A former drug addict accused of possessing $450 in counterfeit bank notes walked free from court after a jury cleared his name. Leonard Leroy Adams did not deny the $50 notes he handed to another man were forgeries ? but claimed he paid them in a drug deal without realising they were fakes.

The recipient of the cash, Ashton Treadwell Tucker, 28, gave evidence for the prosecution. Denying he was a drug pusher, Mr. Tucker claimed he was simply being repaid a loan by Mr. Adams, 21, when he received a total of $500 (Bermuda) from him during a late night meeting last February. The cash exchange came to the attention of the authorities after Mr. Tucker questioned Mr. Adams the next day about the notes ? and Mr. Adams fled into an office building and locked himself in. Staff called the Police.

Despite the colourful nature of some of the evidence ? Mr. Adams told the jury Mr. Tucker gave him ten ecstasy pills for the cash ? Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves warned the jury that it did not matter whether the notes had been exchanged for drugs or to repay a loan. The relevant issue, he said, was whether Mr. Adams believed them to be forgeries at the time he handed them over.

It took the panel just over three hours yesterday to clear the defendant of Wellington Lane, St. George?s, of both possessing and uttering the notes in a unanimous verdict. Mr. Adams, who openly admitted being a regular purchaser of drugs at the time of the incident, said as he left court that he had been clean for seven months.

He vowed: ?With this case being found not guilty, one promise I make to God and myself is that I will never use drugs again.?

Currently working at H. Davidson dive shop, Mr. Adams is also studying for a certificate in bodywork and painting, and said: ?I want to be a productive and successful member of society.?

He expressed his gratitude to defence lawyer Charles Richardson, clasping him in an emotional embrace as he left court. Speaking after the verdict, Mr. Richardson said it was impossible to tell whether the jury accepted his client was unaware the cash was fake ? or took issue with Supreme Court effectively being used judge a drug debt.

?My instructions were that this was a drug debt. I don?t know if the jury?s verdict can be interpreted as this being a drug debt. The fact that they came in unanimous (could have) meant they were not willing to enforce a drug debt.

?It could also be they found it irrelevant and (found) he didn?t have the requisite knowledge. Not one person had a doubt. It was one way or the other, but I can?t say which one,? he said.

During the two-day trial, Mr. Adams said he bought ten ecstasy pills from Mr. Tucker for $500 at the request of Dwayne Reid who gave him the notes in question.

He told the court that he was high from smoking cocaine at the time of the cash exchange and the notes looked real to him.

?Everything happened so fast and the only thing I was interested in was getting some pills out of the deal. I was jonesing and I just wanted more,? he said.

The jury also heard from Detective Constable Paul Ridley of the Police Fraud Unit that after Mr. Tucker handed the notes over to the Police, Mr. Adams? then home in Southampton was searched and he was arrested.

Det. Con. Ridley also told the court that Police raided the home of Dwayne Reid in Broome Street, Sandys, six days after Mr. Adams was arrested.

He said a quantity of $50 notes were seized from Reid?s home during the search, including eight with identical serial numbers to those involved in the case against Mr. Adams.

What the jury was not told during the trial was that Reid, 22, was jailed by Mr. Justice Greaves for nine months in November last year after admitting possessing and uttering counterfeit cash.

Mr. Tucker has never been charged with any offence in relation to the drug allegations.