal benefit and gain regardless of who or how it affects those in which they sell.”
