Francesca Cage of Mountain Home changed her plea to guilty on a number of drug-related charges before Judge Gordon Webb Wednesday and was sentenced to six years probation.
Judge Webb was scheduled to hear a suppression motion filed by Cage’s attorney, Charles “Dan” Hancock of Little Rock, on Wednesday, but, instead, it was announced there would be no hearing and Cage would enter a guilty plea.
The 28-year-old Cage was arrested in late November last year by Mountain Home Police. She was a passenger in a vehicle driven by 42-year-old Dwayne Thompson who had outstanding warrants connected with multiple burglaries throughout the county.
During the stop, Cage was found to have a glass smoking pipe with narcotic residue in her coat pocket. According to the probable cause affidavit, she also admitted to having methamphetamine hidden in her bra.
Officers said Cage was warned that if she had other drugs or drug paraphernalia in her possession when she was taken into the jail, she would face additional charges.
When she was brought into the jail, a matron searched Cage and found a bag allegedly containing approximately 10 grams of a white crystalline substance that field-tested positive for methamphetamine and $1,500 in cash hidden on her person.
During the traffic stop, officers also reported finding digital scales and small plastic bags often used in the distribution of narcotics.
When Hancock filed his motion to suppress last month, he contended that during the course of the “warrantless search” in late November, items were illegally seized from his client. He argued in his motion that Cage had not consented to the search and that there was no probable cause to justify searching or seizing property belonging to Cage without a warrant. He wrote that when officers stopped the vehicle in which Cage was a passenger, it was the driver, Dwayne Thompson, who was the target.
Hancock did not make any comments to the court on the apparently last minute decision to drop the suppression motion and have his client enter a guilty plea instead.
In addition, Cage agreed to the seizure of the $1,500 in cash. A number of witnesses from the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office and the Mountain Home Police Department had been assembled to testify during the hearing on the suppression motion, but they were dismissed by 14th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge when Hancock made it known that Cage would plead guilty.
Cage was sentenced under provisions of Act 346, meaning that if she stays out of trouble during her probation period, she can apply to the courts to have her record sealed.
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