An Ocala man who was carrying a large amount of money is behind bars on multiple drug charges after his Cadillac was stopped in Summerfield by a Marion County sheriff’s deputy.
The deputy was parked in the median Thursday in the 3000 block of Hwy. 484 when he saw a black four-door Cadillac drift over the white right shoulder lane line. The deputy initiated a traffic stop and saw the driver, 36-year-old Courtney Gerard Cunningham, “making suspicious movements in the vehicle in an apparent attempt to conceal items,” a sheriff’s office report states.
The deputy approached the driver’s side door of the vehicle and reported smelling a strong odor of raw marijuana. Cunningham told the deputy he previously had a marijuana card but it was invalid, the report says.
The deputy searched Cunningham’s vehicle and found:
- Five round purple pills that were identified as morphine sulfate in a clear baggie lying on the driver’s seat;
- A baggie containing two orange oval pills that were identified as Alprazolam;
- Three white oval capsules that were identified as Temazepam underneath the insulated carpet on the floor; and
- $6,063 in different denominations inside the glove box.
After being read his rights, Cunningham denied knowing about the pills. He was moved from one patrol vehicle to another and inside the first vehicle where Cunningham had been sitting deputies found two clear baggies of a white powdery substance that field-tested positive for cocaine, one baggie of a white rock-like substance that tested positive for methamphetamine and a baggie of a green leafy substance that tested positive for marijuana, a sheriff’s office report states.
Cunningham, who lives in the 1800 block of N.W. 27th Avenue in Ocala, was transported to the Marion County Jail and charged with three counts of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, possession of cocaine, possession of methamphetamine and possession of marijuana not more than 20 grams. He was being held on $300,000 bond and is due in court Jan. 5 at 9 a.m., jail records show.
