A Newnan man was found guilty Tuesday of cocaine trafficking and several other charges stemming from a traffic stop in April 2004 on Ga. Highway 314 near Kenwood Road.

Shedrick Delmond McCombs, 26, of Raymond Hill Road, was sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by five years on probation by Fayette Superior Court Judge Paschal A. English Jr., who also fined McCombs $200,000.

A jury ruled McCombs guilty of trafficking in cocaine, possession of ecstasy, obstruction of a police officer, possession of marijuana (less than one ounce) and a tag light violation.

A former Fayette County sheriff’s deputy testified during the trial that McCombs threw a large plastic bag containing the drugs out the window of his car. The bag contained more than 35 grams of cocaine wrapped in small individual bags in addition to the ecstasy tablets and marijuana, said former deputy John Acosta, now a deputy sheriff in Butts County.

A video of the traffic stop showed McCombs scuffling with Acosta after the deputy secured handcuffs on one of McCombs’s wrists. Acosta hung onto the handcuffs and was dragged across two lanes into the center median of the highway when another deputy who had been riding with Acosta intervened to bring McCombs under control.

McCombs told the jury the drugs weren’t his, and that he ran away in part because he was afraid he would be confused with Brian Nichols, the man who shot and killed several people while escaping the Fulton County Courthouse.

Prosecutor Warren Sellers noted that the Nichols incident hadn’t yet occurred at the time of McCombs’s arrest.

McCombs also said he had gotten the money from the mother of his baby who was a bartender, and it was to be used for a down payment on an apartment. He added that he wasn’t sure he had the amount of money the deputies said they found on him: more than $700.

The drugs found at the incident scene were recovered on the side of the road several feet from McCombs’s car, Acosta said. The drugs had an estimated street value of $3,500.

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