Police find safes with drugs, paraphernalia, gun inside car at Hilliard gas station

HILLIARD, Ohio ( WCMH ) – A man with warrants for his arrest in multiple central Ohio counties has been charged with drug offenses after being detained over the weekend.

According to Hilliard police, an officer was at a gas station on Cemetery Road when he spotted a man looking at him while getting into a black 2008 Infinity. The officer ran the license plate through LEADS and discovered the owner had drug charges out of Delaware County from an alleged incident in February.

The Hilliard officer walked to the vehicle to speak to the driver. The driver denied being the suspect and walked into the gas station and into the bathroom.

A second officer arrived at the scene, and the two conducted a free air sniff with a drug detection K9, which detected the odor of narcotics at the front driver side door.

When the male returned from the bathroom, Hilliard police alerted him to the free air search. The man identified himself as Jesse Wade Rice of Delaware, and police said he admitted he had warrants through the Marion County Sheriff’s Office for a probation violation stemming from a weapons charge and numerous traffic violations in Delaware County.

Rice, 38, was arrested on the confirmed warrants and the vehicle was searched.

Police say they discovered several bookbags and three locked safes in the trunk of the car. Inside the bookbags contained a blender with white residue inside, a digital scale with white powder residue and a plastic bag containing a Mannite Conoscenti bar, which is reportedly used to as a cutting agent by drug traffickers to increase the weight of drugs to create more product.

The officers also found mail addressed to Rice, linking him to the items in the backpack and a set of keys that were for the three safes in the trunk.

Upon searching the safes, police collected various narcotics, including a jar containing cocaine, a plastic bag of methamphetamine and Suboxone.

Other items included drug paraphernalia, packaging materials, a stack of lottery cards ripped in half, more plastic baggies, digital scales, hypodermic needles, glass bulb pipes, a phone and a Smith & Wesson M&P 40-caliber handgun with fifteen rounds in the magazine. The white powder tested positive for cocaine.

Rice, considered a fugitive of justice, is charged with illegal manufacturing of drugs, trafficking in drugs and having weapons under disability. On Monday, he was issued a $250,000 bond in Franklin County Municipal Court and is next scheduled to appear before a judge on Aug. 27.

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