Driver pulls a U-turn on the Quickway and lands in county jail

Monroe — Trooper Joe Mitchell was in the middle of a routine traffic stop on the westbound lanes of Route 17 in Goshen on March 17 when he saw a tan Cadillac Escalade, traveling eastbound on Route 17, pull a U-turn, cross the center median, and then proceed westbound. The trooper, who was working on the Highway Task Force out of State Police in Monroe, immediately terminated the stop he was on and went after the Escalade. What happened next began with an aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle charge and then unfolded into theft and drug charges, according to a press release from the State Police out of Monroe. Mitchell pulled over the Escalade and began to interview the driver. She told him that she didn’t have her driver license with her, but provided a name and date of birth of a person from Milton. The trooper checked the DMV computer files and found that while there as a valid license for Devianne W. Thormes, 21, of 10 Sherman Drive in Milton, it had been suspended. Thormes was charged with third-degree aggravated, unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and second-degree criminal impersonation. She was placed in the trooper’s car and a local wrecker was called to impound the Escalade. While Mitchell was conducting an inventory of the contents, state police said he came upon a black pocketbook with credit cards, identification and other personal items in the name of a 44-year-old Poughkeepsie woman, along with what police called two suspicious-looking pills in the driver’s door handle area. Police later determine the pills were acetaminophen and hydrocodone, which are Schedule III controlled substances. At the barracks in Monroe, Thormes told the trooper she had found the pocketbook in a Wendy’s Restaurant in Poughkeepsie two weeks earlier and she had been meaning to bring it to a police station sometime. When the owner of the pocketbook was contacted, she said that on Monday, March 6, she had accidentally left her pocketbook on her chair in the Wendy’s Restaurant in the town of Poughkeepsie. The purse was gone when she came back to retrieve it. She reported the theft to the Poughkeepsie police. While at the restaurant, she was shown a surveillance video of the dining room that showed a couple with two children, sitting at the same table where she had eaten, leaving the restaurant with her pocketbook. Poughkeepsie Police confirmed the report of the theft of $140 in cash, three Linens and Things store gift cards valued at $175, along with a book of Mobil car wash coupons. Thormes was then charged with fourth-degree of criminal possession of stolen property, a felony; seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and second-degree criminal impersonation, both misdemeanors; and vehicle and traffic charges. She was arraigned before the Goshen Town Justice Thomas Cione and sent to the Orange County Jail in lieu of $ 2,500 cash bail.