A Lady Lake woman was arrested on drug charges after being stopped with pills and marijuana in her purse.
An officer watching traffic on U.S. Hwy. 27 and South Dixie Avenue observed a black Honda sedan traveling northbound around 1:50 a.m. Wednesday, June 3, according to an arrest report from the Fruitland Park Police Department. As he approached the back of the vehicle, the driver, 42-year-old Ashley Coryn Hendricks, rapidly switched from the right lane to the far-left turn lane on Palm Street.
She did not use a turn signal at any point during the maneuver. She then made a U-turn to head south, during which her vehicle straddled the white fog line on the right side of the road. This prompted the officer to initiate a traffic stop, the report said.
The vehicle slowly rolled along the highway, past a parking lot and a side street, before eventually pulling into another parking lot further down the road. The officer could see Hendricks reach across the passenger seat and suspected she was trying to hide something. When he finally approached her, he noticed the left side of her windshield was completely shattered and had been haphazardly repaired with clear packing tape, the report said.
Hendricks herself looked very nervous and became even more so when asked if there was anything illegal in the car. She stated there was not, but the officer decided he would deploy a K-9 to check for narcotics due to her behavior. He briefly went back to his patrol vehicle to start asking his routine questions related to traffic stops, at which point he saw Hendricks turn her body away from him and lower her head, the report said.
He felt this was odd and returned to Hendricks, whose hand was in the front of her unbuttoned pants. He ordered her to stop, and she did. She refused to get out of the vehicle multiple times, and the officer was forced to grab her by the arm to pull her out, the report said.
After handcuffing Hendricks, the officer retrieved his K-9 to begin checking for narcotics. The K-9 alerted to the driver’s door, and a search of the vehicle ensued, the report said.
The officer discovered two prescription bottles from Walgreens inside Hendricks’s purse. One bottle was empty, and the other contained several pills of clonazepam. Neither bottle had a label, but both smelled heavily of marijuana, the report said.
The officer subsequently spoke with Hendricks about what she put in her pants, which she admitted was marijuana. She placed it there because she had never been in trouble before and was scared. A piece of plastic wrapping containing two small pieces of marijuana was ultimately removed from her pants, the report said.
The officer also questioned her about the pills. She claimed to have a prescription for them, but her purse had rubbed off the writing. She showed him texts from an automated number for Walgreens advising that her Adderall prescription was ready, but this made no mention of lorazepam, the report said.
Hendricks was ultimately arrested on charges of possession of clonazepam, tampering with evidence, resist officer without violence and possession of marijuana (less than 20 grams). She was booked at Lake County Jail and released after posting $5,500 bond.