Casper Man Arrested for Drug Possession, Fighting Officers

A California woman and a Casper man wanted locally for escape were arrested for drug possession Monday after a fight with police officers in Casper.

Tyler Bunney, 26, was arrested along with a woman from San Diego after Casper police responded to call of two people having sex in a car at the north Casper baseball fields, according to a police affidavit.

When the responding officer arrived, the Bunney and Liya Marinicheva were pulling on their clothes.

The officer asked for their identifications. Marinicheva offered her driver's license from California and Bunney offered a Wyoming driver's license which turned out to belong to another man.

The officer recognized Bunney, who was wanted on a full-extradition warrant for escape -- that is, across multiple jurisdictions -- out of Natrona County, as well as a probation violation.

The officer also saw marijuana shake on Bunney's pants, then saw him grab a nugget of marijuana from the cup holder, hold it outside the window and crumble it. The officer grabbed what was left and put it into an evidence package.

The officer called for backup, and police pulled the two suspects from the car. Inside a backpack, police found a large bag of marijuana. A small plastic package with an unidentified white residue was found as well. Bunney and Marinicheva were then placed under arrest for possession of a controlled substance.

Then, Bunney allegedly made things difficult.

One officer grabbed Bunney's left hand while another grabbed his right hand. He began to resist handcuffing and twisted his body. One officer pushed Bunney onto the hood of a patrol vehicle and Bunney tried to pull his arms away from the officers.

One handcuff was on Bunney's right wrist when he began to struggle and the other handcuff hit one of the officers in the face. He then hit the other officer in the head, ripping out some of her hair.

The officers regained control of Bunney, placed him into the rear of a patrol vehicle and read him his Miranda rights. An officer also handcuffed Marinicheva.

Bunney told an officer that he had more than 100 pills in his backpack, and changed his story about where he obtained them online. "Bunney said the pills made him mellow," the affidavit of probable cause states.

Martinicheva wasn't speaking clearly and was allegedly under the influence of a controlled substance, but said the pills were not hers.

A further search of the pills revealed some were purple -- possibly MDMA, known as ecstasy -- and some were green.

The purple pills together weighed 21 grams and the green pills weighed a combined 4.4 grams.

Bunney also had $551 in cash on his person.

Bunney was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance -- MDMA, misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance -- marijuana, and interference with a peace officer.

Martinicheva was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana.