By Travis Uresk
3/5/25
| Uintah County | March 4th, 2025 |
On Tuesday, Deputy Ogle with the Uintah County Sheriff’s Office was parked near McCoy Flats checking speed when he observed two suspicious vehicles on Dog Valley Road.
The vehicles met up and turned their headlights off. A short time later, one of the vehicles began traveling Northwest toward Highway 40.
At around 9:30 pm, Deputy Ogle contacted Trooper Lorensen with the Utah Highway Patrol and advised him that he and Sgt. Watkins was watching a vehicle they suspected to have narcotics.
The description of the vehicle the trooper was given was a blue 2004 GMC truck driven by 50-year-old Randy Paul Dugan.
While the trooper was responding to meet with the deputies, he was told that the suspected vehicle had stopped to contact a drug deal in the area of Dog Valley.
The trooper positioned his vehicle next to Deputy Ogle on Highway 40 at the McCoy flats turnoff, in a position to catch the vehicles as they exited onto the highway. Shortly after arriving, Deputy Ogle advised that the vehicle they could see approaching the highway was one of the suspect vehicles.
A plan was made that the trooper would stop this vehicle, and Deputy Ogle would find and stop the other.
Trooper Lorensen then observed this vehicle failing to come to a complete stop at the McCoy Flats road stop sign as it entered SR-40. Seeing the violation, he began catching up to the vehicle. The blue GMC pickup truck did not have an illuminated rear license plate. Seeing these violations, he initiated a traffic stop.
As they came to a stop near milepost 137, the trooper spoke with the vehicle's two occupants. The driver was identified as Randy Paul Dugan, and the passenger was identified as 34-year-old Ashley Dawn Crippen.
The two were advised of the reason for the stop, and Dugan's information was collected. During the interaction, the trooper noticed what appeared to be nervous behavior in Dugan and Crippen.
While the trooper was back in his vehicle performing a records check, Sgt. Watkins walked his K9 around the truck and indicated there were narcotics in the vehicle. The officers conducted a search of the vehicle and located a plastic bag containing 18 Fentanyl pills on Dugan's person.
Trooper Lorensen advised Dugan of his rights per Miranda and then began asking him questions about his activities. Dugan identified the driver of the other vehicle he had met with as Michael Allred.
The trooper confronted Dugan about the odd nature of them both taking a shortcut to town through Dog Valley at night, in the winter, and just happening to meet one of their friends along the way. Dugan indicated that he and Allred had arranged their meeting in Dog Valley using their phones.
Allred was on his way to work at Walmart, and Dugan stated that he was heading to Roosevelt from Jensen. During this interview, suspicions arose that Dugan may be actively under the influence of narcotics. When asked about recent consumption, he admitted to using Fentanyl earlier today.
The trooper then conducted sobriety tests with Dugan. Following the tests, Trooper Lorensen determined that Dugan was unsafe to drive and placed him under arrest at 11:10 pm.
It was learned that Allred had admitted to obtaining Fentanyl from Dugan. There also was an admission from either Allred or Crippen that the three had just smoked Fentanyl together.
Prior to Trooper Lorensen leaving the scene, Sgt. Watkins located a ZYN can near the trooper's car containing paraphernalia related to illicit opiate use. This can was obviously fresh, free of dust or other indication that it had been there for a long time. It was also located in an area near where both Dugan and Crippen had been standing during this investigation. Dugan denied it being him, despite earlier indicating that his preferred method of ingestion of Fentanyl was smoking.
Dugan was transported to the Uintah Basin Healthcare where two vials of blood was collected from him. He was then taken to the Uintah County Jail.
Shortly after Trooper Lorensen conducted his traffic stop, Deputy Ogle observed headlights on Dog Valley Road and what appeared to be another vehicle driving very slowly toward US-40.
It appeared the vehicle was stopping occasionally, taking a very long time to travel a very short distance. As it approached Highway 40, the car stopped near the entrance to McCoy Flats and was stationary for a couple of minutes.
The vehicle turned East on US-40, and as it passed Deputy Ogle's location, he saw that the truck's license plate light was not illuminated. The deputy activated his overhead lights and conducted a traffic stop near milepost 139 US-40.
The deputy conducted a driver-side approach and made contact with an adult male, later identified as 45-year-old Michael Keith Allred.
Deputy Ogle explained the reason for the stop and asked Michael for his driver's license, registration, and proof of insurance. The deputy requested that Sgt. Watkins respond to his location to conduct a free air sniff using his drug-certified K9.
The deputy asked Michael what he was doing at McCoy Flats. Michael said he was playing on his phone but needed to go to work. Michael lives in Gusher but was driving to Vernal because he needed to go to work.
While conducting a record check of Michael's Utah drivers' license, Sgt. Watkins conducted an exterior sniff of Michael's truck and asked him to step out and stand behind his vehicle.
While checking Michael's person for weapons, Michael kept trying to put his left hand in his left pant pocket. The deputy believed Michael was attempting to retrieve something but didn't know what it was. A search of Michael's left jacket pocket and pant pocket retrieved a tooter straw from his left pant pocket. This tooter straw had trace amounts of residue in it.
Deputy Ogle read Michael his Miranda warning, at which time he stated he understood his rights and agreed to speak with him. He asked Michael what that tooter straw was used to smoke, and he said Fentanyl. The deputy asked Michael if he had any Fentanyl on his person, and he said no.
The deputy began a search of his person and took off his boots when he admitted that more stuff was in his boot. The deputy reached into one of the boots and found a small plastic tooter pipe containing trace amounts of suspected Fentanyl. Inside the same boot was a piece of tin foil that was used to smoke Fentanyl on.
Michael Keith Allred was arrested and transported to Uintah County jail.
All the articles from 1nationjustice.com are from the affidavits of probable cause reports that the officers write. If you would like, you can get a copy of the report from the website below. It does cost money to get on the site and to open every document you want to read.
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