Oct 22, 2020 2 min read

A Washington County jury found a defendant guilty of two weapons charges and cocaine possession in conjunction with a traffic stop Feb. 25 in Washington.

Kendall Brown, 20, of Pittsburgh, was a backseat passenger in a vehicle that was pulled over by a city police officer for headlights not in use at night near the intersection of Dewey and Acheson avenues.

Brown admitted to possessing marijuana, but his conflict counsel, Kimberly Furmanek, asked the jury to consider if someone else in the vehicle could have planted the cocaine and firearm near the seat her client had occupied.

The defense attorney also contended the small amount of cocaine was not packaged as if for drug dealing, and Judge Valarie Costanzo granted Furmanek’s motion to dismiss a cocaine delivery charge. No witnesses were called on behalf of the defense.

Assistant District Attorney John Friedmann asked the jurors to use common sense when considering the location of the drug and firearm in the vehicle, and the jury late Tuesday afternoon returned a verdict on charges of a firearm not to be carried without a license and a person with a prior conviction not to possess a firearm, third-degree and first-degree felonies, respectively.

The jury was told that a prior conviction made Brown, a former Fredericktown resident, ineligible to possess a firearm, but before deliberating, members of the panel were not informed that he had been charged with robbery a year before the traffic stop in Washington. He entered a guilty plea to that charge in June 2019.

In connection with the 2020 traffic stop, Brown admitted to possessing marijuana, a charge that was handled by the judge, who found him guilty, but it did not go to the jury.

Sentencing on the convictions is scheduled for January, Friedmann said Wednesday.