California Highway Patrol officers said Monday they’re waiting to hear back from the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office on charges for a San Francisco man arrested on Soledad Canyon Road with a box of what CHP officers described as hundreds of vape cartridges containing a hallucinogen.
The incident began around 7:42 p.m. May 27 in the southbound lanes of Interstate 5, north of Hasley Canyon Road in Castaic, according to a CHP officer’s account in court records.
Officers on patrol reported that one of the parties involved in a collision told them the other party was acting strangely and asking the driver not to contact the authorities before leaving the scene.
The other party ultimately was taken to Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital for treatment of injuries, according to the report.
Now believing that the incident was a possible felony hit-and-run, officers began to look for the 2023 Ford Transit van with Arizona plates driven by a person officers identified as Dylan Gujral, a 28-year-old whose address was listed in Northern California.
Patrol officers reported finding Gujral alone at a table outside the Wing Stop restaurant on Hasley Canyon Road in Castaic near a van matching the one described in the crash.
The CHP officers who investigated him said Gujral displayed signs of intoxication. He acknowledged the collision in an interview, according to an officer’s statement.
Gujral has contacted The Signal numerous times since his arrest and claimed an eye condition was responsible for any apparent intoxication. Gujral emailed a letter he received from the DMV’s Legal Affairs Division office in Van Nuys back in June, which stated no action was being taken against his license for his May 27 arrest on suspicion of DUI.
Carlos Burgos-Lopez, spokesman for the Newhall area’s CHP office, said this week any administrative action taken by the Department of Motor Vehicles was independent of any criminal matters that might be pursued by CHP officers in connection with their investigation.
Burgos-Lopez said charges have been recommended to the DA’s Office regarding the case, and officers are waiting to hear back on whether they will be filed.
Burgos-Lopez also said Gujral’s federal probation officer was aware that Gujral had recently been re-arrested and was awaiting the outcome of the pending criminal matter.
When officers searched Gujral’s car subsequent to their belief he had left the scene of an injury crash, they found numerous items that resulted in his arrest on suspicion of felony DUI involving drug intoxication.
“During the inventory, a large quantity of suspected methamphetamine was located, as well as individual packaged baggies (frequently used for sales) of suspected meth, suspected MDMA (ecstasy) and large amounts of what appeared to be vaping cartridges, both on (Gujral) and (within his van),” according to the report filed at the Santa Clarita courthouse.
The officer’s report indicated the vaping cartridges matched ones manufactured by a brand called “Divine Truth,” believed to contain Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, a hallucinogenic that’s considered a Schedule-III narcotic, according to the court records. Schedule-III drugs have “a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, and other examples include ketamine, anabolic steroids and testosterone.
Tlaloc Olvera of the U.S. Marshals Service confirmed in June that Gujral had been released from federal custody, but that’s all he was allowed to say.
Federal court records available online indicate Gujral has had numerous run-ins with the law.
He was originally sentenced to time served and supervised release on April 8, 2021, for intent to distribute a substance containing methamphetamine and unlawful possession of a punch and die, which is a metal tool press.
Gujral is scheduled to be on supervised release until April 2026 and did not have permission to leave the Northern District, according to a report filed for the day after his arrest requesting a no-bail warrant. He was granted $10,000 bail with a June 6 federal court order.
Zara Lockshin, a spokeswoman for the DA’s Office, said information about any potential charges was not available Wednesday.
