On May 18, 2025, at approximately 1:55 A.M., an officer with the South St. Paul Police Department initiated a traffic stop on a vehicle near the intersection of Airport Road and Henry Avenue in the City of South St. Paul, the County of Dakota, the State of Minnesota. Prior to initiating the traffic stop, the officer observed the vehicle to fail to stop at a stop sign and ended up stopped in the officer’s traffic lane, requiring the officer to drive around the vehicle to avoid an accident. The officer ran the vehicle’s plate and observed that the registered owner had a canceled driver’s license.
The vehicle pulled over and the driver identified himself as the registered owner of the vehicle, WILLIAM RAYMOND HUFF [DOB REDACTED], herein the Defendant. The Defendant acknowledged that he failed to stop at the stop sign and admitted that his license was not valid. While the officer spoke with the Defendant, he observed the Defendant’s pupils to be unusually constricted, red, and watery. Based on his experience as a drug recognition evaluator, the officer asked the Defendant to exit the vehicle for standardized field sobriety tests.
The Defendant exited the vehicle and performed the tests. During the walk-and-turn test, the Defendant had difficulty remaining in the instructed position during instructions, placed his hands in his pockets to help him balance, used his arms for balance, stepped off the line, stopped while walking, failed to count aloud, and took an incorrect number of steps. The Defendants balance was unsteady and the officer observed visible leg tremors during the test. During the one-leg stand test, the Defendant had difficulty performing, continually putting his foot down, using his arms for balance, and had visible leg tremors.
Based on the observations, the officer believed the defendant was impaired. The Defendant provided a breath sample, which yielded a result of 0.000, indicating that alcohol was not the cause of the impairment indicators. The officer took the Defendant’s pulse and observed it to be 110 BPM, significantly higher than the average range. The Defendant was placed under arrest and searched incident to arrest. During the search, officers located a small bag of suspected marijuana in his front jacket pocket and a plastic bag containing a white crystal-like substance in the defendant’s right sock.
The Defendant was transported to the police department where a search warrant for blood or urine was drafted. The warrant was signed by the Honorable Judge Christopher Lehmann and executed at 3:11 A.M. The Defendant agreed to provide a 2 19HA-CR-25-2062 Filed in District Court State of Minnesota 12/2/2025 blood sample, which was collected and submitted to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for analysis. The Defendant was read the Miranda Warning and he agreed to speak with officers. The Defendant admitted to smoking methamphetamine and shook his head in the affirmative that the substance in his sock was methamphetamine.
