A Little Rock man was arrested early Monday on multiple felony drug warrants stemming from a traffic stop in Hot Springs in March after Hot Springs police obtained a search warrant for a backpack.
Kevin Davante Giles, 26, was taken into custody around 4 a.m. in Little Rock and extradited to Hot Springs on charges of possession of meth with purpose to deliver, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, two counts of possession of a controlled substance with purpose to deliver involving pills, each punishable by up to 10 years, possession of marijuana with purpose to deliver and another count of possession of a controlled substance with purpose to deliver and two counts of possession of drug paraphernalia, each punishable by up to six years.
Giles was being held on bonds totaling $24,500 and was set to appear Monday in Garland County District Court.
According to the probable cause affidavit, on March 30, HSPD Officer Seth Jones conducted a traffic stop on a red 2017 Toyota 4Runner in the 100 block of Garrison Street for displaying a fictitious license plate.
He made contact with the male driver and front seat passenger, identified as Giles, and Officer Jonathan Smith and his K-9 partner, Bear, also responded to the scene to perform a K-9 sniff of the vehicle.
Bear walked around the exterior of the car and reportedly alerted to the odor of narcotics by the driver's rear door. Officers found several backpacks in the vehicle, including a green one sealed with a number lock. Smith removed all the backpacks and put them "in a straight line approximately 2 feet apart in the parking lot."
Bear did an additional sniff and reportedly alerted on the locked green backpack, but both Giles and the driver denied ownership of the bag which was seized for further investigation.
On April 14, Detective Jjesus Anaya obtained a search warrant for the backpack which he executed at the police department. He noted he was able to open the bag "without using force" by putting the code 000 in the lock.
Allegedly located inside the backpack were five separate bags of marijuana, a total of 43.27 grams, 21 alprazolam pills, 14 suboxone sublingual strips, a bag with 6.29 grams of meth, two buprenorphine pills, one oxycodone pill, multiple empty baggies, glass vials, a rolling tray, three sets of digital scales, three packages of marijuana edibles, a bag of dice, a knife and a hatchet.
A warrant for Giles' arrest on multiple felony charges was issued on April 27.