Bench warrant for weed possession gets Philly man 6 weeks in NJ jail without a phone

Birds were still asleep when Ivan Haynes awoke last Friday, but he was eager to get to court for the final act in the existential mess that had landed him in jail for 41 days.

"This is by far the craziest thing that's ever happened to me," said Haynes, 60, of Southwest Philadelphia.

The crazy actually started with a stroke of luck one night in 2013. Haynes said he'd found some cash on the floor of the SugarHouse Casino in Fishtown and lost it all on slots. The casino tossed him out, and he continued going about his business, working as a sound engineer at city nightclubs and private events.

Two years later, Bensalem police served the Army veteran with a theft warrant for the casino incident. He paid a fine and swept basketball courts for the Police Athletic League as part of his sentence. Life, again, went on.

But when they served the warrant, the cops also found a pipe and marijuana on Haynes, enough to roll "two or three" joints, he said. He was charged with possession of a small amount of marijuana for personal use, but didn't know it because court notices were mailed to an old address.

And so, on July 30, when Haynes was a passenger in a car on the New Jersey Turnpike in Middlesex County, he found himself en route to the Twilight Zone.

Haynes actually was headed to a gig, a wedding in North Jersey, with a friend's son when the car veered off the road and hit a guardrail about 1:30 p.m. No one was hurt. New Jersey state police asked for IDs.

"I didn't think nothing of it, because I didn't have anything to hide," Haynes recalled.

The next thing he knew, he was in custody, where he stayed for 41 days this summer.

The New Jersey State Police said Haynes had a warrant for failure to appear in court on the misdemeanor Bensalem drug charges. They took him to the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick.

It was a Saturday, so Haynes figured he'd be released by that Monday. He called his son to let him know.

But the weekend turned into a week, which turned into six. Haynes said he couldn't make more calls because his cellphone was confiscated and he didn't remember anyone's number. A social worker told him it would take a week for the officials to get it back.

"I'm getting really scared now," he said, recalling the moment. "The only number I can remember is my own."

Haynes said he had a brief hearing seven days after his arrest - via video monitor, without an attorney.

"They said, you can't say nothing," Haynes recalled. "You can't ask no questions."

When the hearing was over, Haynes figured he would be returned to Bucks County to face the marijuana charges. Instead, he was taken to the general inmate population.

"I'm like, 'You mean I'm going to real prison with real prisoners, just like in TV? I've never been in prison in my life,' " Haynes said. "I'm scared to death. I'm thinking this how it's going to end."

An inmate took issue with Haynes' sitting in the man's seat in the lunchroom, but otherwise Haynes had no problems. Inmates said they respected that he was a Philly guy. The only way he could communicate with the outside world was to write a letter to his son. Finally, on Sept. 2, he had an extradition hearing in Middlesex County, at which he was represented by a public defender.

Haynes said the judge was angry he'd been held so long. The judge, Colleen M. Flynn, declined to comment about Haynes' case.

A week later, on Sept. 9, jail officials returned Haynes' cellphone and brought him back to Bucks County for a bail hearing. After 20 minutes there, he was released.

Officials at the jail and in the Bucks County District Attorney's Office did not respond to requests for comment.

Deputy Tony DiSandro, head of the warrant unit at the Bucks County Sheriff's Office, said the office was notified of Haynes' arrest in New Jersey right away.

Once extradition is waived, DiSandro said, his unit moves quickly to go get the defendant.

Still, he said, some people get lost in the system.

"I'm not saying that's what happened, but we were not notified that he waived extradition until Sept. 6," DiSandro said. "When we're notified Sept. 6, we kick our plan into action and he's here. Whatever happened between July 30 and then, you'd have to ask Middlesex."

A spokesman for the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office said Haynes' case was a "Pennsylvania issue." That spokesman and a prosecutor who handled the case did not return repeated requests for additional comment.

An American Civil Liberties Union official said Haynes' story is an example of how life-altering even a misdemeanor can be for someone unfamiliar with the criminal justice system.

"In 2016, nobody should spend an hour in jail for possession of marijuana - let alone days," said Ari Rosmarin, public policy director for the ACLU of New Jersey. "He had 40 days of no income."

Last Friday, Haynes had to be back at the Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown by 9 a.m., so he set his alarm for 5. He took a trolley in Southwest Philadelphia, hopped on the subway, then boarded the SEPTA Route 55 bus at the Olney Transportation Center, crawling north on Route 611.

He got to the courthouse around 8 and took a seat with the masses of people charged with misdemeanors, grumbling about missing work and about their charges.

"I just want to hurry up and get out of here," Haynes said amid the chatter in the bustling courtroom.

Two hours later, Judge C. Theodore Fritsch Jr. sentenced him to time served. He had to fill out some paperwork and took public transportation back to Southwest Philadelphia. After his daylong ordeal, he was back home by 4 p.m.

But life for Haynes isn't quite the same. He missed a lot of sound-engineering gigs while in jail, and clients were not pleased.

"There's lot of people not returning my phone calls," he said. "I left a lot of people hanging because of this nonsense."

narkj@phillynews.com

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@jasonnark