NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

OPINION

LAMBERT, JUDGE.

Thomas Tillman appeals his conviction for trafficking in a controlled substance in the first degree and persistent felony offender (PFO) in the first degree and his sentence of fifteen years' imprisonment. After careful review, we affirm.

On September 16, 2008, Brian Massie, a confidential informant working for the police, drove his friend, Shawna, to the Rally's on New Circle Road in Lexington, Kentucky. Shawna had used Brian's phone on the way to Rally's to call someone. Upon their arrival, an African-American male was waiting for Shawna by a blue 1980's Oldsmobile. Massie parked his car in the adjacent Kroger parking lot, and Shawna walked to the Rally's lot where the man was waiting. Shawna and the man got into the Oldsmobile, and Massie could not see what was occurring. Shortly thereafter, Shawna returned to Massie's car in possession of crack cocaine.

After dropping Shawna off at her apartment, Massie telephoned the Lexington Police department and reported the incident to Detective Lube. Detective Lube was Massie's "handler" and had asked him to keep her informed of any drug activity he observed. Massie reported to Detective Lube that a tall black man with braids who worked at Rally's on New Circle Road was dealing drugs out of his car in the parking lot. Massie gave the license plate number of the car as 741 BRB and its make and model as a 1980's blue Oldsmobile Delta 88.

Detective Lube was working another case and could not respond to Rally's, so she contacted Officer Karsner and his canine partner, Ronin. Ronin was a trained narcotics detector. When Officer Karsner and Ronin arrived at Rally's, Officer Karsner parked in the Kroger parking lot and walked Ronin over to the blue Oldsmobile parked in the Rally's lot. Ronin alerted toward the rear portion of the car, and Officer Karsner returned the dog to the patrol car.

Officer Karsner then approached the walk-up window at Rally's and asked a male employee who owned the Oldsmobile. The employee responded that it was his car and asked if there was a problem. Officer Karsner asked the employee to come outside. That employee was the appellant, Tillman. The police later determined that the Oldsmobile was not registered to Tillman, and he had not driven the car to Rally's that evening for his shift. Another employee and manager at Rally's testified that the car was a "community car" owned by a former employee.

Officer Karsner told Tillman about the call to narcotics officers. Tillman was adamant that his car did not contain any drugs and therefore did not need to be searched. Tillman refused to give verbal consent to search the car, at which point Officer Karsner explained that the canine positive alert allowed the search anyway. Tillman waited near the police car while his car was searched.

During the search of the car, Officer Karsner noticed a large bow or hump in the middle of an infant car seat sitting in the back of the car. Under the liner of the seat, Karsner found a set of digital scales with traces of cocaine on them and two empty baggies that appeared to have possibly had cocaine in them. Officer Karsner also located one baggie with what later turned out to be 1.5 grams of crack cocaine. Officer Karsner placed Tillman under arrest and read him his Miranda rights. When asked about the drugs, Tillman said that a friend must have put the drugs under his child's car seat. A search incident to arrest yielded cash totaling $429.00 on Tillman's person, with twenty dollar bills making up the bulk of the money.

A grand jury indicted Tillman on October 2, 2008, charging him with first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance (cocaine) and with being a PFO in the first degree. Tillman filed several pre-trial motions, including a motion to suppress items found due to lack of proof of qualification of the search-dog and a motion to suppress his identification by confidential informant Massie. A hearing was held on both motions, and after the hearings, the motions to suppress the evidence and identification were denied.

The case proceeded to a jury trial on September 14, 2009, and the jury found Tillman guilty on both counts of the indictment. The evidence presented at trial included the testimony of several witnesses that testified that the car was Tillman's and that Tillman conducted the drug transaction. The jury recommended that Tillman serve five years on the trafficking charge, enhanced to fifteen years on the PFO I charge. The final judgment and sentence was entered on October 21, 2009. A motion for belated appeal was filed with this Court on March 10, 2010, and this Court granted that motion on June 21, 2010. This direct appeal now follows.

In Tillman's first argument, he contends that the trial court erred in allowing certain physical evidence supporting the trafficking charge to be introduced. Tillman argues that the evidence was inadmissible expert testimony that infringed upon the province of the jury. In particular, Tillman objects to the testimony of Detective Ford, an experienced narcotics detective. The Commonwealth submits that Detective Ford's testimony was brief and concise, and that the trial court did not err by admitting such testimony.

This Court reviews evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Thompson, 11 S.W.3d 575, 577 (Ky. 2000) (internal citations omitted). "The test for abuse of discretion is whether the trial judge's decision was arbitrary, unreasonable, unfair, or unsupported by sound legal principles." Id.

During trial, the Commonwealth presented testimony from Detective Ford regarding typical practices utilized in the investigation of drug cases. The Commonwealth notes that it called Detective Ford after defense counsel had pursued a line of questioning with the primary investigating officer on the case—a canine officer—rather than a more experienced narcotics detective. The primary investigating officer had been unable to answer many of the questions posed due to the fact that narcotics was not his area of expertise. The Commonwealth argued that it had a right to explain why some things were done in a certain way in this particular case and why the evidence could possibly be viewed as evidence of trafficking and not possession. The Commonwealth argued that it was proper for it to introduce evidence that the investigation was conducted in a proper manner after defense counsel suggested otherwise through its line of questioning.

Tillman relies on Newkirk v. Commonwealth, 937 S.W.2d 690 (Ky. 1996), a case dealing with Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome and argues that it controls the instant case. In Newkirk, the witness did not limit his testimony to that which was relevant only to that case, and the trial court found that such testimony should be rejected on the ground that it lacks relevancy under Kentucky Rules of Evidence (KRE) 401. However, as the Commonwealth points out, the record here indicates that Detective Ford limited his testimony to information that was relevant only to this case. Thus, we find Tillman's reliance on Newkirk to be unpersuasive.

Case law also supports the admission of evidence such as Detective Ford's testimony in this case. Kentucky case law supports allowing expert testimony by a police officer concerning the drug trafficking enterprise as long as the evidence is probative rather than simply prejudicial. See Sargent v. Commonwealth, 813 S.W.2d 801 (Ky. 1991); Dixon v. Commonwealth, 149 S.W.3d 426 (Ky. 2004); McCloud v. Commonwealth, 286 S.W.3d 780 (Ky. 2009).

Based on the above, we find no abuse of discretion with the trial court admitting Detective Ford's testimony into evidence as expert testimony from an experienced narcotics detective. Detective Ford's testimony related only to the case at bar, was probative, and was not overly prejudicial.

Tillman's other argument on appeal is that the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress Massie's identification of him because the identification procedure was highly suggestive. The Commonwealth argues that the identification was not unduly suggestive, and even if it was, the Commonwealth contends that the identification is still admissible because under the totality of the circumstances, the identification was reliable. Again, we agree with the Commonwealth that the identification was not unduly suggestive, and even if it was, the totality of the circumstances rendered the identification admissible.

After a hearing on a defendant's motion to suppress evidence, the trial court's findings are reviewed to see if they are supported by substantial evidence or are "clearly erroneous." Harper v. Commonwealth, 694 S.W.2d 665, 668 (Ky. 1985) (overruled on other grounds by Barnett v. Commonwealth., 317 S.W.3d 49 (Ky. 2010)). A trial judge's ultimate ruling as to the admissibility of the evidence is reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard. Goodyear, supra.

The determination of whether an identification violates a defendant's due process rights involves a two-step process. Dillingham v. Commonwealth, 995 S.W.2d 377, 383 (Ky. 1999) (quoting Thigpen v. Cory, 804 F.2d 893, 895 (6th Cir. 1986) cert. denied sub nom. Foltz v. Thigpen, 482 U.S. 918, 107 S.Ct. 3196, 96 L.Ed.2d 683 (1987)). "First, the court examines the pre-identification encounters to determine whether they were unduly suggestive." Id. If so, the identification may still be admissible if "under the totality of the circumstances the identification was reliable even though the confrontation procedure was suggestive." Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 199, 93 S.Ct. 375, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972).

At the suppression hearing in the instant case, Massie testified that he had seen a black man with Shawna several times in the weeks leading up to the crime charged in the indictment. At least two of those times, Tillman was the man Massie observed selling drugs to Shawna, and in one instance Massie had taken some of the drugs back to police officers. After Massie called Detective Lube on September 16, 2008, and reported the activity he had observed, he was not asked to identify Tillman as the man he saw Shawna with until March 31, 2009, when he was interviewed by the case prosecutor. At that time, he was shown one photograph of Tillman and was asked to identify the man he had seen at Rally's that day.

The trial court noted in its ruling that although it had some concern over the fact that only one photo was used to confirm the dealer's identity, Massie had seen Tillman on numerous occasions and his observation of him was not just a "one shot deal." Thus, Massie had the opportunity to observe and recognize Tillman on more than one occasion. Even though the trial court noted that the use of only one photograph could be deemed suggestive, it held that the procedure was not so unduly suggestive as to fatally taint the identification.

A review of the record by this court indicates that the identification procedure was not unduly suggestive, as Tillman argues. However, even assuming that it was, the Neil factors weigh in favor of admitting the identification. There is nothing to indicate that Massie did not have ample opportunity to view Tillman at the time of the crime. Further, as Massie was acting as an informant, his degree of attention was high. Tillman met the description Massie gave to the police, he was a tall African-American male with braids who admitted to owning the blue Oldsmobile containing the drugs and trafficking paraphernalia. Massie was certain at the time he made the identification that Tillman was the man who sold Shawna drugs on this occasion, and Massie had opportunity to observe Tillman on various other occasions. While Tillman argues that the time between the September 2008 crime and the March 2009 identification renders the identification inadmissible, we do not find this one factor to be determinative. Had this been the only time Massie had observed Tillman and Shawna interacting, that might be a different issue, but the fact remains that Massie knew Tillman by sight and had interacted with him via Shawna several times.

Based on the totality of the circumstances, the identification of Tillman by Massie was properly admitted and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to suppress.

Accordingly, we affirm the order denying Tillman's motion to suppress and we otherwise affirm the judgment and conviction of the Fayette Circuit Court.

ALL CONCUR.