Well-known local fitness trainer Summer Yoder will not face prosecution on drug charges from her arrest earlier this year.
The prosecutor’s office announced on Tuesday that a felony charge of possession of a controlled substance as well as misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and possession of drug equipment were being dropped due to evidence that is “legally insufficient” to prove Yoder’s guilt, according to Sumter County Court documents.
Yoder, known for her martial arts skills and a former trainer at MVP Athletic Club, was found shortly before midnight Jan. 17 behind the wheel of a Chevrolet SUV on County Road 105 not far from the Goodwill Superstore in Oxford, according to an arrest report from the Wildwood Police Department.
The police officer “immediately detected an odor of alcoholic beverage” coming from her breath. Yoder had “bloodshot eyes and slurred speech,” the report said. The vehicle’s engine was running and Yoder had her foot on the brake.
When Yoder stepped out of the vehicle, a vaping pen containing yellow oil was spotted on the driver’s seat. The yellow oil tested positive for tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the arrest report said.
A search of her purse turned up 5.3 grams of leafy marijuana and a pipe with the residue of marijuana. She also had 32.7 grams of THC oil.
Yoder was represented by local criminal defense attorney Jaimie Washo Spivey, who in the past has defended a Villages golf pro, a well-known local podiatrist and a Villager’s “problem child” who fled a hospital with an IV in her arm.
Spivey had filed on July 1 a motion to dismiss the case on Yoder’s behalf. Spivey’s legal argument centered on whether what was in Yoder’s possession was “cannabis” or “hemp.”
“The only way to conclusively determine whether a suspected substance is unlawful cannabis or lawful hemp is to perform a quantitive test on the THC concentration in the substance. The field testing conducted in this case merely demonstrated the presence of THC, not the concentration, and consequently has no bearing on the legality of the substance tested,” Spivey said in her motion.
She said the law enforcement officer’s “training and experience allowing him to identify the cannabis plant based on sight and smell does not enable him to ascertain the THC concentration of these plants.”
She pointed out that a quantitive test was not performed on the substance.
Spivey also said that Yoder did not have “any accurate knowledge, or for that matter any knowledge at all, as to the exact THC concentration of the plant material in her possession.”
You can read the entire motion to dismiss at this link: Motion to Dismiss
