A Palm Beach County deputy saw a white vehicle abruptly swerve out of its lane late Oct. 1, then spotted what was nearby: a black moped traveling after dark with no lights activated and no visible tag.<\/p>\n
Deputy Dylan Snelgrove stopped the rider near Southern Boulevard and identified him as 39-year-old Michael Christopher Giannotti. Giannotti said he was trying to get to a friend’s house, acknowledged he should not have been riding the moped, and told the deputy his license had been suspended “for years” because of unpaid fines, according to a criminal probable cause affidavit filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n He also claimed that he received the moped from someone named Desmond about a year earlier. A records check showed multiple license suspensions and cancellations, while a check of the moped’s vehicle identification number showed its registration had been canceled and that it had not been registered since 2021.<\/p>\n With Giannotti headed for arrest over the traffic violations<\/a>, Snelgrove told him he would also search the backpack he was carrying. That prompted an objection and an unusually personal explanation.<\/p>\n The Backpack Gets Complicated<\/p>\n Giannotti told the deputy he did not want anyone looking through the backpack because there were “naked photos of him” inside.<\/p>\n The search instead led Snelgrove to a glasses case containing a large amount of crystal-like material and a glass smoking pipe. Another pipe was found in Giannotti’s pocket, and the deputy noted a blue coating on his tongue that he believed was consistent with recent methamphetamine use.<\/p>\n Deputies also found a small plastic tube containing a bag and three capsules filled with white powder.<\/p>\n Before the arrest could move much farther, Giannotti’s dog, JoJo, became aggressive around the deputies. Rather than leave the animal unattended, deputies let Giannotti sit on a nearby bench while they arranged for his mother to pick up the dog.<\/p>\n Once JoJo was safely out of the situation, deputies took Giannotti into custody and brought the seized substances in for weighing and field testing.<\/p>\n Fourteen Grams on the Nose<\/p>\n At a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office evidence facility, the crystal substance weighed exactly 14 grams and returned a presumptive positive field test for methamphetamine.<\/p>\n The white powder weighed one gram. One field test presumptively indicated fentanyl, while a second field test returned a negative result. The affidavit does not describe a laboratory confirmation of the substance.<\/p>\n Snelgrove wrote that Giannotti acknowledged possession of\/or knowledge of the drugs and paraphernalia found in the backpack. Portions of that statement are redacted from the publicly available affidavit.<\/p>\n Giannotti was booked into the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Main Detention Center<\/a> on the morning of Oct. 2.<\/p>\n