Prosecutors seek money, cell phones from alleged drug car

By BRAD KELLAR
Herald-Banner Staff

January 01, 2009 05:56 pm

— Someday, the suspects who allegedly smuggle drugs through North Texas will learn to get their stories straight if they are stopped by law enforcement.
This was not the day.
The Hunt County District Attorney’s Office has filed a seizure motion, claiming money and property taken last month from two vehicles which prosecutors claim were used to ship marijuana.
According to a criminal complaint filed with the motion, on the night of Dec. 13 two Royse City Police Department officers stopped a 2008 Mazda and a 2009 Honda, both with Ohio plates, at the 79-mile marker of eastbound Interstate 30. The drivers of the vehicles were found, among other problems, to be speeding and driving in the left lane of the highway while not passing.
The first officer made contact with the driver of the Mazda, Thomas Demetrius Parham, 21, of Columbus, Ohio. Parham did not have his driver’s license and had no insurance. Parham told the officer he had rented the car the day before and left his wallet in the Honda. The officer also found a small, clear bag inside the Mazda and when asked Parham said he was going to use the bag in order to collect some “Texas sand” as he had never before been to Texas.
The other officer spoke with the driver of the Honda, Christopher Haines, also of Columbus, Ohio. Haines said they had been in Houston “a few days”, visiting his mother, who had recently become widow.
Parham also claimed he and Haines were cousins and that he had accompanied Haines to Houston, also to visit his widowed aunt. But, when asked the aunt’s maiden name, Parham was unable to do so.
“I am not sure, we are not close family,” Parham was said to have replied.
After receiving consent to search the Honda, the officers discovered a black trash bag containing a large bundle of marijuana.
Thomas Parham and Haines, along with the passengers in the two vehicles, Clemon D. Parham and Sunshine D. Bell, both of Gahanna, Ohio, were arrested and transported to the Hunt County Jail, where they were charged with possession of between five and 50 pounds of marijuana and engaging in organized criminal activity.
The Hunt County District Attorney’s Office is seeking to the seizure of two cell phones and a cell phone charger, as well as $18,263 in cash, all of which were also found inside the vehicles, alleging they were all gained during the commission of a felony.