A Villages Charter School graduate busted earlier this week with a large cache of drugs said sales had been impacted due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Monica Racy, 20, a clinical research assistant at the University of South Florida in Tampa, remains free on $24,000 bond following her arrest this past Sunday on a long list of drug charges.
New details have emerged about the arrest of the Michigan-born former assistant at Properties of The Villages. The USF student had no prior criminal history.
Racy had reportedly been on the way to her mother’s house when her speeding 2018 Volkswagen Jetta was pulled over on County Road 462. The Sumter County sheriff’s deputy who searched her vehicle found cocaine, 60 bags of hallucinogenic mushrooms, two bags of marijuana, methamphetamine and pills including Alprazolam and Amphetamine. There were also LSD and three packages of a Nerds THC candy “clearly labeled as containing the controlled substance THC,” the report said.
Villages-News.com has obtained an unredacted copy of the arrest report from that night and it offers new details about Racy, who is pursuing a master’s degree in public health.
Racy confided in the deputy that she had been “transporting the illicit narcotics for a friend to Sumter County from Tampa,” the report said.
“She advised illicit narcotics sales were down in the USF area due to the COVID-19 restrictions in Hillsborough County,” the deputy wrote in the report.
Racy said she was supposed to deliver the controlled substances to friends of hers while she was in Sumter County and “take money back to her friend in Tampa.”
She admitted she was using the Jetta for the purpose of delivering the drugs to Sumter County.
Racy also was in possession of a Florida driver’s license of a fellow Charter School alum. That Charter School graduate, a senior at Florida State University, had not given Racy permission to possess her driver’s license, the report said.
“(Racy) claimed she has been holding onto it for approximately two years and was planning on giving it back eventually. She denied using it to purchase alcohol,” the report said.
A document on file with the Sumter County Court Clerk’s office shows that Racy has bi-weekly income of $350. She has $1,000 in her bank account as well as debts and liabilities totaling $25,000.
Her bond was posted through Bob’s 24-Hour Bail Bond in Bushnell and secured through Palmetto Surety Corporation.
Another Villages Charter School graduate was arrested with a large quantity of drugs in a separate incident this week.
