DA wants charges reinstated in Erie hotel drug case – News – GoErie.com

Two judges have thrown out the charges against Reo Adkins in the case from May 2017.

The Erie County District Attorney’s Office is once again trying to restore a drug case involving fentanyl that has been dismissed twice.

Two judges in Erie County have tossed the charges against Reo B. Adkins, 28, who is accused of possessing heroin and fentanyl in a bayfront hotel room in May 2017.

In a motion filed Thursday, Assistant District Attorney Paul Sellers asked Judge Daniel Brabender, who most recently threw out the case two weeks ago, to reconsider the decision.

Adkins was originally charged in the case in May 2017, after Erie police said a housekeeper at the Sheraton Erie Bayfront Hotel found a shopping bag in a room Adkins was renting that contained 17.84 grams of a heroin and fentanyl mixture and 12.05 grams of fentanyl.

Then-Erie County Judge John Garhart dismissed Adkins’ charges in February 2018. He agreed with defense lawyer Tony Logue that police needed a search warrant to search the bag because the housekeeper found it while mistakenly believing that Adkins had vacated the room, when he had actually rented it for another night.

Police obtained a search warrant for the bag and refiled charges against Adkins in December. Adkins’ new lawyer, Anthony Rodriques, asked for the charges to be thrown out. He argued that the new charges violated Adkins’ rights because the case had already been discharged and the prosecution had not presented new evidence.

Brabender agreed in a court order on April 9. But Sellers wants Brabender to reconsider throwing out the case, according to the new motion.

“New evidence was presented … in the form of a subsequent search warrant,” Sellers wrote in the motion. He asked Brabender to restore the charges, which include felony counts of possession with intent to deliver the drugs, or to schedule a hearing on the motion.

Brabender has not ruled on the motion for reconsideration. Rodriques could not be reached for comment Monday.

Madeleine O’Neill can be reached at 870-1728 or by email. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ETNoneill.