Christopher Macrae told a Schuylkill County jury Tuesday that he wasn’t high during an August 2025 traffic stop in Orwigsburg, he was just giving police fake names because he was messing with them for messing with him. Jurors didn’t buy it, taking less than 30 minutes to convict him of felony contraband, misdemeanor DUI and providing false identification, and several summary traffic charges.
Macrae, 47, of Kutztown, also told the 8 women and 4 men hearing his criminal case in Courtroom 5 at Schuylkill County Courthouse that he didn’t know about an eighth of weed found on his person while he was being processed at the local prison later that same day because he just grabbed a pair of pants at his parents’ house that probably weren’t even his and may not have even been clean, despite just coming back from the laundromat.
And as for the meth found in a cigarette pack in his pocket? That was Katie’s and he was just holding it for her because she had court that day and instead of putting it on top of the fridge at her house like he’d planned, Macrae said he must have slipped it into his pack of smokes.
Commonwealth v. Christopher Macrae
Macrae’s conviction followed a full-day trial that focused on a traffic stop in Orwigsburg on Aug. 27 last year. On that day, an off-duty Orwigsburg police officer, Bryce Lewis, was outside when he saw but mostly heard a gold Saturn. Only, Lewis said he wasn’t sure it was even a car it was that loud. He told jurors that he and another person he was with that day actually looked up to see if they could spot the helicopter overhead.
Lewis said he called the Orwigsburg Police station and got Officer Robert Bechtel on the phone. He told Bechtel about what he’d seen and heard – a man “slunched” over the steering wheel driving a really loud gold Saturn.
“You’re going to hear the vehicle before you even see it,” Lewis said.
Bechtel told jurors he went out to investigate and found this loud vehicle near Erb St. and Lee Ct. that day. That’s when he initiated a traffic stop. By the time he’d driven behind the Saturn, Macrae was already outside of it and looking underneath. Macrae said he was summoned by a friend to come from his home in Berks County to work on the Saturn that had an exhaust leak and that when he got out of the vehicle, he was just checking the extent of the problem.
From dash and body cam footage shown to jurors, Bechtel is seen and heard asking Macrae for identification. When Macrae couldn’t provide it, the officer simply asked for his name and that’s when the trouble started.
Macrae gives several names, none of which are actually his. At times, he’s inaudible because of mumbling. Bechtel has Macrae spell the fake names he’s giving. After checking databases, everyone Macrae is claiming to be is coming up empty.
“I wanted to know who I’m dealing with,” Bechtel said on the stand.
It wasn’t until Macrae was ultimately arrested after the name game had run its course and he was taken to the State Police-Schuylkill Haven barracks that authorities were able to get a positive ID on their suspect.
During his testimony later in the trial, Macrae said he was just messing with police because he felt they were being disrespectful toward him.
“He started irritating me. It was tit for tat at that point with him,” Macrae told jurors.
Macrae also claimed that Bechtel was being “aggressive on the down low” and saying things very quietly toward him while taking him into custody at the scene of the traffic stop. He said he didn’t understand why what Bechtel was saying that he felt was so disrespectful wasn’t heard on the camera footage captured that day.
“He knew what he was doing,” the defendant said, suggesting Bechtel was able to avoid being detected by his cameras saying what he said.
On the way to potentially identifying him with the help of State Police, Macrae kept emitting a high-pitched whining noise. Bechtel actually did an impression of it on the stand before jurors got to hear it for themselves on the camera footage.
Macrae said that wasn’t anything more than his reaction to Bechtel placing handcuffs on him too tightly and that he was in pain.
“He kept saying it over and over again.”
At the State Police barracks, Macrae was investigated further for potentially being under the influence. Alcohol was quickly ruled out as a possible cause of Macrae’s behavior. But Cpl. Carl Nerthling, a drug recognition expert, testified that it was evident based on his hour-long interaction with him that Macrae was under the influence of analgesic narcotics.
Nerthling said that during his analysis, he noticed “puncture wounds” on Macrae’s arm and he often presented as being “very drowsy” with his eyelids closing. He described Macrae as being “on the nod” through much of his pinpoint rundown of the signs of being under the influence.
Macrae denied that he was high at the time of the traffic stop and arrest. Again, he said he was messing with police.
“It was just me being angry from their pressuring,” he said. “They were being ignorant toward me and I was giving it right back. They made a joke of it so I played along.”
Nerthling said that during his time with Macrae, the defendant often referred to himself as being mentally disabled.
“His words … he was mentally retarded,” the corporal said. “He kept saying that over and over again. His words, not mine … ‘I’m retarded’.”
The Felony
The most serious charge Macrae was facing as a result of the events of that August day actually stemmed from what occurred at Schuylkill County Prison. During his testimony, the defendant eventually said that at least one reason why he was giving fake names during the initial traffic stop was because of a warrant out for his arrest related to a separate incident.
At the prison’s sally port, Macrae was given a final chance to unload any potential contraband that might be on his person at that time. He did not and entered the prison for processing. During a strip search, two small bags of weed fell from Macrae’s pants. That tacked on a felony charge to his growing list of offenses that day.
During his testimony, however, Macrae told a real head-scratcher of a story to jurors about how that weed ended up in his pants.
“I had no idea where it came from,” he said on the stand.
In fact, Macrae said he didn’t even know whose pants he was wearing that day. They probably weren’t his because they were tight, he said. Prior to getting a ride up from Kutztown, Macrae said he was at his parents house and just grabbed a pair of pants from a bag of laundry that’d just come back from the laundromat. He said his sister brought the pants back and he wasn’t even sure if they were clean.
“I grabbed dirty pants,” he said, then almost immediately contradicting himself by saying, “I don’t know if they were dirty or clean. I just grabbed a pair of pants.”
Later in the investigation, Bechtel said he recoved a bag of methamphetamine that was stashed in one of two packs of cigarettes that Macrae had in his pockets at the time of his arrest.
Macrae said that meth wasn’t his. It was actually his friend Katie’s and that he was just holding it for her that day because she was due in court. He said his initial plan was to place the bag of meth on top of her refrigerator but instead, placed it in that pack of smokes.
Schuylkill County Judge Christina Hale revoked Macrae’s bail following his conviction.
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