YORK COUNTY — A Baltimore woman faces charges after she was allegedly driving erratically with four children and another passenger in the vehicle, police say.
Ash Brionni, 27, has been charged with four counts of endangering welfare of children and one count each of driving while under the influence, possession of a small amount of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, and driving while license is suspended or revoked.
On Wednesday night, a constable called dispatch to alert them of an erratic driver in a Mercedes Benz traveling westbound on Route 30 in Springettsbury Township.
The constable, which continued to follow the vehicle, stopped behind the driver at a red light signal on Route 30 at North Sherman Street. An officer arrived at the location shortly after and followed the Mercedes Benz as it turned onto on North Sherman Street.
“I observed the Mercedes Benz conducted a wide left turn into the right straight lane of N. Sherman Street in the 1000 block of N. Sherman St.,” Springettsbury Township Police Officer Fred Lucas wrote in the criminal complaint. “I observed the driver side tires of the Mercedes Benz travel over the double centerline for approximately 50 feet.”
The officer then initiated a traffic stop, where he could smell the odor of marijuana coming from inside the vehicle, according to the criminal complaint.
After going back to his police cruiser and speaking with the constable — who told police what he observed while driving behind the Mercedes Benz — the officer requested that Brionni, the front passenger and the four children to exit the vehicle.
The officer then conducted a search of the vehicle which discovered several pieces of a green leafy substance (later positively identified as a presence of marijuana) and a tied, clear plastic sandwich bag that contained six individual pink Ziploc bags with a green leafy substance inside, the criminal complaint alleges.
The front passenger reportedly admitted that the marijuana was his and that he was smoking it earlier in the day with Brionni.
Brionni allegedly told police that said she smoked marijuana in the parking lot of Field of Screams in Lancaster, prior to getting in her vehicle and driving to York, according to the criminal complaint.
“At the conclusion of the field sobriety tests and based on the totality of the circumstances, it was my opinion that Ash [Brionni] was under the influence to a degree that rendered her incapable of safely operating a vehicle without endangering herself of any of the other occupants within the vehicle,” the officer wrote.
