Middletown Man Stashed Marijuana in Car Engine: Newport Police Smelled Weed Coming from the Vents

NEWPORT, RI—Mark Terrel Gonsalves, 25, of Middletown, was arrested Dec. 7 at 1:20 p.m. following a traffic stop near One Mile Corner.

Police said Gonslaves was driving a black Nissan north on Broadway when the patrol officer noticed the missing front license plate. When he pulled Gonsalves over at the corner of Broadway and Canonicus Avenue, the officer noticed he had been reaching for something on the vehicle's passenger side.

Gonsalves was known to have a drug trafficking conviction, and the officer thought he might be reaching for a weapon. He asked Gonsalves to exit the car and then patted him down. There was no gun, but a large wad in his pocket turned out to be $1,200 in bills, organized with the 50s at the front.

Because there was a marijuana bud and leaves on the car floor in the back seat, the officer was alerted to the possibility Gonsalves was carrying marijuana in the car. Gonsalves said the smell was from weed, but he didn't have any more in the car. However, the officer became suspicious because the odor was stronger in the front of the car than in the back where he had observed the bud and leaves.

He called the narcotics detectives at the Newport police station and was told Gonsalves was selling marijuana to "multiple customers" and kept the stash in the engine, "hence," the officer wrote, "the smell emanating from the front vents."

The officer looked under the hood and found a brown shopping bag tied to the battery cable which was resting on the air intake box. He also saw a glassine bag with "a great quantity of marijuana" inside the brown shopping bag.

The weed was weighed and tested and turned out to be 62 grams of marijuana.

Then the officer detected a bulge in the suspect's groin area. That was another glassine bag with an additional 16 grams of marijuana for a total of 2.75 ounces.

Gonsalves was charged with possession of marijuana, in an amount greater than one ounce, his first offense for possession.