COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Moon, Senior Judges Cole and Duff 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

MATTHEW KRIS SMITH 

v. Record No. 1203-95-2 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

 CHIEF JUDGE NORMAN K. MOON 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA MARCH 19, 1996 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND 

Thomas N. Nance, Judge 

 Patricia P. Nagel, Assistant Public Defender 

(David J. Johnson, Public Defender; Office of 

the Public Defender, on brief), for 

appellant. 

 Marla Graff Decker, Assistant Attorney 

General (James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney 

General, on brief), for appellee. 

 Matthew Kris Smith appeals his conviction of possession of 

cocaine with intent to distribute. He argues that the evidence 

was insufficient to support his conviction. We affirm the 

conviction. 

 On November 30, 1994 two police officers were on assignment 

at the Greyhound bus station in Richmond. They were part of an 

"interdiction team" seeking to prevent illegal narcotics from 

entering Richmond from source cities such as New York and 

Philadelphia. The officers saw Smith get off a bus from New York 

and enter the bus terminal. Smith was carrying a navy blue piece 

of luggage. 

 

 *Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010 this opinion is not 

designated for publication. 
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 Once inside the terminal, Smith put down the blue bag just 

long enough to put on his overcoat. He carried the bag as he 

moved around the terminal, attempting to exit through two of the 

gates and speaking on two occasions to the clerk behind the 

ticket counter. He then sat down about ten feet in front of the 

ticket counter and placed the blue bag between his feet. 

 One of the officers approached Smith, identified herself as 

a police officer, and asked Smith to accompany her to the 

customer service office. Smith complied, but left the bag 

behind. The second officer followed Smith and his partner into 

the office, keeping watch on the bag as he walked. The officer 

lost sight of the bag only for a "split second" as he walked past 

the wall to enter the inner office. At the customer service 

office, the first officer explained to Smith that she was part of 

the drug interdiction team and that he was not under arrest. She 

asked for permission to search his person and his bag. He gave 

permission for the personal search, but stated that his bag was 

already on board the bus. 

 The second officer conducted the search while the first went 

to retrieve the blue bag. As he searched Smith, the second 

officer kept watch on the bag through the glass window in the 

office. No one else approached the bag or tampered with it in 

any way. When the first officer retrieved the bag, it was in the 

same position as it was when Smith left it. 

 Smith did not have narcotics on his person. However, when 

the officers searched the bag, they found a bag containing over 
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211 grams of cocaine with a street value of $7,200. 

 Where sufficiency of the evidence is challenged after 

conviction, we examine the evidence in the light most favorable 

to the Commonwealth, granting to the Commonwealth all reasonable 

inferences deducible therefrom. The jury's verdict will not be 

disturbed on appeal unless it is plainly wrong or without 

evidence to support it. Higginbotham v. Commonwealth, 216 Va. 

349, 352, 218 S.E.2d 534, 537 (1975). 

 To convict a defendant of illegal possession of drugs, the 

Commonwealth must show that the defendant was aware of the 

presence and character of the drug, and that he was intentionally 

and consciously in possession of it. Woodson v. Commonwealth, 14 

Va. App. 787, 794, 421 S.E.2d 1, 5, aff'd, 245 Va. 104, 429 

S.E.2d 1, 5 (1992). Possession may be either constructive or 

actual. For actual possession, physical possession giving the 

defendant "immediate and exclusive control" is sufficient. 

Ritter v. Commonwealth, 210 Va. 732, 741, 173 S.E.2d 799, 805-06 

(1970). For constructive possession, the Commonwealth must show 

that the drugs were in the defendant's "dominion or control". 

Id.

 Smith argues that the Commonwealth failed to prove that 

Smith was aware of the presence of cocaine inside the blue bag. 

We disagree. Smith got off the bus and entered the terminal with 

the blue bag in his hand. The bag remained exclusively in his 

possession and control until he abandoned it in order to 

accompany the officer to the station office. The defense 
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presented no credible evidence that the bag searched was not the 

bag Smith carried into the terminal, or that anyone tampered with 

the bag inside the terminal. Thus, the Commonwealth proved that 

Smith actually possessed the bag and the drugs inside it. Proof 

of possession of a controlled substance gives rise to the 

inference that the defendant knows of its character. Josephs v. 

Commonwealth, 10 Va. App. 87, 101, 390 S.E.2d 491, 498-99 (1990) 

(en banc). 

 Smith's knowledge that he had illegal drugs in his 

possession is confirmed by his conduct after he was approached by 

the police. He abandoned the bag and denied any connection with 

it, both when he was questioned by the police and at trial. His 

denial, coupled with the officers' evidence that he possessed the 

bag, demonstrate his knowledge of the cocaine's character. 

 Smith also argues that the Commonwealth failed to prove that 

Smith had dominion and control over the blue bag. His argument 

is based primarily on the lack of "direct evidence" that the bag 

belonged to Smith, combined with the "break in the chain of 

circumstances" when Smith left the bag to accompany the officer. 

 However, the Commonwealth proved by direct evidence that Smith 

left the bus with the blue bag that contained the cocaine and 

exercised exclusive physical control of it until he left it at 

his chair to accompany the first police officer. While the 

second officer acknowledged that he lost sight of the bag for a 

"split second" when he entered the customer service office, 

viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, this 
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evidence does not show a "break in the chain of circumstances." 

The Commonwealth proved, by direct evidence, actual possession of 

the bag and the cocaine. For these reasons, the conviction is 

affirmed. 

 Affirmed.