CEDAR CITY, Utah, May 18, 2022 (Gephardt Daily) — Cedar City police have nabbed a California fugitive who was found bicycling late at night with drugs in his backpack.
Monday at about 11 p.m., police stopped the 35-year-old man, who was pedaling with no reflectors or a light on his bicycle. Officers stopped him for his own good, said Cedar City Police spokesman Sgt. Clint Pollock, since cycling in the dark is not safe.
The man continued to complain to officers to let him go, saying he was on his way to a storage unit that would be closing soon, according to charging documents in 5th District Court for the man, later identified as Jean-Pierre Fuquay.
Asked for a driver license, Fuquay said he didn’t have it with him, then gave the name and birth date of another man as his identity. When he eventually gave up his real name, according to a probable cause statement, he was found to be wanted out of California on a felony fugitive from justice warrant for parole violations.
A search of Fuquay’s backpack turned up a pipe with methamphetamine residue and a marijuana joint.
Fuquay was booked into the Iron County Jail on the felony fugitive from justice extradition warrant, two counts of drug possession and a charge of “false personal information with intent to be another actual person,” all misdemeanors.
“He’s not from around here,” Pollock said. “The address he gave us was for our local homeless shelter.”
Pollock said Cedar City’s growth to a city of nearly 40,000 residents has brought growing pains.
“The last five years we’ve seen quite an influx,” he said. “We have quite a drug problem in our town now.”
