Driver’s 2 Little Mistakes Lead to Big Cocaine Haul

A Canoga Park man made just two small mistakes when he drove around with 125 pounds of cocaine in the trunk of a car, Los Angeles police said Tuesday. Together, they cost him dearly.

David Duane Wooley, 22, was driving a car with an expired license plate sticker, police said. And he hesitated before passing a police car that had slowed down to let him by.

As a result, two officers on patrol in Granada Hills on Monday night turned a routine traffic stop into a million-dollar cocaine bust.

Police said Wooley, who is on probation for a robbery conviction, was booked for investigation of possession of illegal narcotics for sale and jailed in lieu of $2-million bail. He was also cited for driving an unregistered vehicle.

“Every now and then you hit the big one,” said Police Capt. Tim McBride. “We tell our officers that this kind of routine traffic stop is important, because you never know what you will find.”

Police conservatively estimated the value of drugs found in the trunk of the 1978 Chevrolet Caprice at $1.1 million.

McBride said Officers Sally Barnes and Terry Richardson were driving on Reseda Boulevard at about 9:30 p.m. when they slowed to let the car pass them.

“The car didn’t pass at first--the driver hesitated,” McBride said. “When he finally did pass, he seemed to the officers to be acting very nervous. That aroused their suspicions.”

The officers then noticed the expired registration sticker and pulled the car over at Mayall Street.

Because Wooley had improper registration documents for the car, the officers could not determine who owned it. Wooley also had an outstanding traffic warrant against him. Therefore, the officers decided to detain Wooley for questioning and impound the car.

McBride said impoundment is routine in order to determine if a car with suspicion registration has been stolen.

He said that as Barnes and Richardson waited for the car to be towed away, they opened the trunk and found the cocaine in 56 gauze-and-plastic-wrapped kilo-size packages.