Not right now. I'll grab before you in a second. Have you ever been arrested for failure to appear? >> Um also, I need to post bail. Can you please work on that for me? >> Yes. >> Yeah, there's a there's there was a vape in my car. >> There is a sentence [music] that echoes through almost every traffic stop where something is found that shouldn't be there. Three words offered up [music] the moment the situation turns. It's not mine. Or it's close cousin, it belongs to a friend. On a December night in Florida, a [music] body camera recorded one of the most famous versions of that moment. The driver was a WWE superstar Liv Morgan, one of the biggest [music] names in professional wrestling. The stop began with erratic driving. And as it unfolded, it became a study in denial. A vape pen that belonged, she said, to a friend. A claim that she hadn't been smoking. And the quiet, [music] patient way the law handles a person insisting that the thing in their car has nothing to do with them. >> [music] >> This is the story of that stop and of the gap, familiar from a thousand other road sides, between what a person says [music] and what an officer finds. To understand why this footage drew so much attention, you have to understand who was behind the wheel. Liv Morgan, [music] real name Gionna Daddio, is one of the most recognizable performers in WWE. A champion, a headliner, a person [music] whose face is known to millions of wrestling fans around the world. That fame is the reason an ordinary Florida traffic stop [music] became national news. Most people who are pulled over [music] on a December night, who have a difficult exchange with an officer, who are arrested [music] and booked, go through it in private. A handful of people know. The world never does. But when the driver is a superstar, the entire encounter, every word, every denial, every moment of the search eventually becomes [music] public, released months later and replayed by fans and strangers [music] alike. The stop was ordinary. The audience was not. And like every celebrity caught in one of these moments, she would discover that fame is a strange kind of double-edged thing on the side of a road. It does not help you in the moment and it guarantees that the moment will be seen by everyone forever. It began as so many of these do, with driving that drew an officer's eye. Her vehicle, a Jeep, was reported moving in a way that suggested something was off. And an officer initiated a stop on a Florida road. A stop like this opens a door. And what comes through it depends on what the officer observes. The questions begin. The observations [music] are gathered. And very quickly, the officer's attention moved beyond the driving itself to what was inside the vehicle. [music] >> Yes, sir. I can see. My headlights are a little bit low. >> Are you on your phone or something? >> No. >> Cuz I'm trying to head to a crash and I can't go past you because you're going back and forth. >> I'm sorry. I mean, I I I am not >> You don't hear those rivets? >> Um >> On the right side and the left side of the road, there's there's these things. You could probably hear it right now when the cars go by. >> Yes, sir. >> You've been smoking marijuana? >> No. >> Why do I smell marijuana? >> I have marijuana, but I wasn't smoking marijuana. >> Okay. You have a medical marijuana card? >> No, sir. >> You don't? Okay. Is there marijuana in the vehicle? Where is it at? >> Um in the back seat. >> Okay. So, you're 50/50 on it. >> 054 go ahead. >> I'm going to need signal 55 to me so far. No more response. >> 10-4. >> And then I'm going to need a unit to head to that signal four. >> 10-6. >> 150 negative doing a signal four. >> 10-4. >> Where's the marijuana? On the ground or in your purse? >> 05205. >> I'm sorry, what was that? >> We have anyone to hear 054 158 74. >> Okay. Do you have your driver's license? Say again. Oh, in a second. Stop. >> 19455 return. >> Because this [music] stop would not turn out to be about how she was driving. It would turn out to be about what she was carrying. And that shift from the road to the [music] car's interior is where the night changed. >> For swerving or anything like that? >> No, sir. I mean, I'm not from the area. I had GPS on my phone. >> Okay. Okay. Do you have your registration or proof of insurance? >> I have my insurance on my phone. >> 055. 055 show me an ambulance to the scene. >> What an officer is permitted to do next is governed by careful rules. But the practical reality [music] is simple. When there is reason to believe a vehicle contains something illegal, that vehicle gets searched. And on that December night, the search was coming. The only question [music] left was what the driver would say about what it found. The first [music] denial set the tone. By the account of the footage, Liv Morgan told the officer she had not been smoking. A clear, direct claim of innocence, the opening move in the negotiation that so many of these stops become. And here is the thing about that denial, [music] and every denial like it, an officer is not required to believe it, and is not required to disbelieve it. The claim simply gets set aside, [music] recorded, and weighed later against the evidence, because words on the side of a road are the cheapest currency there is. Everyone says they weren't doing [music] the thing they're suspected of. The denial is so universal that it tells an officer almost nothing on its own. What matters is not the claim. It is what the search turns up, and whether the two can be reconciled. There is also a quiet complication in a denial like I wasn't smoking. It is narrow. [music] It addresses one specific act, smoking, while leaving a great deal of room around it. A person can truthfully say they weren't smoking and still have something illegal in the car. And as the stop went on, that gap between the precise denial and the broader reality would become the center of the whole encounter. Then came the second denial, and it is the one that gives this case its signature. A vape pen was at issue, and [music] Liv Morgan, by the account of the footage, told the officer that it belonged to a friend. "It belongs to a friend" is one of the oldest sentences [music] in the entire catalog of roadside explanations, and officers have heard it more [music] times than they could ever count. It is an attempt to create distance, to place the [music] object in someone else's hands, to make it not quite yours, >> [music] >> to suggest that whatever is wrong here is wrong with someone who isn't [music] present. And it runs into the same wall every time. Because [music] possession, in the eyes of the law, is largely about control and proximity. An item in your vehicle, within your reach, is generally treated as yours to answer for, regardless of whose friend it originally belonged to. And there was a further problem. By the reporting, the vape pen she attributed to a friend reportedly contained not ordinary marijuana, but a synthetic cannabinoid a substance the law treats far more seriously. So, the object she was trying to distance herself from was, it turned out, the most legally dangerous thing in the car. The denial meant to make it smaller was attached to the very item that would carry the heaviest charge. [music] This is where denial meets evidence, and evidence does not negotiate. When the vehicle was [music] searched, the picture that emerged did not match the careful claims of innocence. By the account of the case, there was marijuana in the car, and on [music] this point, the denial softened. She had said she wasn't smoking, but there was, in fact, marijuana present, [music] and that became difficult to wave away. And there was the vape pen with its synthetic cannabinoid oil, >> [music] >> the friend's pen, in her vehicle, within her control. The search had taken the encounter out of the realm of what anyone said and into the realm of what was physically, [music] undeniably there. And what was there was enough to support not one charge, but two. [music] This is the lesson that sits underneath nearly every stop on this channel. The denials, however confident, [music] are temporary. They live only in the moments before the search. Once the search is done, the conversation is essentially over because the objects in the car do not care what story was told about them. They simply exist in the place they were found and the law [music] reads them for exactly what they are. On that December night, the search ended the negotiation. Liv Morgan was arrested. By the record, she faced two charges from that night, a felony for possession of the synthetic cannabinoid >> [music] >> and a misdemeanor for possession of marijuana under the legal threshold. Detainer, please. >> Turn around. Can I grab my phone? >> Not right now. >> Okay. >> I'll grab it for you in a second. Have you ever been arrested for uh failure to appear? >> No, sir. >> Okay. >> I'm going to search your vehicle >> All right. Just walk her down. >> 307 49 clear. Registered to Gionna D'Addio. She also has a warrant out for me. >> So, the D'Addio subject [music] is 54? >> 54. >> 26 90. [music] She's detained. >> Excuse me. >> You're being detained. >> Do you have anything on you that's going to poke, stab, stick me? >> No, ma'am. >> Anything in your bra, anything like that? >> No, ma'am. >> All right. Go ahead, have a seat for me. >> I I can't I do anything right like as far as making any calls myself right now. Uh >> You can't? Why is this not working? What is going on with my lights today? Okay. Um >> And also, I mean, maybe this is not a question for you, but um I just want to be arrested. Am I going to be able to get out of jail tonight? >> So, yeah, as long as you can post bond. Okay. Um So, >> Taylor, Taylor, I'm I'm being arrested. I need you to come pick up my car. >> Okay. Where where are you? >> I don't even know. >> It's County Road 476 and 575. You'll see a You'll see lights um and her Jeep. >> It's I'm sorry, could you repeat that? Cut it out. >> So, it's in Sumter County. It's County Road 476 and 575. Yes, sir. If you come down 476, you'll see the You'll see a deputy's or uh pickup truck with her Jeep. Do you want his number? >> Yeah. Um also, Taylor, I think you need to have a Lexi drive your car and then so you can take my car. >> Okay. I'm trying to write it. >> I know, but then how you can't take my car. You're driving your car. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Um also, I need to post bail. Um can you please work on that for me? >> Yes. >> Yeah, there's a there's there was a vape in my car. I don't know whose vape was in my car, but there was a vape in my car and so I'm being arrested for this vape. >> Where were you Where were you coming back from? So sorry. >> The eyebrow place. I don't Babe, I don't know I'm not good with geography, you know that. I I I honestly, I can't even tell you. I was coming back from the eyebrow place. I'm I think this is Sumter County. That's what like the sheriff car says. >> Yeah, it's it's Sumter County. Um >> Where Where will you keep your keys, babe? >> I think I think they're going to wait. I'm They'll be with the car. >> Love you. Bye. >> And then, can you go just get my mom's number if you can? >> Mom's? >> Um you don't need to call her, but yeah. >> Mom's? >> So, what am I being arrested for? Like what is it? >> So, it's possession of marijuana less than 20 g. If it was just that, you would have been given an NTA, a notice to appear. >> I understand, but this vape that something >> is a felony. >> Understood. >> Um this whenever we get to the jail. >> Thank you. >> And you don't want to take your phone, right? >> Um >> Or do you want to take it? >> I just I've never I don't even know, ma'am. I've never been arrested. I don't even know if I can have it. Like if I can have it. >> So, you can't have it in there. They'll put it with your property and give it to you once you get out. Um >> Can I make a a phone call while I'm in your car if I have my phone? >> Um no, normally I don't let people have anything with them. >> Okay. >> The gap between those two charges is enormous and it is worth understanding. A misdemeanor marijuana possession charge is, in the scheme of things, a minor matter of fine, a mark on a record, an embarrassment, but a felony is a different order of thing entirely. A felony possession charge carries the potential for real, lasting consequences to a person's freedom, their record, and in the case of a public figure, their career. The synthetic cannabinoid in that vape [music] pen, the one she said belonged to a friend, was what elevated the night from a minor citation to a genuine felony arrest. [music] The distance between it belongs to a friend and a felony charge is, it turns out, very short. She was booked and for a while a WWE Superstar was facing a felony. A fact that the moment the body cam was released months [music] later became a story far larger than the small quantity of substances that produced it. But the charges, as serious as the felony sounded, did not hold their full weight. The legal system, working through the case, reached a far less dramatic conclusion than the arrest had suggested. The felony charge, the synthetic cannabinoid count, was dropped within about a month. And the remaining misdemeanor was resolved the way minor possession cases often are, with a fine, paid, [music] and the case closed early in the new year. No prison. No trial. No felony record. The night that had produced a felony arrest of a major superstar ended, in legal terms, almost quietly a fine and a closed file. That outcome is its own kind of commentary and it cuts in more than one direction. To some, it looks like a system working sensibly a minor case, resolved proportionately, without ruining a life over a small quantity of substances. To others, it raises the familiar question that follows every celebrity through the courts, whether an ordinary person with an ordinary name and an ordinary lawyer would have seen that [music] felony fall away quite so smoothly. There is no clean answer. But the contrast between the gravity of a felony arrest >> [music] >> and the softness of its ending, is the part of this story worth sitting with. She said she wasn't smoking. She said the pen belonged to a friend. And in the end, the denials did what denials usually do on the side [music] of a road. They delayed the search, and then they dissolved against what the search found. The marijuana was [music] there. The pen was there. The charges followed. That the felony later fell away does not change what the footage [music] captured. The universal human reflex caught on camera to distance ourselves from the thing we're caught with. To say it isn't ours. >> [music] >> To hand it, in words, to an absent friend. It rarely works because the law does not read our explanations. It reads the car. And on a December night in Florida, the car told a story that no denial could quite talk over. That the thing you are holding is yours [music] to answer for, no matter whose friend you say it belonged.