Man sold drugs from car behind Amber Rose restaurant

Blake J. Johnson, 28, has been accused of selling drugs out of his car behind the restaurant at 1400 Valley St., according to a criminal complaint filed in Dayton’s U.S. District Court.

A Dayton police officer and FBI task force officer wrote that a complaint was received Jan. 18.

“The contact from the restaurant indicated that someone in a silver Hyundai Sonata with tinted windows and a smoked license plate cover would meet with the occupants of numerous other vehicles in the parking lot at all times of day and engage in what appeared to be vehicle-to-vehicle drug transactions,” the complaint says.

The complaint says six law enforcement officers conducted surveillance, including one in a marked cruiser who stopped a vehicle after it had pulled next to the Hyundai.

Two women in a GMC Sierra drove into the lot but did not enter the business, the complaint alleges, and Johnson drove into the lot and did a hand-to-hand exchange with one of the women. Officers stopped the Sierra.

“When the female driver emerged,” the complaint says, “two capsules of suspected cocaine were visible on the seat.” The driver admitted she bought drugs from the Sonata driver.

Officers followed Johnson to a home on Forest Avenue, where he reversed his vehicle out of a driveway through two stop sticks that disabled two tires. Johnson lost control of the vehicle in a snow-covered field and was taken into custody.

The complaint alleges that a plastic bag of 194 gel capsules of suspected fentanyl was found on top of fresh snow near where Johnson’s vehicle traveled.

Another bag was located outside the driver’s door, the complaint says, while three bags, loose powder, a digital scale, seven cell phones and more than $1,300 in cash were located inside the car. Testing showed two bags contained fentanyl and one had cocaine, the complaint says.

“Johnson confessed, in sum and substance, to selling drugs at the Amber Rose parking lot,” the complaint says, “and to possession of the drugs recovered from in and around the Hyundai Sonata.”

Johnson was convicted of trafficking heroin in 2015 and 2016 in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court and received probation both times. Johnson was convicted of trafficking heroin in 2012 and received two years in prison.

Johnson also faces a common pleas court case of failure to comply with the order of a police officer stemming from an April 2018 incident.