War on Drugs

He Was Arrested Over a Bogus Drug Tests. Now He's Suing.

Bryan Getchius was arrested, jailed, and spent seven months on house arrest before eventually being cleared by official lab results.

C.J. Ciaramella | 3.11.2026 3:00 PM

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(Greenwood County Sheriff's Office)

A man who was arrested and prosecuted for drug trafficking after unreliable field tests flagged his prescription pills as fentanyl has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the South Carolina sheriff's office and the deputies involved.

Bryan Getchius, whose case Reason first reported last month, is now seeking a jury trial and civil damages for the emotional distress and fiscal costs of the roughly year and a half he spent defending himself against charges of fentanyl trafficking and possession of cocaine after Greenwood County Sheriff's deputies arrested him in May of 2024.

Because of deputies' refusal to believe him, their reliance on faulty tests, and an 18,000-case backlog at the South Carolina state drug lab, Getchius spent 15 days in jail and seven months on house arrest.

When the official results finally came back from the state drug lab in October 2025, they showed that the suspect pills were exactly what the label on the bottle and imprints on the pills said: Dicyclomine, a prescription medication for irritable bowel syndrome.

Getchius is represented by civil rights attorney Tyler Bailey, who announced the lawsuit today in a press conference in Greenwood, South Carolina. The suit alleges unreasonable search and seizure, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and negligent training. It names the county of........

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