re: Substance claimed to be bird poop by Georgia Southern QB tests positive for cocaine

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Drug charge dropped against Georgia Southern quarterback Shai Werts[

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The possession of cocaine charge has been dropped against Georgia Southern quarterback Shai Werts, the prosecutor in Saluda County, South Carolina, told the Savannah Morning News on Thursday, Aug. 8. Al Eargle, the Deputy Solicitor for the 11th Judicial Circuit which includes Saluda County, told Werts’ attorney, Townes Jones IV, that these kinds of charges would not be pressed on “his watch,” Jones said.

South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) tests were conducted on the substance samples collected from the hood of Werts’ 2016 Dodge Charger, but the results confirmed that no controlled substance was present in the samples. “I have not seen (the SLED results) yet,” Eargle said on a phone call Thursday night. “But I was informed that the test did come back and that there was no controlled substance found.”

A native of nearby Clinton, South Carolina, Werts was charged on July 31 with misdemeanor possession of cocaine and speeding after his silver Dodge Charger was clocked going 80 mph on Chappells Highway at 8:58 that evening in Saluda County. The speeding charge remains.

Werts, the Eagles’ starting quarterback, was suspended from the team for two days before returning to practice on Sunday.

Field tests taken by two different officers on the substances tested positive for cocaine with two different kits, in two different spots of the hood. “They’d have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that Werts was responsible for the substance’s presence on his vehicle, Jones said. “As a prosecutor, I have an obligation to seek justice and not just to convict,” Jones said Eargle told him.

Jones also said that the prosecutor told him that his office “couldn’t prove that (Werts) knew what the substance was on his car.” Eargle, a law enforcement officer and prosecutor since 1986, says his office has a responsibility to view the case evidence and ultimately decide if Werts knew what was on his hood. “As prosecutors, it’s quite simple. We view a case as it relates to a courtroom and what our burden of proof is, and that is beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said. “After I extensively looked at everything that law enforcement presented to me, I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t meet that burden of proof.”

Jones said he would not advise Werts to seek a public apology from the Saluda County Sheriff’s Office.
“They had a pretty credible basis for pursuing, and ultimately stopping him and that is speeding,” Jones said. “Then they didn’t do anything wrong by attempting to collect evidence, or what they saw as evidence even though they had no basis from looking at him and looking at the inside of his car to think that he was transporting drugs. “But they still saw what they saw on the hood of his car and made a common-sense determination of what they thought it was and they collected it. It tested positive so they were acting within the bounds of the law at the time.”

When Werts was contacted by Jones on Thursday around 5:15 p.m., the junior quarterback was in a meeting with coaches and players in Statesboro but stepped out to take his attorney’s incoming call. Jones said Werts was “happy to hear the news” but “confident that’s what would ultimately happen.”

“He said, ‘Please call mama.’” Werts’ mother, Shona Watts, received the call from Jones minutes later and was understandably ecstatic. “I told her, ‘Now don’t go celebrating too much,’” Jones recalled with a laugh.

“She said, ‘Oh no, don’t try and ask me to hold that back, this is a hallelujah day, honey. We’re going out.’ So she was very excited but she never doubted anything that her son had said to her.”

Georgia Southern officials were reached by phone on Thursday at 7 p.m. Although they had heard the reports of dropped charges, they had not yet received official word from Saluda County. Until officials do notify Georgia Southern, the school will continue to operate under the Student-Athlete Code of Conduct protocol which states that all athletes convicted of misdemeanors could be subject to a one-game suspension.

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