CHARLOTTE AMALIE — A man with a long rap sheet was arrested Thursday at the Cyril E. King Airport after officials found marijuana and bags of unidentified pills in his luggage.
Tahir Donadelle, 43, of Atlanta, was charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, the Virgin Islands Police Department said.
Bail for Donadelle was set at $7,500 bail. Unable to post bail, he was jailed until his advice-of-rights hearing before Superior Court Magistrate Judge Paula Norkaitis.
The case began Thursday when police responded to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection secondary inspection office at the St. Thomas airport after agents said they found drugs in a passenger’s luggage, according to the VIPD’s probable cause fact sheet.
Donadelle and his girlfriend had flown to St. Thomas from Georgia, and the CBP Passenger Analysis Unit flagged Donadelle as a person of interest “due to his criminal history,” according to the sworn police affidavit.
Agents searched the couple’s luggage and found 2.98 pounds of marijuana, which Donadelle said belonged solely to him and not his girlfriend,, the probable cause fact sheet indicates. The girlfriend, who is not identified, has not been charged with a crime.
Federal agents also found two marijuana joints on Donadelle’s person, and the investigation “then revealed that Mr. Donadelle was also in possession of ten bags of unidentified blue pills, weighing 118.1 grams, which will be sent to the mainland to be tested at a CBP facility,” according to the sworn police affidavit.
In court Friday, Assistant Virgin Islands Attorney General Brenda Scales said Donadelle has more than a dozen arrests and was sentenced to six years of probation in 2017.
Territorial Public Defender Alexia Furlow said Donadelle was born on St. Thomas and now lives in Georgia, but still has numerous family members on island.
Norkaitis agreed to allow Donadelle to be released to his mother’s custody after he posts 10 percent of the $7,500 bail in cash, and ordered him to surrender his Georgia driver’s license and not travel without the court’s permission.
