Chicago Man Sentenced After Indiana Cop Finds 2.8 Pounds Of Fentanyl

SOUTH BEND, IN — A Chicago man was sentenced Thursday to four years in federal prison followed by five years of supervised release after he admitted to an attempt to deliver more than a kilogram of fentanyl.

Shanell Medina-Hipolite, 24, was arrested on the morning of Oct. 10, 2019, after he was pulled over on westbound Interstate 90 in northern Indiana by a Hobart Police Department officer in an unmarked car working on a Drug Enforcement Administration-funded enforcement effort, according to court records.

Medina-Hipolite was indicted in February 2020 with one count of knowingly possessing more than 400 grams of fentanyl with the intent to distribute it. Court records show police reported finding 2.8 pounds of the drug in a car he was driving.

Brian Taylor, the arresting officer, reported seeing Medina-Hipolite's white car driving in the opposite lanes following a truck at an unsafe distance, although the Hobart officer did not activate his unmarked car's dashboard mounted camera until after the traffic stop, a defense motion noted.

According to a motion to suppress evidence filed in May on Medina-Hipolite's behalf, the DEA report describing the stop shows Taylor told his task force officer that it had been a black SUV tailgating another car.

In this case, according to defense attorney Scott Frankel, Hipolite-Medina was ordered out of his car, hand-cuffed, interrogated and detained much longer than necessary to write a ticket for tailgating, which is rarely enforced anyway.

The officer found responses from Hipolite-Medina, who struggles to speak English, to be inconsistent with comments from his passenger, which served as his justification to search the car and find marijuana and later fentanyl inside, according to Frankel's motion.

Before a judge could rule on whether the traffic stop was illegal or not, Hipolite- Medina agreed to plea guilty to possession with intent to distribute fentanyl in exchange for withdrawing the motion to suppress evidence and prosecutors recommending a sentence at the low end of the guideline range of 57-71 months.

"I knew the substance was in the vehicle and it was my intent to deliver it to another person," he said in a plea agreement in July.

In a sentencing memo, Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Schaffer said Medina-Hipolite has a "minimal record" and several contacts with law enforcement.

"Medina-Hipolite's' employment history is sparse and he has substance abuse issues," Schaffer said, recommending that the 48-month prison sentence, at the low end of the guideline range, would be appropriate. "The government believes a term of supervised release in this matter will assist Mr. Medina-Hipolite in traveling down the right path in the future."