An out-of-state man and woman were caught with methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia in their car after they broke down on Interstate 70 earlier this month, according to a recent report from the Summit County Sheriff’s Office.

At first, when the deputy stopped to help the couple in a car on the side of the highway, everything seemed pretty ordinary. The driver told the deputy the car had broken an axle while the couple was driving to Denver for vacation. The deputy offered to call for a tow. Then came the expired insurance card, but the man had a good explanation for that.

“I don’t have insurance,” he told the deputy.

The deputy then ran the vehicle’s license plate and found an out-of-state warrant for dangerous drugs. The registration on the vehicle was also expired, although the car had current stickers. The man said the car was registered in the previous owner’s name and she had given him the sticker.

The deputy asked the man about the drug warrant. The man told him it was for not completing a drug class and said there was nothing illegal in the car. The deputy decided to impound the vehicle and agreed to take the man and his girlfriend to a hotel.

He put the couple in the back seat of his vehicle and returned to their car where he found a pipe on the front seat, filled with a white residue and wrapped up in a blue towel. Realizing what the pipe probably was, he went back to his patrol car, read the couple their rights and asked what the pipe was for. The man informed him it was for “smoking meth.” He said he and his girlfriend used to smoke meth, but stopped several months before. He said he must have forgotten about the pipe being in the car.

The deputy called for a Sheriff’s Office dog to come search the car. Back-up arrived and the team ended up finding a tin can fitted with a hose with white residue, six plastic baggies filled with white residue and a pink contact lens case containing a brown “rock” in the couple’s luggage, according to the Sheriff’s office report.

Deputies separated the couple. The man insisted the contraband all belonged to him. The woman told deputies it was “community property,” which apparently means “they belong to both of us.”

The man told deputies he thought the rock in the contact lens case was hash. He said it was given to him by a friend.

Deputies ended up seizing under 2 grams of a substance that tested “presumptive positive” for meth from the car.

The man and woman were booked on all kinds of charges, including possession of drug paraphernalia, unlawful possession of a controlled substance, displayed fictitious plates and no proof of insurance.

SDN reporter Caddie Nath can be contacted at (970) 668-4628 or at cnath@summitdaily.com.