PD: Man Found With $2.5K in Cash, Marijuana at Midnight Was 'Paying Off Student Loan'

 
A Bloomfield man pulled over by an officer late one night last month for a traffic violation surrendered a bag of marijuana and nearly $2,500 in cash, explaining he was on his way to pay off his student loan, according to Middletown Police.

Just before midnight on March 28, Patrick H. Holung, 23, of Ivory Road, Bloomfield, was driving a Honda on Washington Street with tinted windows, according to police.

The report says he told the officer he was visiting his girlfriend on Ferry Street as the odor of marijuana wafted from the car. Without being asked, police say, Holung handed the officer a baggie with 2.5 grams of marijuana inside and, while saying he was on his way to pay his student loans, offered up $2,469 in cash from the center console of the car.

Holung told police he had a pay stub in the car from his employer, Hoffman Honda in East Hartford, but couldn't find it and was carrying the cash after his mother purportedly gave it to him the day prior, the report details.

Inside the glove compartment police found a yellow box with sandwich bags tied with small knots and tiny flakes of marijuana, the report says.

When his girlfriend arrived, she said the baggies belonged to her, and Holung's two pay-as-you-go cell phones, he said, were to call his cousin in Jamaica. Tobacco and rolling papers were also confiscated. 

He was charged with a non-student possessing drugs near school, possession of less than half-ounce marijuana, and possession of marijuana paraphernalia.