SOMERVILLE - A state appellate court has ruled that 28 pounds of marijuana found in a search of a car off Route 78 in Warren can be used in the criminal trial of a California man.

Juan Rodriguez, 38, of Sacramento, Ca., was arrested at about 2:05 a.m. Jan.1, 2018 and charged with first-degree possession of more than 25 pound of marijuana following a motor vehicle stop. First-degree crimes carry a 10-year minimum prison sentence.

Rodriguez was arrested after Warren Police Officers Kevin Olah and Thomas Clarke found 28 pounds of marijuana in a cardboard box in the cargo area of Rodriguez's Jeep Grand Cherokee on Liberty Corner Road near Route 78. Olah had stopped the vehicle because a headlight was out.

The officers also found $5,600 in one-hundred-dollar bills between the Jeep's center console and the dashboard and $4,920 in twenty-dollar bills in the center console along with $15,000 in Western Union money orders.

READ: Warren County man charged with having more than 50 pounds of pot

Rodriguez told the officers that he had borrowed the vehicle, that was registered in Alabama, from a friend who lived in New York. Rodrguez said he was on his way to New York after he had visited a woman in Pennsylvania.

Olah told Rodriguez that a computer check showed his driver’s license was suspended and that he could smell marijuana inside the vehicle. Rodriguez told the officer that he might have smoked marijuana in the vehicle earlier that day, court papers say.

Though Olah did not have a search warrant and Rodriguez denied permission to search the vehicle, Olah noticed the odor of marijuana became stronger as he moved toward the Jeep's rear cargo area. Olah then found a large cardboard box which he said had an "overwhelming" odor of marijuana, according to court papers.

Olah asked Rodriguez if the box was his. Rodriguez denied it was his box and denied knowing what was inside, adding the box had been in the Jeep when he borrowed it.

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Olah then opened the box and found 27 plastic bags, each of which contained about a pound of marijuana., according to court papers.

A Superior Court judge ruled that the bags of marijuana could not be used as evidence because Olah needed a warrant to search the Jeep. That judge ruled the Jeep should have been impounded to allow time for a search warrant to be obtained. The Somerset County Prosecutor's Office appealed that decision.

The appellate court reversed that ruling, saying that the officers had the discretion to conduct a search without a warrant. The appellate judges relied on a prior state Supreme Court decision on the rules of roadside vehicle searches that said a search can be performed if police have probable cause to believe a vehicle contains evidence of criminal activity and that the situation "arose from unforeseeable and spontaneous circumstances."

Staff Writer Mike Deak: 908-243-6607; mdeak@mycentraljersey.com