The Woodward News

Local News

December 18, 2009

Marijuana busts net 8 arrests

Seven people were arrested in Woodward Thursday night in a single drug bust by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Control (OBN).

Among those arrested was Joseph Lynell Townsend, who was charged in district court Friday with possession of a controlled and dangerous substance-marijuana.

According to a Woodward County Court affidavit filed with Townsend's charges, Townsend and the six other suspects were located in a house at 200 block of 7th St., which was visited by Derek Ford, an OBN special agent, and three other OBN agents, who searched the house under a fourth amendment waiver.

The waiver allows law enforcement to search the property of previously convicted persons without going through the process of obtaining an actual search warrant.

The OBN obtained a search waiver for the house on 7th Street, which is located within 2000 feet of a daycare, because "we had gathered information that there was drug activity going on at that residence from intel," said Wendell Brandenburg, an agent in charge for the OBN.

“When we arrived at the residence ... the front door was opened ... a cloud of smoke rolled out of the front door from the living room,” Ford stated in the affidavit. “Seven people were seated in the living room around a coffee table. I asked where the marijuana was. (A suspect) pointed to a burnt marijuana cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table and advised they had been smoking.”

The affidavit states Ford and the other agents then conducted a search of the rest of the house, which allegedly turned up two other small baggies of marijuana and various forms of drug paraphernalia, including sets of scales, which were all photographed and seized for evidence.

All the subjects in the house were then arrested.

Further information was unavailable by press time Friday.

In a separate arrest, Donnie Eugene Kitterman was also taken into custody Thursday after OBN agents conducted a search of his residence in the 1300 block of 2nd St. The OBN agents allegedly found the a marijuana plant in a plastic bucket under a heat bulb in an entertainment center, according to a court affidavit.

The agents also allegedly found several marijuana seeds that “appeared to be germinating," the affidavit states.

Kitterman was charged with felony cultivation of marijuana in district court Friday.

Text Only
Local News