Fight leads to arrest of man under investigation for trafficking

A man suspected of trafficking drugs in Lincoln County faces multiple felony charges after leading Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office deputies on a high-speed chase in March.

Jason Ralph Eby, 46, pleaded not guilty to criminal endangerment and two counts of criminal possession of dangerous drugs, all felonies, in Lincoln County District Court on July 19. While investigators with the Northwest Montana Drug Task Force had long had their eyes on Eby, a late night fight in a local trailer park led to his arrest.

In an affidavit, Deputy James Derryberry recalled responding to Three Corners Trailer Park about 11:53 p.m., March 11 after a neighbor reported residents yelling at each other. By the time Derryberry arrived, the scene had calmed some. One man in the thick of it had left in a blue Subaru, the neighbor told him.

Derryberry interviewed another neighbor, who told him that the man in the Subaru threatened to return with friends to settle the situation before leaving, court documents said.

When a city police officer saw a blue Subaru cutting through the parking lot of a nearby shopping plaza, Derryberry asked him to try and stop the vehicle and then headed out himself. Derryberry spotted the vehicle sitting at the intersection of U.S. Highway 2 and Three Corner Road as he left the trailer park. He followed it as it crossed to Indian Head Road.

When the Subaru turned onto Albert Way, Derryberry hit his lights and siren. The Subaru allegedly made a U-turn, turned back onto Indian Head Road and then went down U.S. Highway 2 toward Troy. At that point, authorities recognized Eby as the driver.

Derryberry followed as the Subaru hit speeds of 100 miles per hour before the highway narrowed to two lanes, court documents said. He recalled that the Subaru accelerated after the reaching the 70 miles per hour zone and the two hit speeds of 130 miles per hour. In the affidavit, Derryberry wrote that the other driver occasionally swerved into the eastbound lane and flicked his lights off “to try and evade me.”

As the pair headed into Troy, the Subaru decelerated to speeds of 70 miles per hour, court documents said. But it soon sped up again, wrote Derryberry, who lost sight of the vehicle briefly after it went over the Callahan Creek Road.

A couple inside a vehicle that had pulled over told Derryberry they saw the Subaru headed up Callahan Creek Road. Derryberry updated his backup and returned to the chase. Deputy Ben Fisher and Troy Police officer Travis Miller had joined him by that time and the former suspected the Subaru had gone down Old Callahan Road.

Since Derryberry had passed Old Callahan Road, Fisher and Miller turned onto it and found the Subaru parked a couple of miles down. The vehicle was hot to the touch, but empty, court documents said.

While the affidavit does not document the circumstances of Eby’s arrest, it does detail the search of the Subaru. From the outside, Derryberry spotted a clear tube filled with a green, leafy substance on the backseat. He described it as looking like marijuana and more than an ounce’s worth.

Derryberry also saw a wad of cash wedged into the driver’s seat and a torn and burned sandwich baggy, “consistent with someone who was wrapping drugs,” he wrote.

After the vehicle was towed to the Libby impound lot, Derryberry noticed a glass pipe on the driver’s side floorboard.

A K-9 brought in to check the vehicle alerted to the presence of narcotics, court documents said. The dog, Derryberry wrote, is not trained to detect marijuana, “which indicates other types of dangerous drugs [were] within the vehicle.”

Detective Brandon Holzer of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office told Derryberry that Eby was under investigation by the regional task force for allegedly bringing drugs into the county. On probation in Idaho, Eby was incarcerated in a penitentiary in that state in 2019 for possession of a controlled substance, court documents said.

After obtaining a search warrant for the vehicle, Derryberry recovered a clear glass tube, glass pipe with white residue tested for methamphetamine and 9.1 ounces of a green, leafy substance that tested presumptively positive for marijuana as well as a small weighing scale, according to court documents.

Criminal endangerment is punishable with up to 10 years in Montana State Prison and a fine of $50,000. The maximum punishment for criminal possession of dangerous drugs is five years behind bars and a $5,000 fine.

An omnibus hearing is scheduled for Oct. 4 with a pretrial conference to follow on Nov. 8. A possible trial date of Dec. 14 was set at his arraignment.