Man accused of offering police $35,000 bribe to stop arresting him

DeKalb County, Georgia, police got a call Friday about a stolen Honda Fit spotted at Serenade Apartments on Flat Shoals Parkway. While officers looked over it and other suspected stolen cars parked nearby, someone kept pressing the clicker: locked, unlocked, locked, unlocked.

Police say they confirmed two were stolen and they staked out a third to see who would drive it, according to an incident report.

They soon spotted Tristahn Ash, 20, get behind the wheel of the 2015 Infiniti QX80, valued at $42,111, the report said. Police pulled him over on Flat Shoals Parkway near Columbia Drive, but he allegedly ran, only to be caught a few hundred feet away.

That's when he allegedly tried to bribe an officer to let him go.

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“Officer, my money is long. I got 20 bands ($20,000),” the report quotes him saying. “If you help me, I can help you.”

The officer thought he was joking until Ash reportedly asked to speak to a detective on scene. The officer listened as they spoke and then heard the detective exclaim: “You trying to bribe me? Oh, no, buddy, that’s another charge.”

Warrants allege Ash offered the detective $10,000 to $15,000.

Police determined the Infiniti was stolen out of Clayton County and confiscated it, along with a handgun, 39 grams of marijuana and a scale.

Possessing the gun was a violation of Ash’s probation from a Fulton County case in which he received a stolen car, the report said.

In DeKalb, he faces charges of bribery, theft by receiving, possessing a car with an altered VIN and more.

He remained in jail Tuesday.

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