A Genesee man landed himself and his roommate in trouble with the law when he set out to prank his mother.
According to Coudersport-based state police, in November, the mother of Dominic Dunnigan, 29, of 349 Corcoran Road, called police and asked them to do a welfare check on her son. She told them he had sent her a text message of an injury that looked like a gunshot wound.
Troopers went to Dunnigan’s residence. He said the picture was a joke, and that he had hurt himself on a nail. EMS arrived on scene and suggested Dunnigan go to the hospital for treatment. He asked troopers if he could go inside his residence to get his phone, wallet and cigarettes, and a trooper said he could, but they would have to accompany him because the original call involved a weapon, according to court records.
Dunnigan agreed. Once inside the home, Dunnigan told the officer there was no light in his bedroom; the officer turned on a flashlight, and saw a drug pipe next to the bed. When the trooper went back outside, he told another trooper what he saw.
Dunnigan was taken to Cole Memorial Hospital, and two troopers returned to the barracks to prepare a search warrant while a third guarded the residence, court records stated.
District Judge Kari McCleaft approved the warrant, and troopers searched the residence. They found a glass pipe, a grinder and a glass jar in Dunnigan’s room, all containing suspected marijuana residue.
Troopers also searched the room belonging to Dunnigan’s roommate, Lonny Seitz Jr., 30, as well as the other rooms in the residence. The troopers found alleged ingredients for manufacturing methamphetamine and an unknown white substance in a jar. They immediately stopped the search and called in the state police Clandestine Lab Team to search the residence, court records stated.
The lab team found “all the necessary ingredients for manufacturing methamphetamine” and suspected methamphetamine waste in “acid generators,” the records stated. Another bottle of suspected meth waste was found on the ground behind the residence.
Police said the results of lab tests came back in the beginning of March, showing the items seized contained the key ingredients for meth manufacturing, and the white substance in the bottles contained meth and ephedrine, the criminal complaints read.
Both men are charged with possessing precursors, conspiracy to possess precursors and possession with intent to deliver, all felonies; operating a meth lab, a second-degree felony; stores or disposes of chemical waste, a third-degree felony; possession of ephedrine and of drug paraphernalia, misdemeanors; and recklessly endangering another person, a second-degree misdemeanor.
Seitz is jailed in lieu of $75,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Monday before McCleaft. He is represented by attorney Daniel Glassmire.
As of Thursday, court dockets did not indicate arraignment information for Dunnigan.
