A homeless man in Leesburg was arrested for drug possession and trespassing at a local laundromat, causing his bond in a previous case to be revoked.
Police responded to Spin City Laundry, located at 731 Perkins St., regarding a suspicious person complaint at 3:59 a.m. Monday, according to an arrest report from the Leesburg Police Department.
The complainant, a security agent for the business, reported watching a man, later identified as 28-year-old Paul Andra McCants, inside of the business possibly using narcotics. LPD had an active trespass warning authorization for the business, and McCants had been trespassed from it before. The complainant also advised that McCants was smoking a green substance using a plastic bottle made into a smoking device at the table, the report said.
Upon arrival, several officers found McCants inside of the business. Attempts were made to identify him, but he refused to give a valid form of identification or his name and date of birth. One of the officers was familiar with McCants but was not able to recall his name until a previous contact was found by LPD, the report said.
This was used to reveal he was trespassed from the business by that same officer on Oct. 15. Because of the prior case, officers tried to arrest him. While attempting to put McCants in handcuffs, he began to resist by pulling away and trying to remove his right hand from the officer’s control, the report said.
McCants was told multiple times to stop resisting, but he continued to say “no” and pulled his arms away. In response to his resistance, he was placed in an arm lock. He was then redirected to a wall where the officer regained control and access to his arms, the report said.
The officer handcuffed McCants without further incident, and an assisting officer returned to the area where McCants was seen near a table. He found a plastic soda bottle that had been turned into a smoking device. It had a hole in the center which contained a burnt residue with the distinct odor of marijuana, the report said.
Additionally, the officer found two small marijuana cigars commonly referred to as “roaches” on the same table along with a small pile of tobacco that had been stripped from a cigar. Stripped tobacco is a common by-product after a person removes it from the cigar to make a marijuana cigar, or “blunt.” The recovered “roaches” were smoked to the point where there was no substance found inside, the report said.
McCants was subsequently arrested on possession or use of drug paraphernalia, trespass after warning and resisting law enforcement without violence. Because he was believed to have committed a new crime while on pretrial release, his $1,500 bond in a previous case was revoked. Those previous charges – defrauding an innkeeper and resisting without violence – were added as a result. He was transported to the Lake County Jail with bond set at $3,000.
He was also arrested in November for shoplifting over $100 worth of items from a Walmart in Leesburg.
