Four Busted After Westside Disturbance

Drugs, paraphernalia and brass knuckles discovered

Humboldt Sentinel
3/6/09
By Sentinel Staff

EUREKA -- Four people have been arrested by Eureka police officers answering a Thursday morning call about a disturbance on West Del Norte Street.

At about 7:39 a.m. officers met four people in two trucks at the foot of West Del Norte Street, where two men had reportedly tried to pull a woman from a truck.

While waiting for a warrant check on the driver and passenger of a green Ford F-150 to be completed, Officer Stan Harkness smelled marijuana coming from the truck. Looking through an open passenger window, Harkness saw a plastic bag with marijuana on the seat.

Police dispatchers confirmed the truck’s driver and passenger, Dalina Lynn Cardoza-Sovereign, 30, and Billy Joe Giddings, 29, of Fortuna, were both on parole.

Searching the Ford, Harkness found and seized about an ounce of marijuana and a pair of brass knuckles, which are illegal. Sovereign and Giddings were both jailed for parole violation and having a dangerous weapon.

Harkness next spoke with the driver and passenger of the other truck, Robert Anthony Leitch, 45, and Rebecca Joanne McKinnon, 36.

Talking with Leitch next to the white Ford Ranger’s open driver’s side door, Harkness saw a small plastic bag of white powder in the door’s side pocket.

A search of the truck uncovered drug paraphernalia, including several hypodermic needles and several small plastic bags thought to hold methamphetamine.

During a body search McKinnon admitted she had a hypodermic needle in her pocket with meth she’d just been given by Leitch.

Leitch was jailed for furnishing a controlled substance and for possession of drug paraphernalia. McKinnon was jailed for possession of a controlled substance.