Rapper Mill Millionz allegedly had $15,000, a pound of marijuana, more than 260 pills and a bag of a narcotic crystalline substance in the trunk of a car he was driving when he was stopped by police June 20.
Millionz, whose real name is Elihue Perdue, now is heading to trial in Montgomery County Court next month, after a preliminary hearing Wednesday on multiple counts of possession of a controlled substance, weapons violations and related offenses.
Perdue, 32, of Bala Cynwyd, was driving a Chevy Camaro about 52.5 mph in a 35-mph zone in Abington shortly before 6:30 p.m., according to court records. An Abington officer testified before District Judge John Kessler on Wednesday that he stopped Perdue in the area of Moreland Road and Coolidge Avenue.
Police learned the car was registered to an acquaintance of Perdue’s. The officer said he received information during the traffic stop that Perdue might have been wanted in New Jersey on a probation violation. The officer said he also smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle and saw some of the drug inside the car.
Police said they asked to search the vehicle, and Perdue consented. Remnants of marijuana buds were found inside the car, along with $200 in the center console and another $15,122 in a brown paper bag in the back seat, according to court records. In the trunk, police said they found a plastic bag containing several smaller bags of marijuana, a loaded Smith and Wesson .40-caliber handgun, multiple bags of pills and an unknown pink crystallized substance that they said was a form of an amphetamine-based narcotic.
Perdue ran when police announced his arrest but after a brief foot chase, was taken into custody, police said.
“There is no indication that Mr. Perdue knew or should have known there was a gun or drugs in the car,” Perdue’s attorney, Michael J. Diamondstein, said during the hearing.
Perdue said the money was his from a rap music show and that he had planned to use it to purchase a car, according to police.
He also said that some people were smoking marijuana in the car the previous night when he was at a recording studio, according to police.
However, Kessler said that it was clear Perdue was in control of the vehicle – whether it was his or not – at the time he was stopped.
Millionz appears in several rap videos on YouTube, including one in which he explains his hopes of becoming a millionaire.
In addition to the gun and drug charges he’s facing in Montgomery County, Perdue is charged in three separate Philadelphia cases involving the theft of a motorcycle, running from police and drug possession with the intent to distribute.
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