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La Salle man jailed on drug, gun charges · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Speaker 1: Lasal manjailed on drug gun charges. Written by Tom Collins.
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  This article is being read by an automated voice brought
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  to you by everlett A. La Salman was ordered jailed
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  Wednesday after a traffic stop in Ottawa yielded eight grams
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  of suspected cocaine and a loaded point four to five
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  caliber handgun. Christopher Lopez, forty nine, would face up to
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  fifteen years in prison if convicted of unlawful possession of
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  a controlled substance. His lesser charge of unlawful possession of
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  a weapon by a felon two to five years carries
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  no possibility of probation. He was charged on Tuesday following
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  a traffic stop in the fifteen hundred block of Route
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  seventy one in Ottawa. There, according to court records, police
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  searched him and the vehicle and recovered six grams of
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  purported cocaine in the passenger compartment. He is alleged to
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  have had another two grams on him, along with a
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  pistol located beneath a seat. At a detention hearing wednesday
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  in Lasal County Circuit Court, prosecutor Laura Hall asked a
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  judge to deny Lopez any form of pre trial release.
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  Hall said the overt circumstances made Lopez a risk to
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  the public. She further argued that Lopez told police he'd
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  found the gun somewhere in LaSalle, and that he had
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  on him a pair of knives, a razor, and two
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  thousand dollars in cash. Collectively. She said the drugs and
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  companion items indicated intent to distribute. Lopez, she said, also
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  had a felony conviction for obstructing justice and therefore had
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  no business possessing a gun. He knows he should have
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  turned the gun over to law enforcement, but he didn't,
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  she argued. In open court, public defender Ryan Hamer countered
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  that Lopez was a good candidate for pre trial release,
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  having a good job and a family to support. As
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  for the drugs, Hamer said there was no packaging recovered,
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  suggesting the drugs may have been for personal use. LaSalle
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  County Circuit Judge Michelle A. Vascoigni was unpersuaded and cited
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  the in court statements that the gun was uncased, loaded,
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  and within reach of an occupant. She ordered Lopez to
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  return to remain in custody and gave him a May
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  twenty first court date.