Police: Man accused of dealing drugs after trooper finds illegal gun, narcotics during traffic stop
A Penn Hills man was accused of being a drug dealer after a state police trooper pulled over his SUV in Armstrong County for speeding and having windows that were tinted too dark.
Tyrone Linwood Freeman, 57, of the 300 block of Princeton Drive was charged with four felony counts of possession of drugs with the intent to deliver and illegal possession of a firearm along with three counts of driving under the influence, a count of marijuana possession and three traffic citations.
Freeman faces a preliminary hearing on the charges before District Judge J. Gary DeComo on Nov. 8.
A trooper wrote in the criminal complaint charging Freeman that while patrolling along Route 422 at the border between North Buffalo and Manor townships May 18, the trooper pulled over a white Cadillac Escalade that was traveling 68 mph in a 55 mph zone and had dark-tinted windows.
A measurement of the amount of light that can pass through the tinted windows indicated only 21% came through instead of the 70% required by law, according to the criminal complaint.
The trooper said Freeman had been smoking marijuana while driving and was in possession of a “blunt,” or marijuana in a cigar wrapper, and a small bag of marijuana for personal use.
Police also confiscated a 9 mm Smith & Wesson pistol loaded with hollow-point ammunition, a dozen bags of crack cocaine, nine bags of suspected fentanyl tablets, six bags of powdered cocaine and four bags of marijuana, the complaint said. The gun and drugs were sent to a crime lab in Greensburg for examination, police said.
The trooper said Freeman told him that just prior to being pulled over, he was at a motel in Kittanning to trade drugs for sex, according to the complaint.
Court records show Freeman was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison and a year of probation in April 2007 after pleading guilty to felony drug charges filed by Pittsburgh police.
Freeman also pleaded guilty to two felony counts of drug possession and three related misdemeanor drug charges filed by Wilkinsburg police in June 2007.
He was sentenced to four to eight years in prison and a year of probation, according to court records.
He also pleaded guilty in 2015 to a drug possession charge filed by Wilkinsburg police.
Tony LaRussa is a TribLive reporter. A Pittsburgh native, he covers crime and courts in the Alle-Kiski Valley. He can be reached at tlarussa@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.