Lawyer Accused Of Inhaling Laughing Gas Outside Courthouse

ORLANDO, Fla.- A 47-year-old attorney was arrested for allegedly inhaling nitrous oxide outside federal court in Orlando Wednesday, minutes after he represented a client facing illegal drug charges, according to Local 6 News. Mark Rife is accused of using and possessing nitrous oxide gas, or laughing gas, after police found 14 spend cartridges around his vehicle and 58 full cartridges inside his vehicle at the courthouse. Rife had just finished helping a client charged with conspiracy to posses and sell cocaine when he entered his car at a parking lot located under Interstate 4 in Orlando, according to the report. An alert Orange County deputy noticed that Rife appeared to be huffing or inhaling gas from metal canisters inside the vehicle. "I was getting ready to go to federal court and this was a shock," Orange County Deputy Ralph Miller said. I saw him drop the canisters out of the window and all of the sudden he puts it (car) in reverse and passes out and backs into a car." Rife got out of the vehicle and said that he had just left court and was preparing to get onto Interstate 4, according to Miller. After the crash, Orlando police officers found cartridges containing nitrous oxide in Rife's car, Local 6 News reported. Nitrous oxide induces mild euphoria, according to the report. "A lot of old Grateful Dead fans used (nitrous oxide)," an undercover drug agent on the scene said. "It gives them a high. It deprives the brain of oxygen." Inhaling harmful chemicals is a third-degree felony. Rife was booked into the Orange County Jail and then released on $1,000 bond.

(Local 6 article here)