An Oregon man who went to prison this week after getting caught driving on the edge of Lincoln with nearly 500 pounds of marijuana and thousands of THC vape cartridges in his trailer raised questions at his sentencing about the body-cam footage of the stop.
A forensic analyst who Christopher Klipfel hired believes that the Lancaster County Sheriff deputy's video may have been trimmed, though he stopped short of saying that was his opinion.
"I have questions in my case," Klipfel said, minutes after his attorney, Sarah Newell, attempted to reopen the bench trial to offer the expert's written report, which said additional investigation would be necessary.
Klipfel said he went through an addiction to meth in the early 90s, made bad decisions and went to prison for it. But he's a different man today.
He said he didn't mean to disrespect District Judge Lori Maret or the court, but he's a business guy.Â
"When you've got a problem with something, you've got to look into it," Klipfel said.
He said the events of April 21, 2022, have completely changed his life and he was running out of money to fight the case. He's already cashed in his 401(k), paid for an expert and fired his previous lawyer for not having video of the stop analyzed before trial.
"I'm tired. I don't want to fight anymore," he told the judge. "I don't want to try to prove ... that some guy didn't do his job appropriately."
It all started with a traffic stop on an April morning last year, when Lincoln Police Officer John Hudec spotted Klipfel, who was pulling a black trailer with a Ram rental pickup, cross the lane line on the shoulder as he headed east on Interstate 80.
Hudec ended up stopping him on U.S. 77, under the Rosa Parks Way bridge.
The stop, recorded on Hudec's body-worn camera, showed things slowly progressing from him searching for his ID and rental papers and talk of a warning ticket, to Hudec taking Klipfel back to his cruiser, pulling up his address online and accusing him of having a grow-operation on his property in Oregon.
When Klipfel denied it, Hudec said: "I can see it on the map."
Because Klipfel couldn't initially find his emailed rental agreement, another member of the interdiction task force, Lancaster County Sheriff's Sgt. Jason Mayo, opened the pickup door to get the VIN number.
That's when, Mayo said, he smelled marijuana and saw paraphernalia from a THC vape pen.
Asked if he had anything illegal in his truck or trailer, Klipfel, still in the front seat of Hudec's cruiser, said no, then quickly turned down a request to search them.
"Well, we have probable cause at this point," Hudec told him.
Klipfel said they didn't.
"Yes, we do," Hudec said, in video of the stop provided to Klipfel in discovery.
When Klipfel wouldn't give the combination, the officers cut the locks on the trailer to find two large plywood boxes.
There's no denying what they found inside: 18 black, odor-proof bags with 481 pounds of vacuum-sealed marijuana and 4,272 THC vape cartridges.
But Klipfel since has called foul, saying prosecutors only turned over 33 seconds of bodycam footage from Mayo — none of it capturing the moment the sergeant opened his truck door to get the VIN number, smelled marijuana and found part of a vape pen — despite his recorder appearing to be on at other points in Hudec's video.
At sentencing, Klipfel's attorney offered a motion for new trial and an exhibit with a report of a forensic expert who said it was his opinion the red activity light on Mayo's camera supports that his camera was in an active state of recording. However, he said further investigation would be required to conclude whether additional recordings had been created or the 33-second video trimmed.
Maret, the judge, denied the request, saying no affidavit evidence had been offered to indicate there was any truth to the allegation that the state withheld evidence or that called the credibility of the officers into question.
Even if all of it were true, she said, both officers testified in person at a motion to suppress the drugs in the case and she had received and reviewed the video evidence twice at the hearing and the bench trial that followed.
Maret ultimately found him guilty of two counts of possession with intent to deliver and possession of money during a drug crime.
"The court does not believe that the outcome would have been any different," she said Thursday.
Newell said Klipfel, who owns and operates a business, had some financial difficulty and made a lapse in judgment. He has taken responsibility for it, she said, though still remains frustrated with "what he perceives as some nefarious dealings on the part of law enforcement."
"We would submit it's not unreasonable to expect law enforcement to follow their own rules, and there's a fair question here about whether that has been the case," Newell said.
In the end, Maret said an acceptance of responsibility includes "actually doing that and not making excuses for what happened."
In a pre-sentence interview, Klipfel said he hadn't been "caught fairly."
"As if this was somehow a game. I would submit to you, yes, you are a business man. And this was a business endeavor, and there was a cost-benefit analysis that went along with it," she said.
She said Klipfel stood to gain if he got away with it. But he had to know that if he got caught he would be facing at least some time behind bars.
"Whatever your hang-up is with how law enforcement caught you or why they caught you or what they did after they caught you really has nothing to do with the fact that you did it," Maret said, sentencing Klipfel to 10 to 14 years in prison.
Lancaster County's biggest drug seizures
I-80 bust turned up $100K, led to 1,830 pounds of drugs, sheriff’s captain says
The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office says it found $103,194 in suspected drug money and arrested a 25-year-old North Carolina man in a traffic stop on Interstate 80 west of Lincoln shortly before 10 a.m. Friday.
Capt. Ben Houchin said Brandon Montoya, of Charlotte, was stopped in a westbound Toyota Tundra for following too closely and driving on the shoulder. During the stop, Houchin said, the deputy developed suspicions Montoya was involved in illegal activity. A search turned up the money, which was sealed and in a suitcase, and a ledger.
Houchin said deputies reached out to law enforcement in Charlotte, where Montoya lives and rents a storage unit, believing that there was a strong possibility they would find a large amount of narcotics there.
He said the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department took the information, got search warrants and found 1,290 pounds of marijuana and THC edibles in Montoya's storage unit and at his home, tens of thousands of empty and loaded bottles of THC oil, marijuana cigar tubes and THC vape cartridges, 10 pounds of THC wax, 40 pounds of marijuana, packing materials, a 9mm Glock handgun and $90,000 in cash.
Houchin said the drugs added up to 1,831 pounds.
Pair accused of hauling 645 pounds of pot on I-80 through Lincoln area
Two men remained at the Lancaster County jail Thursday, a day after prosecutors charged them in connection with 645 pounds of marijuana found in their rental truck.
Brandon Arrington, 30, of McDonough, Georgia, and Edward Babb of Houston both are facing four felonies: two counts of possession with intent to deliver and two counts of no drug tax stamp.
In an affidavit for their arrests, a Lancaster County Sheriff's deputy said he stopped a GMC Penske rental truck with Virginia plates Tuesday after seeing its passenger side tires cross onto the shoulder of Interstate 80 near the Lincoln Airport exit.
During the traffic stop, the deputy became suspicious the men were involved in criminal activity.
They both denied a request to search the truck, but the deputy deployed his police dog around it after seeing what he believed to be marijuana residue on the floorboard.
The search turned up 645 pounds of marijuana and 4.74 pounds of THC vapor pens in the truck's cargo area inside cardboard boxes wrapped in plastic wrap, according to court records.
On Wednesday, at their first court appearances on the charges, Lancaster County Judge Matt Acton set their bonds at $250,000.
515 pounds of marijuana
$1 million in vacuum-sealed bags
$500K of meth
300 pounds of marijuana
55 pounds of cocaine
$235K in cake mix cans
250 pounds of marijuana in fake compartment
218 pounds of marijuana
214 pounds of marijuana
145 pounds of marijuana
116 pounds of marijuana
110 pounds of marijuana, shatter
Lancaster County deputies find 109 lbs of pot in I-80 traffic stop
A California woman was arrested Friday morning after Lancaster County sheriff's deputies found more 100 pounds of marijuana in her vehicle during a traffic stop.
At about 9:30 a.m., Pakou J. Yang, 37, of Oroville, was pulled over on Interstate 80 about three miles east of the Pleasant Dale interchange for following another vehicle too closely.
During the stop, a deputy determined the 2018 Nissan that Yang was driving was a one-way rental, which the deputy described in court records as a common sign of drug trafficking. She also became "extremely nervous" while being questioned by the deputy.
Deputies searched the vehicle after a drug-sniffing dog indicated the presence of drugs. They found 109.5 pounds of vacuum-sealed marijuana in the trunk, according to court records.Â
Yang was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and no drug tax stamp. She remained in jail Friday on $50,000 bail.
Lincoln drug bust nets an estimated $125K in pills, pot, LSD and mushrooms
Investigators with the Lincoln/Lancaster Narcotics Task Force carried a search warrant into a home on the 2800 block of North Third Street on Friday, and they carried out a lot more.
They found more than 4 pounds of marijuana, nearly 3 pounds of psilocybin mushrooms, 3,604 oxycodone pills, 1,281 Alprazolam pills, 855 hits of LSD, 209 THC syringes, nearly $2,300 in cash and four firearms.
The drugs had an estimated street value of about $125,000, Lincoln Police Officer Erin Spilker said Tuesday.
The seizure started just before 9 a.m., when investigators visited the home on a tip that someone was selling drugs out of it, she said.
They contacted three men: 22-year-old Gustav Rockey, his roommate and a 20-year-old visitor.
The visitor had an outstanding warrant — and THC wax in his wallet — and was arrested. Rockey and his roommate each turned over a glass pipe and bags of marijuana and were allowed to leave.
Investigators then applied for the search warrant and found the drugs, guns and cash in the home.
They found Rockey three days later near First Street and Cornhusker Highway and arrested him on three counts of suspicion of possession of drugs with intent to deliver, possession of money while violating a drug law and possession of a firearm with a drug law violation.
They’re still searching for others who live in the house, Spilker said.
$118,000 in suspected drug money
100 pounds of marijuana
100 pounds of marijuana
Father and son arrested in cocaine bust, Lincoln police say
A father and son were arrested Thursday by the Lancaster County Narcotics Unit after investigators found 6.8 pounds of cocaine, a pound of marijuana and almost $4,000 in cash at an apartment complex near Capitol Beach.
Police arrested Russell Rucks Sr., 50, and Russell Rucks Jr., 28, on suspicion of possession of cocaine with intent to deliver and money during a drug violation.
Officer Erin Spilker said the Lincoln/Lancaster County Narcotics Task Force served a search warrant at the apartment where both live at 500 Surfside Drive as part of an ongoing drug investigation.
Investigators had been looking for the elder Rucks and ended up arresting both men prior to the warrant being served. Spilker said Rucks Sr. had 8.9 grams of cocaine and over $1,600 cash in his pocket.
She said the search at the apartment turned up drugs throughout the apartment they shared.Â
Authorities who pulled over an Oregon man driving near Lincoln found nearly 500 pounds of marijuana and thousands of THC vape cartridges in an enclosed trailer attached to the 47-year-old's truck, according to the Lancaster County Sheriff.