A Kutztown man who testified he gave Orwigsburg police fake names to annoy them and blamed jailhouse contraband on a random pair of pants he found in the laundry was sentenced May 21 to serve 2.5 to 9 years in state prison.
Schuylkill County Judge Christina Hale handed down the sentence in Courtroom 5 to Christopher Macrae, 47, following his March jury conviction on charges of felony contraband, misdemeanor DUI, providing false identification, and several summary traffic offenses.
The sentence caps a case that hinged on an August traffic stop in Orwigsburg and Macrae’s subsequent explanations for his behavior and the drugs found on his person, claims a Schuylkill County jury rejected after less than 30 minutes of deliberation.
The felony contraband charge stemmed from two small bags of marijuana that fell from Macrae’s clothing during a strip search at Schuylkill County Prison. On the stand, Macrae testified he had no idea where the drugs came from, claiming he grabbed the tight-fitting pants from a laundry bag at his parents’ house prior to his arrest and did not know who owned them.
“I don’t know if they were dirty or clean. I just grabbed a pair of pants,” Macrae testified.
He offered a similar defense for methamphetamine found stashed in a cigarette pack in his pocket. Macrae testified the drugs belonged to a friend who had court that day. He told jurors he was holding the methamphetamine for her and slipped it into his cigarettes instead of his initial plan of hiding it on top of her refrigerator.
The charges originated on Aug. 27 of last year, when Orwigsburg Police Officer Robert Bechtel pulled over Macrae’s loud vehicle. Dash and body camera footage presented at trial showed Macrae providing officers with multiple false names that failed to clear police databases.
Macrae testified he provided the fake names because he felt officers were disrespectful and he wanted to mess with them.
“He started irritating me. It was tit for tat at that point with him,” Macrae told jurors, though he later admitted he also concealed his identity because he had an active arrest warrant for a separate incident.
The defendant also denied being under the influence of drugs during the stop. State Police Cpl. Carl Nerthling, a drug recognition expert, testified Macrae displayed puncture wounds, drowsiness, and appeared to be under the influence of analgesic narcotics.
Macrae countered that he was sober and merely acting out. He attributed the high-pitched whining noises he made during his transport to handcuffs that had been applied too tightly.
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