Press Release — Drug Arrest December 2022

WARREN COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE

200 SKYLINE VISTA DRIVE · FRONT ROYAL, VIRGINIA 22630

Mark A. But­ler, Sher­iff

PRESS RELEASE — DRUG ARREST

Sheriff’s Office Drug Inter­dic­tion Strat­e­gy yields Sig­nif­i­cant Seizure.

Front Roy­al, VA – On Decem­ber 19, 2022, at approx­i­mate­ly 08:48 PM, War­ren Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office Deputy Tyler Poe stopped a white 2016 Hon­da CRV on Chester Street in the Town of Front Roy­al for dis­obey­ing a stop sign.  Deputy Poe was assist­ed by K9 Deputy Sean Gagliar­do and Sergeant John Gre­go­ry dur­ing the stop. 

While speak­ing with the dri­ver, Shan­non Marie Doyle-Melvin (age 25) of Front Roy­al, deputies con­firmed that her pas­sen­ger, Bri­an Albaren­ga Alfero (age 22) of Front Roy­al was want­ed on sev­er­al out­stand­ing felony war­rants from War­ren and Rap­pa­han­nock coun­ties. The vehi­cle was also occu­pied by a fif­teen-year-old fam­i­ly member. 

A search of the vehi­cle revealed a 28-liter garbage bag full of indi­vid­ual bags of green leafy sub­stance sus­pect­ed to be mar­i­jua­na. The garbage bag con­tained six­ty-five, one-ounce clear bags of pur­port­ed marijuana.

A con­sen­su­al search by Sheriff’s Office Deputies of a near­by pri­vate res­i­dence on the two hun­dred block of Chester Street revealed more evi­dence of ille­gal drug pos­ses­sion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of mar­i­jua­na by the vehi­cle occu­pants, who resided in this home. An addi­tion­al six­ty-five ounces of mar­i­jua­na were recov­ered in var­i­ous loca­tions with­in the res­i­dence.  The total amount of mar­i­jua­na seized weighed a total of 134 ounces, or approx­i­mate­ly 8.375 pounds.

A recent report by the Oxford Treat­ment Cen­ter (Edi­to­r­i­al Staff, May 2022) on the aver­age cost of mar­i­jua­na by state illus­trates the sig­nif­i­cance of this lat­est ille­gal drug seizure. Accord­ing to the report the nation­al aver­age cost for an ounce of high-qual­i­ty mar­i­jua­na is $326, which trans­lates into $43,684 on this seizure. By com­par­i­son, medi­um qual­i­ty mar­i­jua­na costs $266 an ounce, and would yield $35,644.  

Shan­non Marie Doyle-Melvin was charged with (PWID) pos­ses­sion with intent to dis­trib­ute mar­i­jua­na (§18.2–248) and con­tribut­ing to the delin­quen­cy of a minor. In addi­tion to the five out­stand­ing arrest war­rants, Bri­an Albaren­ga Alfero was also charged with pos­ses­sion with intent to dis­trib­ute mar­i­jua­na (§18.2–248) and con­tribut­ing to the delin­quen­cy of a minor.  The male juve­nile was arrest­ed for PWID Mar­i­jua­na, pos­ses­sion of Mar­i­jua­na under­age and pos­ses­sion of nicotine.

Sher­iff Mark But­ler expressed his grat­i­tude to the arrest­ing deputies and stat­ed “this is a great exam­ple of how we can work togeth­er to com­bat the flow of ille­gal drugs into our coun­ty.  Our phi­los­o­phy is to be proac­tive and dis­rupt the sup­ply chain while arrest­ing those that bring and sell drugs in War­ren Coun­ty.”  Sher­iff But­ler states this is the lat­est of many sig­nif­i­cant arrests and inves­ti­ga­tions that the War­ren Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office has ini­ti­at­ed in 2022.

Pho­to­graph: Deputy Sean Gagliar­do and Deputy Tyler Poe, with large quan­ti­ty of ille­gal mar­i­jua­na seized dur­ing traf­fic stop and res­i­den­tial search on Decem­ber 19, 2022.

Approved for released on Decem­ber 26, 2022, by Major J.A. Driskill

UNCLASSIFIED | FOR PUBLIC RELEASE