Police arrest two, seize drugs and pirated movies
ZACHARY — A traffic stop resulted in the arrest of a 12-year-old boy for alleged drug violations and the driver on criminal counts stemming from alleged pirated commercial films, Police Chief David McDavid said.
Officers booked Gary Sloate, 54, 8923 W. Vernon Drive, Zachary, at Parish Prison on 950 counts of illegal use of counterfeit trademarks, 31 counts of prohibited sound reproduction without consent and one count of possession of tools and equipment for manufacturing unauthorized recordings, McDavid said.
Sloate also was booked with contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile.
McDavid said an officer stopped Sloate on La. 19 Tuesday night for a traffic violation, and police noticed the 12-year-old passenger attempting to empty his pockets without being detected.
Officers then discovered the boy had dropped small quantities of cocaine and diazepam, the active ingredient in Valium, McDavid said.
Officers placed the boy in the Parish Juvenile Detention Center to face counts of possession of cocaine and diazepam and obstruction of justice, the police chief said.
McDavid said the boy apparently is not related to Sloate.
During the stop, police obtained Sloate’s permission to search the vehicle and found a collection of counterfeit music videos and movies, including some that only recently became available on the legitimate market, McDavid said.
The police chief said Sloate told officers he travels between Zachary and California, making and selling the bootleg videos.
“He said he has sold a lot of them,” McDavid said.
The names of the movies were simply written on the disks, McDavid said.
Police seized thumb drives in a laptop bag and a computer from the car for further investigation, McDavid said.