A Kenyon man with multiple prior drug convictions and pending charges allegedly was caught with cocaine at a Faribault gas station following a drug task force investigation.
Deonte Lajuan Nelson, 46, of Kenyon, was charged with felony counts of drug sales and possession Wednesday in Rice County District Court. He also was charged with a misdemeanor for alleged possession of brass knuckles.
He was arrested Monday afternoon after the Cannon River Drug and Violent Offender Task Force obtained a warrant to stop and search him.
According to search warrant applications, a source who was facing charges told task force agents in February that Nelson was selling cocaine at Boxer’s bar. In late March, a towing company employee reported he was helping repossess Nelson’s vehicle and he saw Nelson take multiple baggies of white powder out of the vehicle.
Task force agents obtained a warrant to track Nelson’s vehicle, and on Monday it reportedly made multiple brief stops in Faribault, including at a residence where cocaine allegedly was found in February.
Agents stopped and searched Nelson after he met a man at a Faribault gas station.
Nelson allegedly had one bag of cocaine in his hand and four small bags in his pocket. The cocaine collectively weighed about 2.4 grams, according to the court charging complaint.
Agents also reportedly found a small amount of marijuana, nearly $400 cash and brass knuckles.
The man with whom Nelson was seen at the gas station allegedly told agents he had met him there to buy cocaine.
A small amount of cocaine also allegedly was found in the Faribault hotel room in which Nelson was staying.
Agents also seized Nelson’s phone. But before they examined it someone apparently remotely reset it, wiping all data from it. In recordings of phone calls Nelson made from jail, he allegedly can be heard giving a woman his phone’s password and instructing her to “clear everything.”
The arrest was made days before Nelson was scheduled to go on trial in two pending sets of drug sales charges in Rice County. In 2021, he allegedly was caught with 122 grams of cocaine following a traffic stop in Northfield. In 2019, he allegedly was caught with multiple baggies with small amounts of cocaine in the Faribault apartment at which he resided at the time.
The trials were postponed and bail was set at $75,000 in the new case and reset to at least $225,000 in one of the prior pending cases.
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