DRUG VERDICT A (SUIT)CASE OF UNANSWERED QUESTIONS.(CAPITAL REGION)

Byline: JOHN CAHER Staff writer

ALBANY -- A Florida man has been acquitted of cocaine charges, leaving unanswered the question of how a bag of drugs got in his elderly mother's luggage.

Daniel Patrick O'Connor, 38, of Orlando, was acquitted late Thursday of second- and third-degree cocaine possession.

Evidence at his trial before Albany County Judge Thomas A. Breslin showed that O'Connor was bringing his mother from Florida to her home in Middleburgh, Schoharie County, last year. A mix-up at the airport resulted in someone else taking her luggage.

The woman who accidentally took the luggage went out bar-hopping that evening, leaving the bag …