SE Bend traffic stop leads to variety of drugs, 3 arrests

A Bend police officer pulled over a car for running a stop sign and failing to signal a lane change Tuesday afternoon – and that led to a search of the car, the seizure of a variety of drugs, as well as a hidden, loaded handgun, and the arrest of three Medford residents.

The officer conducted a traffic stop around 3 p.m. Tuesday on a silver 2008 Lexus driven by Chrstopher Soares, 32, near the intersection of Southeast Parrell Road and Knightsbridge Place, said police Lt. Ken Mannix of the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team.

CODE Team detectives and a narcotics K-9 responded to assist in the investigation, and when deployed, the drug-sniffing dog alerted to the presence of drugs in the car, Mannix said.

A subsequent search of the car led to about 3.5 ounces of methamphetamine, two ounces of heroin, user amounts of cocaine, 17.3 pounds of processed marijuana, methadone and morphine pills and a loaded handgun that “was concealed and readily accessible to the driver,” Mannix said in a news release.

Also found in the car were several drug scales, packaging material, drug records, cash, drug paraphernalia and other evidence of drug sales and distribution, he added.

An investigation found that Soars and Eric Conlogue, 27, had traveled from their hometown of Medford to the Bend area to sell “commercial quantities of methamphetamine and heroin,” Mannix said. They were accompanied by Kimberly Chavez, 25, also of Medford.

All three remained lodged late Wednesday at the Deschutes County Jail, Soares held on $40,000 bail on drug possession, manufacturing and delivery charges, along with felon in possession of a firearm. Conlogue also faces charges of heroin possession and cocaine distribution and possession, and was held without bail on an out-of-county fugitive arrest warrant. Chavez was held on $15,000 bail, charged with heroin possession.

Mannix said the CODE Team investigation is ongoing.