A man who said he was desperate for opioids was arrested after demanding pills at an Ocala drug store.
Marion County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested 33-year-old Timothy Aaron Hughes in the robbery Tuesday at the Sunshine Drugs store located at 3450 NE Jacksonville Road in Ocala. Hughes implied to an employee that he was carrying a weapon and demanded pills during the robbery.
At about 11:30 a.m., MCSO deputies responded to the drug store in reference to a robbery that had just occurred. An employee of the store told deputies that the robber, later identified as Hughes, approached him and said, “I don’t want any trouble. I just need opioids.” The employee had his right hand in his pocket and looked down at his hand and then looked back at him, making the victim believe that Hughes was armed.
The employee gave Hughes a bottle of hydrocodone pills. Hughes then fled the scene.
Witnesses told deputies that Hughes fled the store in a red older model two-door convertible with a black top. The information was immediately disseminated to local law enforcement agencies, and within 15 minutes, Ocala Police Department officers spotted the vehicle on East Highway 40 and conducted a traffic stop. Hughes, the driver, matched the physical description of the suspect described by the witnesses and was immediately detained.
Hughes made statements to deputies saying that he wanted to go back to the store to apologize to the employees. While walking into the MCSO Central Operations Center for an interview, Hughes told deputies that “his family and children aren’t going to understand this over five pills.”
Hughes was arrested on a charge of robbery.
Hughes said he has only been in Marion County for a few days and is not a resident there. Based on this information, detectives requested that he be given no bond. A weapon hasn’t been recovered.
