Local Man Arrested Trying to Pay For Car With Cocaine

A Southwest Minneapolis man has been charged with selling cocaine in Robbinsdale, telling police that his girlfriend’s uncle told him to sell the drugs to pay off a car.

Lamonte Edjuan Brown, 28, who lives in the 3200 block of Nicollet Avenue South, is charged with first-degree drug sales, a felony with a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and a $1 million bond.

A Robbinsdale police officer was on patrol near Victory Memorial Parkway and Dowling Avenue on Dec. 26 when he saw a car stopped at a stop sign for a “significant” period of time, according to the criminal complaint, signed by Robbinsdale Police Detective Steven Cole.

The officer checked the car’s license plate, and discovered that it had been reported stolen from St. Cloud. He began following the car, and stopped it when the driver pulled into a gas station parking lot.

The driver was identified as Brown, and was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen property and was taken to the Robbinsdale police station. When the officer opened the squad car’s back door to remove Brown, he spotted a plastic bag containing a large amount of suspected cocaine beside Brown’s feet – a bag that wasn’t there when the officer put Brown in the car, according to the complaint.

The substance tested positive for cocaine and weighed 15.7 grams.

Brown told police that the cocaine belonged to him, and that he had been trying to hide it from the officer when it fell on the floor. He said his girlfriend’s uncle had given him the drugs and instructed him to sell it to pay him back for the stolen car he was driving, which he said the uncle had given him.

Brown admitted that he had already sold between $300 and $400 worth of cocaine before he was arrested, according to the complaint.

Brown remains in the Hennepin County Jail on a $75,000 bond. An omnibus hearing in his case is scheduled Jan. 14 in Hennepin County District Court.