Nashville man, woman charged after drug task force finds cocaine and guns within reach of children

NASHVILLE, Ark. — A Nashville man and woman each face a charge carrying a possible life sentence after drug agents searching their home found cocaine, a 9 mm handgun and an AK-47-style rifle, with the handgun kept in a bedside nightstand “with easy access to the children,” according to probable cause affidavits.

Deontrel Marqwon “Rel” Armstrong, 32, and Raydrianna Lasha Williamson, 34, were charged Wednesday in Howard County Circuit Court. Both are charged with simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms, possession of cocaine with purpose to deliver, maintaining a drug premises and second-degree endangering the welfare of a minor. Armstrong is also charged with delivery of cocaine, possession of a firearm by a felon and bringing a prohibited article into a jail, after a marijuana cigarette was found on him during a strip search at the Howard County Detention Center, the affidavit said.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Aaron Brasel filed the charges for 9th West Prosecuting Attorney Mickey Buchanan. Simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms is punishable by 10 to 40 years or life in prison. The possession with purpose to deliver charge carries six to 30 years.

It is the second drug and gun case out of Nashville in a month. An 18-year-old Nashville man was charged Oct. 19 after a Sept. 25 search of his home.

Controlled buy

The investigation began with a controlled buy on Sept. 5, according to an affidavit by a special agent with the 9th West Drug Task Force. A confidential informant arranged to buy cocaine from Armstrong and met him at his home on Arkansas 371 West while the agent watched, the affidavit said. The informant came back with a bag of white powder that weighed 7.5 grams on an uncalibrated scale, and a recording device the informant carried showed Armstrong come out of the house and make the exchange, according to the affidavit.

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The search

Agents with the 9th West Drug Task Force, Arkansas State Police and Howard County sheriff’s deputies served a search warrant at the home on Oct. 7, the affidavits said. Williamson and a toddler girl were inside.

Agents found 46.6 grams of suspected powder cocaine, 160 grams of marijuana, a set of digital scales, a grinder, a pill bottle with assorted pills, the 9 mm handgun and the AK-47-style rifle, according to the affidavits. About 13.7 grams of the cocaine was in an open plastic bag in a lower drawer in the main bedroom. The handgun and some of the marijuana were in the nightstand by the bed, “with easy access to the children that reside in the residence,” the affidavits said.

While the search was underway, 9th West and 8th South drug task force agents arrested Armstrong in Miller County on an earlier warrant and took him to the Miller County jail, according to his affidavit. After being read his rights there, he said he was not going to say anything, the affidavit said. He was then taken to the Howard County jail, where the strip search turned up the marijuana cigarette.

Williamson was arrested at the home. Interviewed the next day, she told an agent “she didn’t know anything about the selling of illegal narcotics and that the only thing she did was smoke marijuana,” according to her affidavit.

Jail records show Williamson was booked into the Howard County jail the night of Oct. 7 and Armstrong early the next morning. Bond for both was listed as “to be determined” on the arrest warrant affidavits. A defense lawyer has entered an appearance for Armstrong, and Circuit Judge Bryan Chesshir signed a routine discovery order in his case Thursday. No arraignment date appears in either court file.