A Man Spent 90 Days in Jail Because a Cop Thought Drywall Was Cocaine

A handyman in Oviedo, Florida, wound up spending a few months in lock-up after police mistook some drywall residue in his car for crack cocaine, WFTV 9 reports.

The driver, Karlos Cashe, was on probation for some 2015 drug charges when he was pulled over by a traffic cop last March. The officer was initially planning to ticket Cashe for driving without his headlights, but then his well-trained cop eyes spotted some suspicious white powder on Cashe's seat.

Cashe tried to explain that the powder wasn't coke. "I know for a fact [that] it's drywall because I'm a handyman," Cashe later told WFTV. "I said that continuously during the arrest stop."

Unfortunately, a field test of the powder came back positive for blow, and Cashe was cashed. Drug-sniffing dogs even came out, confirming the powder as cocaine. Since Cashe was already on probation for an earlier weed and coke bust, he was carted off to the Seminole County Jail and denied bond.

After spending a full 90 days in the county clink, a series of lab tests from the scene came back. They all confirmed that there were no drugs present in Cashe's car, and he was telling the truth.

"I sat there 90 days knowing I was innocent," he said. "Look at my record. If I get in trouble, I plead to it." Finally, three months after that initial traffic stop, he was able to walk free again.

There's no word yet on why the initial drug tests yielded multiple false positives, or why those K-9 units got thrown off, but it's certainly not the first time Florida police have mistaken a completely benign substance for junk. Back in 2016, cops in Orlando arrested a 64-year-old for donut frosting they thought was methamphetamine, but unlike Cashe, he only spent ten hours in jail for the mixup.