Stop for speeding leads to drug arrests

A couple stopped while traveling through Carlton County earlier this month remained in the local jail this week facing multiple felony charges.

Kenneth Sky Quade, 30, of Duluth, and Bethenia Elaine Rankins, 33, of Woodbury, Minnesota, both face first- and fifth-degree drug possession charges, with first degree charges for possession of 25 grams or more of heroin or fentanyl carrying up to $1 million in fines with maximum sentences of more than 30 years in prison.

A Carlton County Sheriff’s Office deputy stopped the couple for speeding at 4:30 a.m. April 17 while they were traveling south on Interstate 35 through Carlton County. Radar clocked the vehicle going 84 mph, a criminal complaint said.

The couple’s vehicle slowed abruptly when approached by the deputy’s squad vehicle, then sped up and pulled away, leading to the stop.

“The deputy observed Quade to have bloodshot eyes, constricted pupils and to speak in a raspy voice,” said the complaint filed in Sixth District Court. The deputy also detected a smell consistent with smoking controlled substances.

Quade told the deputy he’d been on supervised release for a previous conviction related to selling heroin, and that the couple had been traveling between Duluth and the Twin Cities. When asked to search the vehicle, Quade told the deputy that officers would “just get a dog anyways.”

A search resulted in a BB gun in the center console, a foil package containing 2.0 grams of Fentanyl, and a backpack containing a flashlight with a working stun gun and 15 grams of psychedelic mushrooms.

Upon being detained, Rankins was discovered at Carlton County Jail to be concealing a bag containing 35 grams of a substance she admitted was fentanyl.

She said Quade had handed her the bag and asked her to conceal it prior to being stopped by the authorities. The state alleges the couple had “sequential individual possession,” as well as joint possession of the drugs, said the complaint.

Quade faces additional charges related to possession of the stun gun, a felony, because of his criminal history, and for speeding, a misdemeanor.

The couple remains in Carlton County Jail with Quade’s bail set at $100,000 and Rankins at $75,000.

Quade had previously been sentenced, in 2017, to 56 months at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in St. Cloud for a felony sale of controlled substance conviction related to a 2011 arrest.

He also has multiple other misdemeanor violations on his record, including speeding, failure to yield to a pedestrian and theft.

Both have remote hearings set for Monday, April 29, with Sixth District Carlton County Judge Rebekka Stumme, Rankins at 9:45 a.m. and Quade at 10 a.m.