Teen free after drug no-show in cop cookies

updated 8:27 p.m. ET July 10, 2008

LAKE WORTH, Texas - A teenager jailed on accusations of delivering drug-laced cookies to a dozen police stations was told he would go free Thursday after tests showed no drugs in goodies taken to two departments.

Blue Mound and Lake Worth police said tests by the Tarrant County medical examiner showed there were no controlled substances in cookies delivered this week by Christian V. Phillips, 18, who was jailed in Lake Worth on $75,000 bond on a charge of tampering with a consumer product.

Phillips, 18, was arrested there Tuesday after officers said they smelled marijuana in the basket and their preliminary tests detected LSD, Police Chief Brett McGuire said.

Although Phillips delivered goodies to about a dozen stations in the past couple of weeks, only two had any treats left over to be tested for drugs. Some officers in Fort Worth and Watauga ate the cookies but did not become ill, and they recently had blood tests to determine whether drugs were in their systems.

After receiving the results Thursday afternoon, Lake Worth planned to drop the charges and release Phillips, McGuire said.

Denies wrongdoing
Phillips had told detectives his friend might have been smoking pot while he was baking, and he denied contaminating the goodies or trying to harm anyone, McGuire has said.

Phillips' attorney L. Patrick Davis earlier told The Associated Press that "a lot of things don't add up."

"I'm really upset that this thing has gotten to this point, that this kid has gotten convicted in the media before any evidence was collected," Davis said.

Davis said Phillips was delivering the cookies for Mothers Against Drunk Driving as part of community service work after he was arrested last year at a party in Watauga. MADD also has confirmed that he was doing work for the organization.

Last year, Phillips was charged with assault of a public servant, a felony, but it was reduced to assault with bodily injury, a misdemeanor. He did not plead guilty but was sentenced to an anger management class and about 80 hours of community service, Davis said. He was not put on probation.

If Phillips had completed the terms of his pretrial memorandum agreement, something for first-time offenders, the case would have been removed from his record — which would have been Wednesday, Davis said.

He graduated from high school in May and plans to attend college this fall.

"His life's been derailed, and I hope he can pick up the pieces," Davis said.

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